I've been thinking lately about what it means to be "in the world, but not of the world." We live in a culture where strong hostility faces any mention of Christ. Often, I don't think we know how to combat that. One way suggested is to be relatable to the world around us. But I think we can take that a bit far. What good is a lantern for light when its shutters are drawn as completely as possible?
To turn every human into a lantern, non-believers are lanterns that are unlit. They are dark. It doesn't matter if their shutters are open or closed. It makes no difference. Conversely, believers are lit lanterns. The fire of the Holy Spirit resides in them, allowing for the outpouring of such amazing light. But if that light is hidden behind shutters, those lanterns will be just as dark as the unlit lanterns. In showing how similar the shuttered lanterns are to the dark ones, they lose what sets them apart. That's not how it's supposed to be. We are supposed to be the light to the world, the city on a hill, the ones in the world, but not of it.
So we go to the other side of that. Those are the lanterns who abandon the use of their shutters, unleashing the full force of the fire inside them, flooding the area around them with light. But in a world so dark, that light will be blinding and hurtful. It will not draw attention to why those lanterns are different, because it will hurt too much to look. The dark lanterns will run away, back to the comfort of the darkness they know. They may be dazzled for a bit, but it won't last, and they won't be eager again to face the blinding pain.
So what then? There needs to be a balance. We need to have the shutters half-closed. We do need to show the difference the indwelling fire of the Holy Spirit creates. But we want that light to be inviting. It cannot be blinding and cause pain. It also can't be hidden. The dark lanterns cannot be drawn to the light if there is no light to see.
Why is the light so important? The analogy of light is no stranger to the Bible. God calls it good from the very beginning, when He created light and separated it from the darkness. We also see light being used to separate the Israelites from the Egyptians during the Exodus. Throughout Scripture, we see light associated with and synonymous with God and all things good. The Gospels themselves often use the analogy of light, Paul contributing quite a few of them. With the biblical evidence, I'd say it's pretty clear that we are to let the light shine, and to point the dark lanterns to the fire that can also fill them.
