Psalm 26 · a question people ask
"I have not sat with deceitful men" (26:4). Does this mean keeping away from people who don't follow God?
The psalm says what the psalmist won't do, and names the people: "I have not sat with deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked" (26:4-5). It doesn't say more about what sitting with them would mean. Other verses speak of sitting and eating with sinners. In Mark, "many tax collectors and sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples" (Mark 2:15). When the scribes and the Pharisees asked his disciples why he ate with them (Mark 2:16), Jesus heard it and said, "Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Mark 2:17). Paul wrote that when he told his readers "to have no company with sexual sinners" (1 Corinthians 5:9), he was "not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world", "for then you would have to leave the world" (1 Corinthians 5:10); he wrote "not to associate with anyone who is called a brother" who lived in the ways he names (1 Corinthians 5:11). These verses stand side by side in Scripture, and these notes don't choose how they fit together.
The verses
“I have not sat with deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.”
“He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many, and they followed him. The scribes and the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.””
“I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners; yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world. But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person.”