Social Distancing
Hebrews 13:10-13
"We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach."
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, most of us had never heard the expression “social distancing.” That phrase quickly became part of our everyday language, and we learned new ways to interact with others when we couldn't see much of their faces or hear their words as clearly. But while the expression may be new, the concept of separation, of dividing ourselves from others is an old one.
In Old Testament times, after the sacrifices were offered at the Tabernacle in the center of the camp of the Israelites, the priests would take the leftover parts and burn them away from the camp. This was partly for health and sanitary reasons, but it was also to illustrate a spiritual principle. Not everyone was allowed within the camp—and it was outside the camp, in the place of isolation and even disgrace, that Jesus went to pay the price of our sins.
If we are to be His disciples—His followers—we must be willing to follow Him in being hated and rejected by others. Isaiah wrote, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3). We should never be offensive or obnoxious in the way we interact with others, but we should be willing to stand alone in the face of reproach and even slander just as Jesus did when He was here on Earth.
Growth Principle:
If we are living for the world's approval, we will never have the approval of God.