A Believer’s Influence

"Your presence carries with it great influence."

"Believers have an ability to permeate things that are unholy."

"The grace that’s given to you can also bless others."

...Have you ever heard  statements like these?

Growing up in my late twenties, I encountered a few verses in Corinthians that really shook me. 1 Corinthians 7 is a chapter that talks much about marriage. A marriage involves man and woman becoming husband and wife. Sometimes, that marriage produces children. In this chapter, Paul is laying out parameters for how the husband and wife are to relate to one another based on their spiritual state.

The spiritual presence of a believer IS powerful.

“For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.”

What’s amazing from these two verses is Paul is saying if the unbeliever wants to stay married, regardless of the temperature and pattern of your marriage, you do not divorce. Why? Because the unbeliever has been ‘sanctified’ simply through a marital union with the believer. The unbeliever is blessed for being connected to the believer in the primary family. God has always been big on families, and Paul says that God has not changed one bit.

Then Paul goes on to say that the children who would be unclean due to the parents' divorce are actually holy because of his or her familial connection to a believing parent. Does that not rattle your cage a bit?

The unbelieving spouse and new baby/child are now in a different spiritual category. Notice the terms: unbeliever to sanctified and unclean to holy. That’s the influence of the believing spouse.

It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it all but I cannot deny what the text is saying. It is clear that families with at least one believing parent are able to bless the entire family unit. The unbelieving spouse is considered sanctified although unsaved. The unbelieving child is considered holy although unsaved.

Indeed, the spiritual presence of one believer is powerful.