Here's something I've been puzzling over:

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

I get the first part. It's the second part that I keep wondering about: to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

I want to know what that really means. For hundreds of years Christians have taken this to various extremes. I don't think it means that we are to cloister ourselves. In John 17 Jesus prays to the Father, not that we would be taken out of the world, but that we would be protected from evil. That's also the passage where the whole idea of "in the world, but not of it" comes from. So maybe to keep oneself unspotted goes along with Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

I remember reading in My Utmost for His Highest something that pertains. Chambers' says, "A certain type of innocence is culpable. Innocence is the characteristic of a child, but innocence in a man or woman is culpable and wrong. It means that their own whiteness is so guarded that they are unfit for life. Men and women must be pure and virtuous, and virtue is always the outcome of conflict."

We are not to be innocent and locked away. We are to chose to be unspotted. Note that the text says "keep oneself". This is active. Something that we are always doing. We have no right to be innocent. We face struggles. We see that life is hard and evil surrounds us. We remain pure because the blood of the Lamb covers us.

[Every now and then, I like to do word studies in my Bible. I think I will pursue this idea of purity. I want to know more. I think that in a way, purity is different than we think of it. I want to know how God thinks about it. Stay tuned]

currently listening to: Broken Social Scene, Stars and Sons