Is it good to have close friendships with unbelievers?

First of all as to our relation to men generally. Though converted, we are left for a longer or shorter period in this world, very often amid the same surroundings as in our unconverted days. In any case, we are constantly rubbing shoulder to shoulder with men who have their portion in this life. How are we to behave to such? The Word of God gives us a general principle to guide our conduct. "Esteem all men," it says. Naturally we are prone to go to one of two extremes, just according to our bent. Either we sink too much to the level of other men, or we are apt to 'assume an air of superiority, and act the Pharisee. Scripture points out a middle course, which, if adopted, would prove both a safeguard to ourselves, and a help to those who are at present outside. All earnest Christians, who desire to follow the Lord fully, have doubtless felt a difficulty as to their precise attitude towards worldly friends and neighbours. It is easy enough to treat people with cold indifference, to avoid them, or pass them by with only the slightest recognition. In doing so we can never hope to win them for Christ, nor do we give them an opportunity of seeing what Christianity has done for us. On the other hand, it is equally easy to form worldly acquaintanceship and fall under its influence, rather than, as the children of God, shining as lights in the world. But if we seek to carry into practice the injunction to "esteem all," we shall neither be looking down upon people, nor yet defiling our garments, but we shall be letting our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.

When we speak of companionship we refer to voluntary associations. We have involuntary associations with the unconverted, or else we should have to go out of the world. We may serve an unconverted master, or have unconverted fellow-clerks, or workmen. We have to deal with unconverted tradesmen, and if in business have to seek business with the unconverted.

Our conduct to them should be courteous, kind, affable. There should be no sanctimonious air as if we were better than they. We should act so as to win their respect for the Master we serve, and if possible to win them for Him.

Verses 27, 28. "If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast," etc. The dainties of him. that has an evil eye are not to be desired by the righteous.1 And the world's eye is evil, under all disguises, toward the children of light. If Jesus sat at meat in the house of an unbeliever, He was watched; nor can His disciples, who desire to walk godly, be exempted from the like unfriendly gaze. While, therefore, the fullest liberty of intercourse is conceded to the Christian who desires to remain on terms of social intimacy with his unbelieving neighbours, he is plainly warned that his doing so is a voluntary exposure of himself to danger. A good motive or a bad might induce him to receive an unbeliever's courtesies, and according to his motive would be the measure of his risk. When in such company he. is to act still as becomes his calling. He is a Christian, and a saint of God, wherever he is found. Let him, then, keep this well in his remembrance. If any one calls his attention to an idol-offering,2 he is to refuse it, as a testimony to the truth. For the idol is a lie. The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.3 What is in such a case to be considered is the conscience, not of the believer, but of the idolater. His false worship is to be boldly disowned, in the hope of convincing his soul of its true condition in the sight of that God who made both him and the vanities which he adores. This is plain from what follows.

Nor does true separation for the Christian consist of that Pharisaical practice that holds aloof from sinners. Like his Master the Christian will be found in the company of sinners, not to have His life with them, not to be defiled as sharing their sinful pursuits, but testifying to them the Gospel of God, and seeking to win them to the Lord. If one of the unbelievers bids us to a feast, and we are disposed to go (1 Cor. 10:27), it will surely be with the object of bringing Christ and His things before the one who has bidden us. Only one who is truly separate from sinners would have the moral power to speak of Christ in the presence of sinners.

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" is often quoted as a prohibition of a mixed marriage. This is no doubt included, but the exhortation means more and includes every form of alliance with the world and ungodly principles. It also includes the so-called "religious world" with its unscriptural practices and denials of the truth. The apostle shows that the believer going along with unbelievers and the world, is indeed in an unequal, a strange, yoke. What fellowship can there be between righteousness and unrighteousness? What fellowship hath light with darkness? Each has a different head; Christ is over His people, they belong to Him; Belial is the head of those who believe not. What could there be for a believer to enjoy with an unbeliever? And believers are the temple of God . How then is association with idols possible? "For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Blessed statement! But God's presence demands holiness, separation from evil. Fellowship with evil shuts out God in His gracious manifestations. "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing."

"God must have His own holy, for He is holy; and this not only in an inward way, without which all would be hypocrisy, but in outward ways also to His own glory, unless He would be a partner with us to His own dishonor. He will have us clear from associations which are worldly and defiling; He will exercise our souls in order to free, them from all that denies or despises His will. He commands those that believe to come out from those that believe not, and to be separated. Indeed the union of the two is so monstrous that it never could be defended for a moment by a true heart. It is only when selfish interests or strong prejudices work, that men gradually accustom and harden themselves to disobedience so flagrant and in every way disastrous. For as the man of the world cannot rise to the level of Christ to be together with His own, the Christian must descend to the level of the world. God is thus and ever more and more put to shame in what claims to be His house, with a loudness proportioned to its departure from His Word" (William Kelly).

Contacts with those who are dead in trespasses and sins, which are not according to the will of God, defile the Christian. This does not mean our refusing all inter-course with the men of this world, but, like our Master, seeking in converse with them to bring to them the grace of God. Peter would have refused to eat with the Gentiles, but God gave him a vision to take away his natural prejudice as a Jew, and Paul had to withstand him to the face when the old prejudice reasserted itself. But the Christian is not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14-18), but to be separate, "and touch not the unclean," the men of this world in their unholy associations from which God, in His grace, has called us to be His "sons and daughters."

Bad as it is for a believer to marry an unbeliever, God does not even then say, Come out from the relationship; leave your wife; part from your husband. Apply it to its legitimate object (that is, fellowship with unbelievers in the things of God), and then you have a maxim of deep and urgent importance. I am not to unite with the world in any one thing that concerns the service and worship of God. This is the true meaning of being unequally yoked. "Come out and be separate" is then the special word that applies to any such unholy alliance.

What leads to unequal yokes with the world is the first step of companionship with the world, with the unsaved. Therefore, it is most important that Christians be very careful as to whom they have companionship with. The Psalmist said, "I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts" (Ps. 119:63). Make the Lord Jesus your chief companion and all those that love and fear Him and keep His word your friends and companions. We are affected by the company we keep. "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33). "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed" (Prov. 13:20). If a believer has companionship with those who are of the world and love its evil course, he will soon be worldly minded and mixed up with the world system himself.

Understand me. I do not mean that we must not be kind and friendly, even, to the "unjust" and the "evil." I mean we must not fellowship with them, or be under any kind of yoke with them. We should love men — all men — but not the world. we should seek the good of all, but keep aloof from everything that savors of the world. We may work, eat, and live with the unconverted, but it is quite another thing to join with them in their pleasures and amusements. Christ constantly mixed with publicans and sinners, not to "enjoy Himself," as people say, but to tell them of God's love and reach their consciences. And we will find no harm among the unconverted, with that end in view, or to fulfil whatever may be our appointed task in the duties of life. If to seek enjoyment, Christians mix with the unconverted, they will surely contract defilement. And they never do the unbeliever any good. In my pocket is a gold coin and a piece of lead. They have been together — in each other's company, if you will. Now see them. The gold, alas, is tarnished. In the language of Scripture, "How is the fine gold become dim?" There is lead upon it that has dimmed its lustre. But the lead has not changed by being in contact with the gold. The golden coin alone has been affected, and that for evil.

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." We come into contact with all sorts of men in our daily business or employment. Had we to be separate in that sense, then we "needs go out of the world" (1 Cor. 5:10). We are not, however, to be unequally yoked with them. It is the "yoke" we have to beware of, for it is well-nigh impossible to be equally yoked with an unbeliever.