"For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am
glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good,
and simple concerning evil" (Romans 16:19).
In the above verse we are being exhorted to be "simple
concerning evil". That word "simple" literally means unmixed, or
without mixture of evil. The verse admonishes us to be holy and not allow evil
to be mixed into our lives.
A few years back one of our teachers in children's ministry
did something to illustrate this principle very clearly. She brought a batch of
her favorite chocolate chip cookies into class and set them right in front of
the children. She told them they could have some, but first, because they were
her favorite, she wanted to tell them how she made them. The cookies looked
great and the students were ready to pounce on the tasty treats.
She began to reveal one at a time all the ingredients that
were mixed together to make these yummy snacks, until she came to one last
ingredient that set these cookies above all others, which is too disgusting to
mention. The cookies were
then offered to the shocked little ones and of course there were no takers. If
I remember the story right, the teacher's husband then jumped up and grabbed a
cookie and gulped it down. What a rise that got out of the kids! None of us
would have eaten those cookies if we thought that recipe was real, no matter
how tasty they looked.
Because we are so bombarded with things of the world, it is
easy to let evil get mixed in and defile our lives with hardly a notice. Things
that ought to repulse us get mixed into our lives and we consume them without a
care.
These days press us to live under a constant reminder that
God has called us to be holy, to be set apart from the world, and to cling unto
Him. We are in need of perceptive, discerning eyes, that we might be guarded
against mixing with evil. Let's all take Paul's exhortation to heart and be
simple concerning evil.