Walk Worthy and Separate

God is not mocked by a people who speak His name yet despise His order. In David’s day, blood-guilt long ignored brought famine on the land; the sin of Saul’s house was not buried by time. In Ezekiel’s vision, chambers and walls mark off what is holy, teaching that the Lord’s house is not common ground. And the apostle commands the same truth in the church: walk worthily, put off the old man, speak truth, labor honestly, let no corrupt word proceed from your mouth, and forgive one another.

These readings teach one rule: God’s people must not live carelessly. Wrongs must be faced, not covered; the holy must not be treated as ordinary; the body of Christ must not be torn by falsehood, bitterness, theft, and rotten speech. The wall in the prophet’s vision is not for pride but for discernment. There must be a difference between the old life and the new, between the market’s malice and the church’s peace, between hands that take and hands that give.

So the Christian life is not loose and wandering. It is ordered, watchful, and merciful. We keep peace by bearing with one another, yet this peace is not made by pretending evil is small. It is made by repentance, truthfulness, restitution, and forgiveness. As Cyprian says, “Charity, he says, is large-souled; charity is kind; charity envies not, is not puffed up, is not provoked, thinks not evil; loves all things, believes all things, hopes all things, bears all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Thence he shows that it can tenaciously persevere, because it knows how to endure all things. And in another place: Forbearing one…” And Chrysostom says, “And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you.”