Reflections on "being innocent of evil"

Last week I had e-mail exchanges with two different workplace believers regarding our behavior and our choices when it comes to good and evil. Each one of these people are on a different road as it pertains to their faith, but their insights are so pertinent to how all believers walk in faith under God.

It all began with a question about whether one ought to avoid contracting with a particular company that this person discovered had some roots to scientology.

My response went something like this:
When we face choices like this it always has to do with spiritual battles and our spiritual well being. Paul said the battle is not with people, but with the demons and principalities of the world. (Ephesians 6: 10 - 18) This means we are always in positions of having to do "spiritual battle" with our internal sinful nature. And we are always in positions in the world where we are challenged by the evil one.
For the most part, we do pretty well in this battle. But, satan is always looking for other holes and cracks in our armor.
So, in all of our choices, it is helpful to do the best we can to insulate ourselves from those things that have the potential to draw us off course.
Sometimes, a choice like what company I consult with doesn't seem very important. But it can be. A particular choice might put us on the path of choices, actions, challenges that have the potential to draw us away from our appointed spiritual purpose or, in the worst case, our faith commitment. Or we might make a choice to work with folks who share values and faith in similar ways as I do -- which in turn is supportive for the faith, up building of spiritual values and a further defense against being drawn into places where values might be compromised.

It wasn't so much later in the day that another person was sharing some thoughts about the Adam and Eve story and the Garden of Eden.

This person observed:
I always wondered why "knowledge of good and evil" was forbidden? It struck me when I saw your notes with Good and Evil capitalized that, of course! To know evil was to let it into one’s life. It called to mind a statement in Romans: "Be innocent of evil". To be innocent of evil is never to know evil.
Humans were given the power to choose obedience to God or to listen to the voice of evil. Our very human nature made/makes it inevitable that we would listen to the voice of evil. The paradox to me is that our human nature, which gives us the ability to survive in nature, also gives us the tendency to sin. If we did not have that inner selfishness, aggression, lust for power, curiosity, and willingness to challenge authority, I suspect the species would not have survived in the harshness of nature. Yet, if the first people had not had those tendencies and acted on them (in choosing to know evil), they could have stayed under God’s protection and not needed those qualities.
Once evil was/is known and acted upon, humans could not stay in God’s kingdom, because, in so doing they would bring evil in, and that would destroy God’s kingdom. So, the real punishment for sin was/is separation from God.
The adversity that came/comes about as the result of sin has to be present in order for us to obtain salvation because it is only through adversity that we will realize how much we need God. It is through adversity that we are able to turn to Jesus and allow him to work in our lives to turn our character into what God wants. I don’t think God creates the adversity or deliberately sends it our way. It will happen naturally because that is what happens in nature.

This person goes on to talk about a particular personal experience along these lines.

Of course, the two go together. We have the option of staying more innocent of evil by the choices we make. We have the choice of insulating ourselves from some of the more obvious opportunities for the devil to act in our lives. But when we see the adversity that results from our sinfulness, we recognize God, our need for God and our opportunities to put on the "whole armor of God."

Now, to take this a step further, later that same day I was forwarded a video by "Bishop" T.D. Jakes, Chief Pastor of the Potter's House, Dallas, Texas. The video was called, "How to fight the devil". In it he gives this advice on how to beat the devil every time: "Don't get in the ring with him."

In other words, don't make the choices which put us in the way of having to fight off the devil, or the choices which open the opportunity for us to act on our very nature that leads us to "know" evil.

Workplace believers will want to check out the work of Ox Hillman of Marketplace Leaders . You might especially want to look at his daily devotion "Today God is First" (TGIF).