AV Bible Believers Fellowship

1Cr 15:33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

O.k., here's the quesiton: To what extent does this verse apply? Let me further explain. I and a fellow believer were having a discussion on the verse as to how it applies to our family as we minister in a church environment. Sometimes the work to which we are called is not people who have been taught well and their life is for all intents and purposes, not sanctified. They watch programs that are not proper. They listen to music that is not proper. They are babes, carnal, shallow (possibly in some cases, not saved.)

As you minister to these people is just the presence of these type of people, the evil communications Paul was warning of, or does this mean something else?

I'd appreciate your input. Thanks brothers (and sisters.)

Ben

Brother that is a good question, but I don't believe there is a hard and fast rule that can be applied to all situations. It is necessary to exercise discernment, wisdom, and understanding.

When a farmer goes out and works in a field, he is going to get dirty, he is going to sweat and some of that dirt is going to get on him. But the farmer doesn't lay down in the dirt and wallow around in it. Also he doesn't go days on end without taking a bath. No, he goes out in the field and works, he gets dirty, but he comes back to the house at the end of the day and takes a bath and changes closes before supper. Any farmer can stay clean if he stays in the house or if when he goes out in the field he doesn't work.

Here are a few verses that came to mind, there are plenty others, but these will help the discussion along.

Quote:1 Corinthians 5:9  ¶I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10  Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11  But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12  For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13  But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

Quote:That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Philippians 2:15

Quote:For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
2 Peter 2:20

Quote:Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
James 4:4