It would have been tempting for the exiles in Babylon to create their own little closed community, ignoring the world around them. But that’s not what God intended—God meant for them to become a part of the society in which they lived, not to retreat from it; remaining holy for sure, but to be in the world without being of the world, to borrow from Richard Niebuhr’s book,Christ and Culture.
I think it would be very easy for us (or any church, really)to build our own little closed community, to create our own little world where we only cared about ourselves and we ignored the welfare of the city in which we live. In fact, many churches do just that … and sooner or later, they die.
But that’s not who God calls us to be. God calls us to be an active, integral part of the community to which he calls us, to persistently seek its welfare, and to PRAY to the Lord for it on its behalf. In particular it is the command of Jesus to in the gospels to seek the welfare of others by caring for the least and the lost, loving the unlovable, and giving to those in need.
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