Bringing Back the Blush

Several posts ago, I referenced 1 Corinthians 5:20 in talking about the mind. But sandwiched in the middle of this verse, between two phrases about thinking, is a four-word command:

“Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.”

(ESV, emphasis added)

Be infants in evil. Wow. Let’s think on that for a few moments.

Do you remember a time when you were too young to know that certain words were foul language or that certain gestures were obscene?

Maybe you can recall the first time you heard a particular four-letter word and acted like you knew what it meant just to fit in (even though you didn’t know exactly, but you could tell that it wasn’t very good.) Perhaps in such a situation you felt inferior to your peers because of your seeming naiveté. And perhaps you resolved to find out more about those kinds of things so that next time you would be “in the know.”

But is that the attitude we as Christians should have? Is that the kind of knowledge we are to be proud of?

To figure out what it means to be an infant in evil, let’s first think about what it means to be an infant in life. For one, infants are limited in their action. They can’t walk; they can’t feed themselves; they can’t climb the stairs or drive a car or wash the dishes. But infants are also limited in their knowledge. They can’t form a sentence; they can’t solve math problems; they can’t understand the concepts of history or science.  

Similarly, to be an infant in evil involves not doing evil things, but I would venture to argue that it also involves not knowing evil things. In other words, the admonition to “be infants in evil” lets us know that ignorance of certain worldly terminology or immoral actions is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. On the contrary, it should be celebrated!

Incidentally, this ignorance need not manifest itself in a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Undoubtedly, many who are “of the world” will interpret a Christian’s desire to be ignorant of certain worldly ideas as an elitist posture. But, though difficult, I believe it is possible to seek to be an infant in evil while being winsome to the world. We do not wish to be infants in evil because we think we are better than others but because we have been commanded by our Creator and Savior, and it is He who deserves our allegiance, not the one from whom we have been delivered.

Of course, once you know something, you can’t un-know it. So what about those of us who are not ignorant of evil things anymore? First, we can make sure that we don’t make our fellow believers feel belittled because of their own innocence. Second, we can refrain from trumpeting our worldly intelligence. Third, we can be on guard so that our knowledge does not translate into action. We must be watchful, because it is easy to become desensitized and for that desensitization to lead to committing evil ourselves.

We must ask the Lord to help us stand firm so that we do not become like the people spoken of in Jeremiah 6:15: “‘Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,’ says the LORD” (ESV, emphasis added).

As followers of Jesus Christ, let us not be embarrassed when we are naïve about the intimate details of worldly ways. Let us be more concerned over biblical illiteracy than we are over cultural illiteracy. And let us do what we can, as we seek to be obedient to our Lord, to bring back the blush in the church.