On The Company You Keep

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" II Corinthians 6:14

Platonic, casual friendships with people who hold different core values are not impossible. In fact, I believe them to be healthy and necessary to keep your mind open, and reinforce your faith. But to be yoked together is something different entirely. To be yoked together with another person involves sharing a deep, intimate friendship with someone else. This kind of deep relationship is not possible with someone who does not share your core values -- your friendship will be defined by conflict.

Furthermore, you are your friends. Facebook has made it possible to know way more information about someone else's life than is entirely necessary. This means, if you hang out with someone, all of your Facebook friends know it, and can look that person up on Facebook as well, and can see who they are (or, at least, who that person wants everyone on Facebook to believe they are. Remember that everything that a person posts on Facebook is by choice. They want the world to know these things about themselves. It's really an excellent reflection on the kinds of choices those people make. What parts of yourself do you want to make most well-known to the world?). If you are your friends, you decide how you're going to be represented. If, as a Christian, you have intimate contact with someone else, and it's made known on Facebook, and that other person has picture of them slinging back body shots, or wearing barely-there (if there at all) clothing, or doing a keg-stand, or anything otherwise defined as impropriety or inappropriate, then it is a reflection of who you are. The choices made by individuals as to how they portray themselves on Facebook are not only reflections of their poor choices, but are statements about your poor choices.

I know what you're thinking -- "That's so judgmental. Doesn't the Bible say 'do not judge?'"

Indeed, it does! Let's take a closer look, shall we?

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the same measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother 'let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Matthew 7:1-6. 

Basically, don't judge someone unless you are prepared to take the same kind of judgment. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and all that jazz. It does not say "do not judge ever," it simply says to be prepared for others to judge you in the same way. No one lives a sinless life, we're all a "work in progress," but we're free to offer righteous judgment calls as long as we are"plank-free," so to speak, in that area of our own lives.

So, as a person who tries her hardest to make sure that the people most intimately involved in her life are the kind of people she wants to be like, or the kind of people with whom she is proud to associate herself, I am telling you, friends and companions, to do the same. Do not let yourself be misrepresented because of the bad decisions of others. Watch what's on Facebook, and on the Facebooks of those you share intimate companionship with. People will make judgment calls based on these things.