What is "Bad Company"?

It started as a niggling thought as I thumbed through the latest teen releases at the library.
Foolish advisors...give foolish council...need to find verse…
I half-dismissed the thought from my mind and managed to almost forget about it as I made my selection and moved on.
But it wouldn’t go away.
A week later and I was still trying to remember the half-thought that kept forming in my mind.
Foolish councilors? Stay away from bad advice? A friend giving bad advice is a bad idea?
Even to my mind that sounded crazy, but something was bugging me. What was I missing?
Twice I thumbed through my Bible, checked concordances, and pestered my friends. I found lots of great advice against foolishness in Proverbs. Psalms proved a well-spring of life. Paul’s letters were a great review…but nowhere could I find the verse I was hunting for. And what exactly was I looking for anyway?
I didn’t have an answer to that either…until this morning.
Just before church today, I pulled out my devotion and there it was.
1 Corinthians 15:33
“Do not be misled ‘bad company corrupts good character.’”
So? You might ask. If you are anything like me, you have read the verse countless times and never found it to applicable. After all, my human reasoning likes to go; I don’t associate with bad company. If anything, my friends tend to be mature, smart, and Christian. They Do Hard Things and don’t get into trouble.
You will notice, though, that I make an assumption.
I assume the verse applies to my friends.
Certainly, Paul might have been writing to Corinth about keeping bad friends. But that day at the library, I realized something that didn’t make perfect sense until I found the verse.
Bad company could be anything.
It could be the music I listen to, the books I read, or the shows I watch on TV. All of those things influence me, perhaps more than I know. If I am listening to someone swear, albeit ‘in a song,’ how does that differ from a friend who swears? If the TV shows I watch involves lots of sensual behavior, what sort of thing does that encourage my mind to dwell on…even more than the sweet whispers of a friend?
And finally (sadly more close to home), if I am reading novels with swearing, making-out, etc. where does that lead my thought pattern? If I put up walls against possible friends who will be negative influences in my life, yet forget to block the other areas, I am like a city that puts up only one defense against an invading army.
The scary thing is, media and culture can be a whole lot more tempting and influential then we know, or expect. When I started thinking about it, I was shocked at how much ‘bad company’ I unknowingly allowed in my life. What areas of your life need work? Where have you let ‘bad company corrupt good character’?
As the song goes… “O be careful little eyes what you see… O be careful little ears what you hear."
~Amy