A People Set Apart

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the people who are on the face of the earth.  It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.  (Deuteronomy 7:6-8)

There is a common misunderstanding as to what "holy" means.  We tend to see it as an adjective describing someone who is morally pure.  And while being holy should probably drive us towards such a goal, the essences of being holy is simply to be set apart.

The notion of holy is extremely repetitive throughout the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch.  Using biblegateway.com, the word "holy" is translated in the ESV 431 times within the Old Testament, and 175 times within just the first five books.  Many of uses of the word in the New Testament are reserved for the Holy Spirit, but it's not exclusive.  It's easy to think of this as an out-dated concept with little relevance to the Church in 2017, but that would miss an important characteristic of the Christian life.

Peter writes, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

Paul tells us not to "be conformed to this world," (Romans 12:2) and to "put on the new self" (Colossians 3:10).  Both indications that Christians are not to be like the rest of the world, but different.

In John 17, Jesus prays for us.  Yes, you and me!  He prays, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."  We can easily and safely infer that, as Christians, we are not of this world.  We are separate.  This must mean that we do not live like the rest of the world.  There will be things we do or don't do that will seem odd.  How we use our time, how we spend our money, things we abstain from, the ways we serve people--all of this should demonstrate a different life.  A life that is set apart.

There are two practical applications that have been weighing on my mind lately.  They involve Roy Moore (and by extension, politics) and Christmas.

On the political front, some American Christians are returning to the notion that our citizenship is in heaven and that we owe no man our complete adoration and support.  The preponderance of evidence pointed towards Roy Moore having various inappropriate interactions with female minors.  The defenses against Moore were all over the place, from "there is no evidence" (which is rather ignorant considering testimony is literally evidence) to "Mary was too young for Joseph."  Just as disheartening were the, "well we can't let a Democrat win the seat."  American politics are far less important that our Christian witness.

In 2016, for the first time in my life, I decided not to vote for the Republican candidate for president.  My reasons were fourfold: 1) I didn't trust Donald Trump to follow through on the things he said that I liked; 2) I did not like many of his policies, particularly related to protectionism and nationalism; 3) I was worried about the rise of the alt-right as a result; and 4) Trump's character and lack of discernment frightened me.  That last one especially made me consider how a vote for Trump would impact my Christian witness.  For example, how would I be able to argue for biblical sexuality and marriage if I handed over my vote to someone with a long trail of unrepentant sexual indiscretions?

Now, with that being said, it wasn't an easy decision and I respect many Christians who begrudgingly voted for Donald Trump.  There was (and remains) a stark difference between someone who weighed the options and decided that helping Trump become president was better than allowing Hillary Clinton to become president and the person who hands over blind allegiance to everything that is Trump and Trumpism. 

In the US Senate election in Alabama, many evangelicals decided Moore's character and likely past actions were too much.  Many evangelicals decided to stay home and not vote at all.  They determined that as a people set apart, voting for Moore is something they could not do.

A seemingly unrelated issue is that of Santa Claus.  My wife and I decided before having children that we would not tell them Santa Claus was real.  We determined that there is too much secularism and distraction already tied into Christmas.  Wishing our children "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is far less problematic than telling them a mostly make-believe person lives at the North Pole who flies around the world in one night giving presents to good boys is somehow related to celebrating the birth of their savior. 

This is a somewhat surprising and confusing decision to many of our friends, who are also believers.  Yet we have determined the fun and joy of Santa Claus is worthy of sacrifice in order to be set apart.  Living differently through the Christmas season for a few years is more important to us in the long-run than going along with a mostly harmless tradition.

Of course, none of this is to say that doing Santa Claus with your children is sinful.  I do not want to be or come across as legalistic here.  We love, respect, and value the faith of our friends and family who play along with Santa Claus.  On top of that, we will play along with their children and do our best not to let our children ruin the fun.

The connecting piece between Roy Moore/Donald Trump and Santa Claus is this: There are lines that Christians need to draw in order to be a people that are set apart.  I am not here to tell anyone that voting for Roy Moore or playing along with Santa Claus are necessary lines.  They are our lines.  Christians need to read scripture and understand that if they are to live life as God's children, they must find some lines in their own life.  Clearly we are to do things that will seem strange to the world, and clearly we are called not to do things that seem completely normal to the world.  That needs to be evident in every Christian's life.

The bible does not tell us whether we should pretend Santa Claus is real, nor does it tell us not to vote for a less bad president.  However, scripture does give us instruction to live a life apart from the world, and I believe it offers wisdom in discerning how to do so.