{"id":13152,"date":"2012-11-14T05:45:02","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T10:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=13152"},"modified":"2012-11-14T05:45:02","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T10:45:02","slug":"how-christians-can-live-in-a-non-christian-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/11\/how-christians-can-live-in-a-non-christian-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"How Christians can live in a non-Christian culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday we discussed a post from my colleague Mark Mitchell:\u00a0 The Culture of Hospitality | Front Porch Republic<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to focus on one line that he cites from the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus<\/a> written in the 2nd century A.D. (or maybe even earlier).\u00a0 It describes how the very earliest Christians lived in the Roman Empire:<\/p>\n

\u201cthey marry, as do all [others]; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Isn\u2019t this the same thing Christians are called to do today against the same cultural pressures?\u00a0 Get married; back then even the Roman pagans did this, and that might change.\u00a0 But whatever happens, Christians will still practice marriage and cultivate families.\u00a0 Beget children and do not destroy them; that is,\u00a0 don\u2019t get abortions. Don\u2019t have \u201ca common bed\u201d; that is, don\u2019t be sexually promiscuous.\u00a0 But do have \u201ca common table\u201d; that is, be hospitable to all, inviting even non-believers into your home so as to get to know them and so they can get to know you and your faith.<\/p>\n

Keeping these simple distinctives, Christians would eventually win over the Roman empire.\u00a0 Maybe if we did the same things, Christians might eventually win over the American empire.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we discussed a post from my colleague Mark Mitchell:\u00a0 The Culture of Hospitality | Front Porch Republic.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to focus on one line that he cites from the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus written in the 2nd century A.D. (or maybe even earlier).\u00a0 It describes how the very earliest Christians lived in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,16,17,41],"tags":[456,715],"class_list":["post-13152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-culture","category-family","category-food","category-sex","tag-christianity-and-culture","tag-early-church"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Christians can live in a non-Christian culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday we discussed a post from my colleague Mark Mitchell:\u00a0 The Culture of Hospitality | Front Porch Republic.\u00a0 I'd like to focus on one line that he\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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