No Friendship With The World!

Genesis 34

Even before the law of Moses, the Jews were not supposed to marry foreigners who did not worship God. When Abraham wanted a spouse for Isaac, he went to his people. When Jacob wanted a spouse, he went to his people. Shechem wanted to enter forcefully to marry Dinah but was flatly rejected and his family wiped out. We are encouraged by Scripture not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. How do we treat the world if they want to fellowship with us?

What can we take away?

#1. Do not bend your values for the world. (Genesis 34:1-7)

What does it mean to be in the world and not of the world? It partly means, we must not use the world system to operate as people who are called by the Lord. When Shechem, who was a non-Jew, forcefully laid with Dinah, a Jew, Jacob and his children were not pleased with his actions. We must not agree with what is against our values. We must rather stand for what is right before God. It was clear that non-Jews could not marry a Jew. That was their value they held dear.

#2. Do not act deceitfully. (Genesis 34:8-31)

The family of Dinah was very right to express their displeasure at what Shechem did but Dinah’s brothers (Simeon and Levi) were wrong to take vengeance. Both families dealt peacefully with the matter and asked for the lady’s hand in marriage. They agreed on the condition that all males will be circumcised. On the third day of their painful circumcision, Simeon and Levi killed all the males and plundered their goods. Neither God nor their father sanctioned what they did. If we live by the sword, we will die by it. Their father was not pleased about it. We must learn to act in tandem with authority.

It was obvious that the Jews were not supposed to marry people of other faiths. In dealing with such a case, Jacob’s children acted wrongly without aligning to the authority of their father and what they had corporately decided to do. In his last blessing to his children, Jacob said of Simeon and Levi that “instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place” (Genesis 49:5). We cannot use wrong to correct wrong.

Take Action: Cut yourself from every trace of darkness and sin that wants to have fellowship with you.