As Christians in America, we can easily find ourselves unsure of how to interact with the culture around us. It’s easy to feel like there are only two choices: retreat from culture, or assimilate to culture. For people who grew up in a Christian household, there is the tendency toward the first option—shutting out the world around us in order to “protect the purity” of the community. But this leads to Christians that never engage with society, and you have to engage with the world if you’re going to love the world.
On the flip side, for newer Christians who didn’t grow up in a Christian family, there can be a tendency to be just like the people in the culture. Under the facade of “witnessing to friends” the new Christian’s life might not really look all that different from cultural norms; they offer nothing of Gospel value to those around them.
But there is another way forward that is not such a simple binary. And this way of interacting with culture hinges on the concept of being an exile.
An exile is someone who was forced out of their home country and is now living somewhere else. The Bible refers to Christians as exiles in the world. Christians are “citizens of heaven,” the Bible tells us. But we also see the nation of Israel as exiles throughout the Old Testament, as well. Let’s look at this in more detail.
Old Testament
If you look for the word “exile” in the bible, you’ll find pretty quickly that the primary example is when the people of Israel were exiled away from their home to the nation of Babylon for 70 years.
This exile story is the template by which all the other exile stories conform. We will call Israel’s exile a cultural exile, or literal exile. And we can read backwards from this exile story to see how all of humanity is in other forms of metaphorical exile.
From the very first pages of the Bible, Adam and Eve were exiled away from God when they were banished from the Garden of Eden. As the representatives of all humanity, their “home” was with God, where they could walk with Him and enjoy full fellowship with him.
Because of Adam and Eve, we are all living in exile away from God even if we don’t realize it. Our true “Home” is living with God, in His immediate presence. We will call this spiritual exile, and it’s a form of exile that is shared by all humanity.
The story of the Bible can be summarized as God’s work to restore heaven back to earth; to bring humanity out of spiritual exile. God then uses many stories of cultural exile to remind us of our spiritual exile, like the Israelites in Babylon, or as slaves in Egypt, and many others.
New Testament
Now Fast-forward 800 years: Peter writes a letter to Christians, and in the introduction he calls them exiles (1 Peter 1:1). They were probably confused, because most of them had lived in the same place their whole lives. Peter closes the book by saying, “She who is at Babylon sends you greetings” (1 Peter 5:13). And yet, Babylon has not been an empire for hundreds of years!
What is he doing? He’s taking the Old Testament theme of exiles living in Babylon and applying it now to every Christian’s life. We were rescued from spiritual exile by Jesus, but when this happened, we became cultural exiles on earth.
We are to live as exiles. Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). And until Christ returns, we continue in a cultural exile living here on earth.
We live as part of a future Kingdom, even though it hasn’t come yet. In this way, we live as “time exiles.” Our true Home is in a future time period when Jesus returns, but we are stuck in the time period right now before He returns.
This is sometimes referred to as the “Already / Not-Yet” of Christianity. We live as though Christ has already returned, even though He has not yet returned. This mentality should inform the decisions we make while we await our return from exile, which will only fully happen when Christ returns to Earth.
Diagram:
Here’s a diagram to help you visualize what we’ve discussed so far:
| Exiled Home | True Home | |
| Spiritual | Away from God | Intimacy with God |
| Culture | With people who reject God | With people who love and follow God |
| Time | Before Christ Returns | After Christ Returns |
Life As an Exile
So how are we to live as cultural exiles? Do we fight against the culture, become like everyone else in the culture, or something else?
In the Book of Jeremiah, God wrote a letter to the exiles of Israel to help them live their lives in Babylon:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
Jeremiah 29:4-7
God tells His people in exile that they should not retreat away from Babylon, or become just like the people in Babylon. Instead, they should seek the welfare of the city. They are to maintain their identity as God’s people, but also set up lives in Babylon and interact with the culture for the good of those they are around.
God actually ties Israel’s welfare to the welfare of the Babylon! So God rejects the binary of either retreating from or assimilating to the culture. Instead, He instructs Israel to bless the culture. They maintain their unique identity as God’s People while blessing the world around them.
We are to do the same as we live in America, or wherever we find ourselves in the world. We’re going to unpack what that might specifically look like for you in future posts. In the meantime, welcome to “Babylon.”
Resources
- Video Series – For The Life Of The World: Letters to the Exiles (Available on Amazon Prime)
- Short Clips – Exiles (from The Bible Project)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSua9_WhQFE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWpa0gcPyo
- Check out their podcast series on Spotify or other streaming platforms
- Book – Evangelism as Exiles: Life On Mission As Strangers in Our Own Land by Elliot Clark
- Make sure to continue checking out our blog for more posts about living as exiles!
Author: Jason Pelletier
Jason is a physical therapist living in Roanoke with his wife Taryn, hyper dog Piper, and needy cat Remy. They joined Redemption Church because of their heart for church planting and their passion for seeing Gods mission fulfilled in Roanoke.