Unmixed

 

"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.