How the believer in Christ relates to the world is an old question. Both Christ and the apostles addressed the question.
“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (Jn. 17:14-16)
“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 Jn. 2:15)
Yet some in the church have always fallen pray to the seducing calls of the world:
“…for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica…” (2 Tim. 4:10)
“They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 Jn. 2:19)
So the warnings of Christ, the apostles, and even later writers are all well worth heeding. The world is a dangerous system that puts the soul in peril. Those in the world need our influence and the gospel; we must be vigilant to guard our hearts against the influence of the world on us.
John Newton’s advice to a friend more than two hundred years ago is as appropriate today as the day it was penned by his quill:
The believer, though in the world, is not of it: by faith he triumphs over its smiles and enticements; he sees that all that is in the world, suited to gratify the desires of the flesh or the eye, is not only to be avoided as sinful, but as incompatible with his best pleasures. he will mix with the world so far as is necessary, in the discharge of the duties of that station of life in which the providence of God has placed him, but no further. His leisure and inclinations are engaged in a different pursuit. They who fear the Lord are his chosen companions; and the blessings he derives from the Word, and throne, and ordinances of grace make him look upon the poor pleasures and amusements of those who live without God in the world with a mixture of disdain and pity.…He will obey God rather than man; he will ‘have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but will rather reprove them.’
Words of Grace 