Contrary to the ease and delight I found in reading Athanasius, I found St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ On God and Christ to be very difficult to get through and had to put the book down numerous times in order to take mental breaks. Although it has been said that Gregory is a prose artist in the original Greek, the English translation loses this appeal and thrusts the work into the realm of virtual incomprehensibility.

The startling discovery was that a reader must read Gregory with the same care that an explosives technician puts into following his recipe for destruction. Just as one wrong combination of ingredients leads to the death of the bomb maker, a normal-paced reading of Gregory leads the reader to intellectual complacency. Without extreme care, the reader finds himself in a vicious circle back where he started having no further understanding of the subject matter than he did before the reading, having only the passage of time to show for the experience.

Even when our mind correctly interprets the puzzle of Gregory’s words, our understanding of the material is still hindered by its contextual ontology. We are faced with the sorry realization that the concepts in Gregory’s time are not the same as concepts in our time and what may seem heretical by our standards were just ways of expressing correct theological interpretations based upon a pre-psychological epistemology. So, even when we finally fully understand Gregory, we don’t. Correct understanding of Gregory seems as simple as trying to swim across a lake of molasses with your hands and feet bound and your waist strapped to either a Yugo or a John Deere tractor, depending on your pre-existent familiarity with early church history.

With all of that being said, I understand that Gregory had a wonderful impact on Christian history and that his writings are works of art in the original language and are difficult to translate for this reason. I believe there is much value in reading Gregory in the translated form however difficult it may be. People do all sorts of bizarre things.

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In short, Paul is directing us to not act like the world. We are to act like Jesus instead through the guidance of the wisdom of His word. This specific passage removed from its context seems to direct the believer to completely remove himself from worldly culture and interaction with non-believers. In addition to the specific moral exhortations (i.e. do not lie), there is the direction to come together as one body of believers separate from the world.

It is important to understand, however, that this comes after verse two where Paul directs the reader to “set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth” (NASB).

[bibleblock]Colossians 3:2[/bibleblock]

The following passages also deal with where the mind of the Christian is to be, not where his body shall be. While his body can be out in the culture amongst sinners (just as Jesus’ body was during his earthly ministry), the mind of the believer is focused on heavenly things and the salvation of the sinner (just as Jesus’ mind was during His earthly ministry). This passage must be taken in this context and not be used to support monastic separation. In a fallen world, we can never be separate from the things that are fallen. Everything around us is not what it was meant to be. Complete separation is impossible. It is our responsibility, then, to be in the world (“put [it] aside”) without being like the world (“put on the new self who is being renewed”).

I personally attempt to accomplish this by trying to emulate Jesus in all that I do. I am not successful all of the time and sometimes it is very difficult to not be like the world, but it is my hope that I do a better job in each situation that I am in so that next time I am just a little bit better. I know that I can never be perfect like Christ and even if I get twice as good each time I’ll never reach the goal until final perfection comes. This can even be mathematically expressed: suppose you got rid of half your sin each day and your original sin level was 100. The next day it would be 50, the next 25, etc. If this number is divided in half forever it will never reach zero.

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