Well Known Strangers

(Pro 5:17 KJV) Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

There are three concepts that get confused in translation.  The word that brings this up is “strangers” (2114a).  In this chapter it carries the idea of an adulteress which is another of the concepts and the third is foreigner.  The point here, although rooted in a discussion of adultery, is that there are certain people whom you are not to trust.  It does not mean that you can mistreat them or sin against them.  It just means that they are outside of any covenant with you and thus do not live the way you do.

Or at least there should be a difference.  The thing is that we are the ones who are supposed to be different.  The ways of the stranger are the long established ways of the world.  The ways of the believer are different.  We look in horror at the revelations about the euphemism of “human trafficking”.  We forget the age old terms of prostitution and child molestation and act like this is something new.  No, it is not new.  God’s people have always stood against it but as we have been conforming to the world it has become accepted.

So?  We are to be holy.  We are to reject the ways of the world whether it is updated with modern language or the simple old terms we have known for so long.  Remember that the Greek word for church means “called out ones”.