I had just arrived in the small town of Lakeside, MT to begin a five-month Discipleship Training School with YWAM. It was the day before the school started and all of the students were wandering around the dorms and the base, exploring their new home and meeting people of all ages from all over the world. Being a bit shy, I was hoping to somehow connect with someone right away. That’s when I spotted Rachel holding a deck of Dutch Blitz cards in the girls‘ restroom. I said something I can’t remember about the game, and then blurted out, “Are you Mennonite?” She was. Awhile later I was standing around in one of the dorm room with some other girls when I noticed one of the names on the outside of the door: Detwiler. “Are you Mennonite?” I asked Mandy. She also was a Mennonite. Charlene was yet another Mennonite in our class, and had I not already been told that before finding out that she lived in Lancaster, PA, I’m sure I would have been compelled to ask. Now, I am not implying that anyone from Kidron, OH with the last name Miller who happens to be carrying around a deck of Dutch Blitz cards is Mennonite. But there is indeed a Mennonite stereotype of sorts made up of certain last names, cities, games, foods, and pastimes that people tend to associate them with. It is the same as associating New Yorkers with wearing the color black and people from Portland with granola bars and recycling bins.

            During the four hundred year time period between the Old and New Testaments, a man we know as Alexander the Great decided that the world could be unified by means of the up and coming Greek culture. He envisioned a world in which everyone dressed Greek, used Greek names, enjoyed Greek entertainment, and followed Greek thought. His goal was to build a new city in every country of his empire that would serve as a model for the rest of the country as to how they ought to reorder things according to Greek culture. Although Alexander the Great allowed the Jews to continue their practices as he conquered their cities, they were not exempt from being encouraged to take on Greek names, as well as Greek dress and language. The term used today for this transforming influence is Hellenism. In other words, the Jews were  Hellenized.

            The rise of Hellenism brought about new buildings, schools, and libraries. The merchant class grew wealthy through trade and commerce, and the general standard of living was raised as a result of better food and better housing. What’s not to like, right? Not surprisingly, many of the Jews welcomed Hellenism into their lives. The result?

Many Jews took Greek names, accepted a Greek school of philosophy, and tried to combine the wisdom of Greece with the faith of their fathers.^[i]

            As dedicated as they may have been to observing the law and living the Jewish lifestyle, there was just something so attractive about Hellenism that made them hope they could have the best of both worlds- a little bit of God’s wisdom mixed with a little bit of Aristotle’s wisdom. However, “a little bit of this and a little bit of that” was far from God’s original plan for the people He had set apart for Himself. In Leviticus 20:26, God said to Israel, “You shall be holy to me; for I the LORD am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine.”      

            The word holy means “set-apart”. God had chosen the Israelites to be a people who were set-apart from the unrighteous ways of the world and lived daily lifestyles that reflected God’s holiness. His ways and wisdom were (are, and will always be) so utterly different than those of the world’s that it wasn’t enough for the Israelites to simply tack on a few of His commands and celebrate a few holidays that none of the other nations celebrated. Their set-apartness was to be so evident that wherever they went, whatever they said, whatever they did, however they spent their time, people would know they were living with a completely different heart and mindset than the world.

            None of that has changed.

            As the spiritual Israel, God’s chosen people (if you know Him, He chose you!) we too have been called to set ourselves apart from the “wisdom” and ways of the world. And yet we still face this temptation to be “Hellenized”, whether it be by the way we speak, dress, act, spend (and save), or think. We’re tempted to take the wisdom of God  (“Don’t worry about your life”) and mix in a little worldly wisdom (“Make sure you have sufficient funds in the bank to get through the next forty years”). So many times it appears to be fun, convenient, or even wise to allow just a little bit of worldly manner or wisdom into our lives. The modern Church has even come to many a conclusion that the most successful way to gather the Lord’s harvest in the world is to try and make Christianity into something attractive, something that reassures unbelievers that they won’t have to completely give up the mindset and lifestyle of the world in order to gain all the benefits of a relationship with God. 

            If we are honest, and take scripture for what it really says, there is no getting around the fact that God’s system is different than the world’s, and when we make a decision to make Him Lord of our lives, His command (and deepest desire!) is that we wholeheartedly renounce the ways of the world in a childlike trust that depends on Him to show Himself as sovereign and almighty as He claims to be!

            Paul appeals to his brothers and sisters living in Rome, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing, and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2, NIV)

            In other words, break free from the world’s way of doing things! Walk away from its systems and methods and manners!

            We wake up each morning with a hundred different choices to make in the subsequent twenty-four hours, and in each of those choices we must decide whether we will act as one who is set-apart, or one who has been “Hellenized”, striving to make the ways of the world fit with the ways of the Father.

            They will never be a part of the same puzzle.

            Our flesh tortures us with the question, “But what will become of me if I follow such an obscure and narrow path?”

            If the answer is the same as David’s in Psalm 16:11, then I’m all in.

            “You have made known to me the path of life; you fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (NIV)