A clean break from the church and the world

John Stott speaks with his characteristic clarity as he speaks on Matthew 6:1-18:

Jesus: “takes the ostentatious religion of the Pharisees first and says: You must not be like the hypocrites (5). He then moves on to the mechanical formalism of the heathen and says: Do not be like them (8). Thus again Christians are to be different from both Pharisees and pagans, the religious and irreligious, the church and the world. That Christians are not to conform to the world is a familiar concept of the New Testament. It is not so well known that Jesus also saw (and foresaw) the worldliness of the church itself and called his followers not to conform to the nominal church either, but rather to be a truly Christian community distinct in its life and practice from the religious establishment, an ecclesiola (little church) in ecclesia.” (Page 126)