I recently purchased a drink container from a major brand that was more expensive than I would like to admit, but claims of them being the best have been around for over a century. I have been amazed at how long it keeps my drink so cold. In fact, I could be fooled that it came straight out of the refrigerator if I did not know better. Its technology is simple that it is double-walled metal with a vacuum between the layers. This impregnable insulation means that heat cannot escape or enter except through the top where there cannot be such insulation.
Human communities often operate on the same principle. We get involved in our own “echo chambers” and become insulated from the world outside of our own worldview or opinion. In that is both joy and peril. While it is true that Romans 12:10 (KJV) says, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another;” implying that we should be coming together, wanting each other’s company, Jesus states, in John 17:14-16, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 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” (ESV).
Being insulated from the world is different from isolation. If my drink were isolated from the outside, it would stay cold or hot even longer, but I would no longer be able to drink it. Christians are the same way, not isolated, although that would increase personal godliness, but it would diminish the missions we have as Christians to be the light of the world: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16, ESV).
Putting the light under the basket is isolation. The light cannot shine. Its light is only for itself. In its small world, its light is bright and warming and the flame is still and calm. When it is exposed to the world, though, when properly insulated, when put in a place in which it can work properly, its light stretches out and touches every part of the room, giving light and warmth to everything and everyone. Occasionally, a slight draft or other disturbance may come by, but it still burns as brightly as before.
Christians, just as the lamp in Jesus’ example, have a duty to be that light. It bares the risk of being put out, and the flame being turbulent, but if it is isolated, even though it burns, it is useless.
Sometimes it can be terrifying to go out into this lost world and this wicked and perverse generation in which we live. We must resist the temptation to completely isolate ourselves, though. Insulate yourself through knowledge and conviction, godly companionship, and building each other up. But isolation is the pathway of the single talent man who buried his talent and was cast into the outer darkness with the weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25:14-30).
Lance Byers