Being worldly

“You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?” 1 Corinthians 3:3
The word ‘worldly’ gets tossed around a lot in Christian circles, so it’s worth taking some time to discuss what it means. This isn’t a new term; as we can see from this verse, Paul uses it in the Bible to refer to the Corinthians, in this particular instance. Paul says that we are ‘worldly’ when we are jealous and bicker amongst ourselves. ‘Worldly’ means ‘to act like mere men’.
When we become a Christian, we enter into the kingdom of God, right here, right now. We are part of the realm that Jesus has dominion over. At the present time, He rules in our hearts; a time is coming when He will literally rule over the whole earth, from His throne in Jerusalem. So at the present, we are actually living in enemy territory. Satan still rules over the earth, and it is the ethos that he has in place that is called ‘the world’ in Scripture – that is, everything that is self-seeking and in opposition to God. We become worldly when we start to seek after the things that the world in this sense thinks are important. For example, if we are looked over for a promotion at work, we can get jealous that someone is getting ahead of us. We might be unfairly treated, and decide to let everyone know how we’re really feeling. These should not be part of our Christian life. We know that the world we live in is temporary. There’s no point getting upset when things don’t go our way – instead, as Christians, we should come to expect a bit of persecution now and then. Instead, we ought to pursue the kingdom of God, and His righteousness –and all these other things will be given to us as well (Matt. 6:33).