Our culture has conditioned us to believe that “loving our neighbor” requires accepting them as they are. We now excuse all manner of behavior that our holy God finds abhorrent simply because someone we know—friend, family, coworker—is engaged in such openly sinful behavior. We don’t want to appear intolerant or judgmental or “unloving” by separating ourselves from their presence. But Paul makes it clear that if the person engaged in sin is a believer we shouldn’t even eat with them.

Do you know that strip club down by the airport? You’ve probably never been in there. You likely have no interest in going in there. The only reason you even know about it is because your uncle, the one you have to pick up from the airport every Thanksgiving, makes a joke about the sign that says they have an all-you-can-eat buffet. (It’s a lame joke made lamer by the fact that he tells it the same way every year.)

There’s something you probably don’t know about that buffet: Jesus would have no qualms about sitting at the bar eating scrambled eggs. In fact, Jesus probably wants you to go in there and join the patrons eating cold bacon.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Um . . . what?” Yeah, I was surprised too. But that is the argument many Christians have been making lately. Oh, they don’t make that argument directly. But that is the implication of their argument (whose logic they often fail to follow to its conclusion).

Their argument, in enthymematic form, is:

Since Jesus [had dinner with/partied with/hung out with] sinners in the places where they congregated, we should do so too.

The problem with this argument is not that it is wholly false but that it is partially true. If it were false, we could rebut it and move on. But because it contains a kernel of truth we have an obligation to try to salvage it and fashion it into a respectable and biblically sound form.

The first way we can fix the argument is by adding an obvious clause:

Since Jesus [had dinner with/partied with/hung out with] sinners in the places where they congregated, we should do so too when they are not engaging in sin . . .

As the Apostle Paul said, in order to avoid associating with unrepentant sinners we “would need to go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:9). We therefore don’t need to be concerned about eating, partying, or hanging out with unbelievers in a place where no sin is occurring (at least openly).

We could have made that argument without needing Jesus as an example. But what happens when we consider how using Jesus as a model affects the claim?

Let’s first examine how adding Jesus can make the argument, in one sense, completely true. As God, Jesus is always immanent in spirit everywhere in the world. There are no hidden places in which sin and evil is being committed where Jesus in not present with the unredeemed. So too should we be present with Jesus—in spirit—through prayer for unrepentant sinners. While we may never lean against the railing in the strip club down by the airport, it is covered with fingerprints of broken people who need our prayers.

Spiritual presence, however, is not usually what is meant. The argument implies that since Jesus was physically present with sinners, that we should also be physically present with the unrepentant. For several reasons, this claim is much more problematic.

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