unequally yoked – The Lowedown

2 Corinthians 6

¹⁴ Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? ¹⁵ What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? ¹⁶What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, (2 Corinthians 6:14-16, ESV)

The Daily DAVEotional

Not long ago, I was conversing with a Young adult who was interested in pursuing a relationship. He was under the impression though that this person he was interested in was “off limits” because of Paul’s command in this passage that believers should “not be unequally yoked.”

As we talked further, it was clear to me that his understanding of what Paul was teaching in this passage was not quite accurate. It made me wonder how many Christians misunderstand what this passage is saying.

To properly understand this passage, one has to know something about the function and purpose of a yoke.

A yoke is a tool used by farmers and in the New Testament, which was primarily an agrarian society, the meaning of Paul’s command would have been less confusing than it is to the modern reader who may have never even seen a farm, much less understood a farming term.

A yoke is a wooden bar or collar that fits around a pair of animals (such as oxen) for the purpose of pairing them together to pull a load. Often the yoke had a plow attached to the center of the bar and was used for tilling a plow line.

When pairing two animals to a yoke, it is important that the animals be of equal size and strength. This allows for the plow line to be straight. If the size and strength of the animals yoked together is unequal, you will have the unfortunate situation of one animal overpowering the other, which will cause your plow line to veer or even move in a circular pattern instead of a straight line.

Paul is using this everyday farming illustration that his audience was quite familiar with in order to explain a spiritual reality.

When he says that a believer should not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, he’s saying that believers should not be united with those who don’t have the same views and values. If you have different beliefs and values, it will be more difficult to move in the same direction and with the same purpose.

This passage is often referenced in the context of dating and marital relationships to show a believer that God doesn’t want them to pursue relationships with non-believers. However, this command is not exclusive to marriage. It applies to other types of relationships as well, such as business partnerships, etc.

The idea is really simple actually. You are trying to plow in a straight line. But if you have two animals that are unequally yoked, that is, not of the same size and strength, you end up with a non-straight plow line. Two animals of equal size and strength will work together more easily. Two animals that are “unequal” are more likely to work against each other. The objective of plowing that straight line becomes increasingly more difficult, if not impossible.

Now let’s relate this to relationships. What is Paul saying?

A Christian has a set of beliefs about God and a core set of values about how to live life. A non-Christian has a completely different set of beliefs and values. When you’re in a marriage relationship, or even a business partnership, it is difficult to move forward and in the same direction if the two partners have different and competing beliefs and values.

In a marriage relationship, this gets even more complicated when kids are involved. Questions like, “how will we raise the kids?”, “what faith tradition will we practice?”, “how will we administer discipline?”, and other important questions must be addressed. These issues often become the source of great conflict as each partner seeks to exert their beliefs, values and preferences.

It’s quite common in marriage for partners to compromise and change their views over time in order to achieve marital harmony and minimize conflict. In a situation with one believing spouse and one unbelieving spouse, the danger is that the believing spouse will compromise their beliefs and values in order to accommodate the unbelieving spouse.

This tendency to be influenced over time by the beliefs and values of non-believers is exactly why God, in the Old Testament, warned and even commanded the Israelites against marrying foreigners. The danger was that the pagan foreigners would negatively influence their spouse to drift away from worship of the true God. In the most extreme case, the believer might forsake God altogether and begin worshiping foreign gods and pagan deities.

This is exactly what happened with Solomon later in life. Countless other biblical examples could be cited that demonstrate the dangers of which Paul is warning.

So what does it mean when Paul commands believers not to be unequally yoked?

It means don’t align yourself or permanently partner yourself with someone who does not have the same biblical beliefs and spiritual values. If you do, you will likely find yourself with plenty of conflict and disharmony as each person seeks to control the direction of the relationship or partnership according to their beliefs and values. The pursuit of God is likely to become minimized or eliminated altogether.

One final note on this passage. In explaining his reasons for not being unequally yoked, Paul says, “what accord does Christ have with Belial?”

The term “Belial” was understood as a euphemism for “Satan”. This is a strong statement. Paul is saying that the unbeliever’s beliefs and values are following Satan. He does NOT mean that unbelievers are Satan worshipers. But just as Jesus, in John 8, told the Pharisees that they were unwittingly, and unknowingly following the devil, the father of lies, because they were rejecting him, so Paul is saying that those who are unbelievers, as wholesome, nice and moral as they may appear, are unwittingly and unknowingly following Satan, who will use any tool or method at his disposal to create chaos, disorder and conflict in order to render a believer in Christ ineffective and useless.

So if you’re a follower of Christ and you’re thinking about entering into a relationship with someone who is NOT a follower of Christ, THINK AGAIN!

(For more on Jesus’ exchange with the Pharisees in John 8, which included his proclamation that they were following their father, Satan, see my blog post, “Who’s Your Daddy?”)

Reflection

What examples have you seen that show the dangers of being unequally yoked, either in marriage or a business partnership?

What advice would you give a person who is thinking of pursuing a dating relationship with someone who does not share their Christian faith? How would you counsel this person?

If being equally yoked means sharing the same beliefs and values, how would you go about determining whether the other person’s beliefs and values are “equal” to yours?

As a Christian, what beliefs and values do you think are essential to include in your list to evaluate whether the other person is “equally yoked”.

Photo by Paul Jai on Unsplash

Deuteronomy 7

¹“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are all more powerful than you. ²When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. ³Do not intermarry with them, and don’t let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters. ⁴They will lead your young people away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and he will destroy you. ⁵Instead, you must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols. ⁶For you are a holy people, who belong to the LORD your God. Of all the people on earth, the LORD your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure. (Deuteronomy 7:1-6, NLT)

Ezra 9

¹But then the Jewish leaders came to me and said, “Many of the people of Israel, and even some of the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the other peoples living in the land. They have taken up the detestable practices of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. ²For the men of Israel have married women from these people and have taken them as wives for their sons. So the holy race has become polluted by these mixed marriages. To make matters worse, the officials and leaders are some of the worst offenders.”

³When I heard this, I tore my clothing, pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat down utterly shocked. ⁴Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel came and sat with me because of this unfaithfulness of his people. And I sat there utterly appalled until the time of the evening sacrifice.

⁵At the time of the sacrifice, I stood up from where I had sat in mourning with my clothes torn. I fell to my knees, lifted my hands to the LORD my God. ⁶I prayed, “O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens. ⁷Our whole history has been one of great sin. That is why we and our kings and our priests have been at the mercy of the pagan kings of the land. We have been killed, captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today.

⁸“But now we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the LORD our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant. He has given us security in this holy place. Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery. ⁹For we were slaves, but in his unfailing love our God did not abandon us in our slavery. Instead, he caused the kings of Persia to treat us favorably. He revived us so that we were able to rebuild the Temple of our God and repair its ruins. He has given us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁰“And now, O our God, what can we say after all of this? For once again we have ignored your commands! ¹¹Your servants the prophets warned us that the land we would possess was totally defiled by the detestable practices of the people living there. From one end to the other, the land is filled with corruption. ¹²You told us not to let our daughters marry their sons, and not to let our sons marry their daughters, and not to help those nations in any way. You promised that if we avoided these things, we would become a prosperous nation. You promised that we would enjoy the good produce of the land and leave this prosperity to our children as an inheritance forever.

¹³“Now we are being punished because of our wickedness and our great guilt. But we have actually been punished far less than we deserve, for you, our God, have allowed some of us to survive as a remnant. ¹⁴But now we are again breaking your commands and intermarrying with people who do these detestable things. Surely your anger will destroy us until even this little remnant no longer survives. ¹⁵O LORD, God of Israel, you are just. We stand before you in our guilt as nothing but an escaped remnant, though in such a condition none of us can stand in your presence.” (Ezra 9:1-15, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

What does the Bible say about interracial marriage? Is God against it?

Some have argued that God’s design was for the races to remain pure and as a result, God prohibits interracial marriages. The Bible has been used by some in the past to promote the view that interracial marriages are wrong and against God’s design.

In America for example, some states prohibited interracial marriages as recently as 1967. Biblical passages have often been cited in support of this view.

Interracial Marriage in the United States

Richard and Mildred Loving were married in 1958 in Virginia. Richard was a white man and Mildred was ethnically mixed with Black and Native heritage.

Virginia law at the time prohibited interracial cohabitation so Richard and Mildred were arrested and given a choice – either go to prison or leave the state of Virginia. They chose to leave Virginia.

However, they challenged the legality of Virginia’s law and their case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which, in a landmark 1967 ruling, declared that laws against inter-racial marriages were unconstitutional, a violation of the 14th amendment. (Taken from an article on NPR.org)

In my reading today, I read these two different passages from Deuteronomy and Ezra that amazingly, talked about the same issue within the nation of Israel – God’s prohibition of mixed marriages.

These passages, at first glance, seem to argue that God does indeed prohibit mixed marriage, or interracial marriage. For example, Deuteronomy 7:2,-3 says:

²When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. ³Do not intermarry with them, and don’t let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters.

Ezra 9:2 appears even stronger in its denunciation of mixed marriages:

²For the men of Israel have married women from these people and have taken them as wives for their sons. So the holy race has become polluted by these mixed marriages. To make matters worse, the officials and leaders are some of the worst offenders.”

In our modern culture, to see any kind of prohibition that would forbid a person from marrying another person who happens to be from a different race or culture seems inconceivably wrong. Our modern moral convictions view this as extraordinarily racist and unjust.

So what is going on here? Why would God prohibit mixed marriages for the nation of Israel? Why would God punish those who married someone of a different race? Isn’t that racist?

When looking at these passages in full context, it’s clear that the reason God commands His people not to intermarry with those from other nations, is NOT because they are different racially, but because they are different ideologically and theologically. In other words, God does indeed want his people to remain pure, but in their understanding of Him, their devotion to Him and their worship of Him, not in their genetic progeny.

If we read just one verse further in the Deuteronomy passage, this is made clear. He tells the Israelites NOT to intermarry with the people they are displacing and destroying because:

⁴They will lead your young people away from me to worship other gods. (Deuteronomy 7:4)

The Ezra passage expounds on this even further:

¹¹Your servants the prophets warned us that the land we would possess was totally defiled by the detestable practices of the people living there. From one end to the other, the land is filled with corruption. ¹²You told us not to let our daughters marry their sons, and not to let our sons marry their daughters, and not to help those nations in any way. You promised that if we avoided these things, we would become a prosperous nation….for you, our God, have allowed some of us to survive as a remnant. ¹⁴But now we are again breaking your commands and intermarrying with people who do these detestable things. (Ezra 9:11-12, 13b-14, NLT)

The reason God told the Israelites NOT to intermarry with the people from the other nations is because those people did not share the same views about God. They worshiped other gods. They were not believers in Yahweh and they engaged in detestable practices that God abhors.

It is an undeniable truth that when two people marry, over time, they tend to compromise on their different views, whether it’s politically or religiously. People who are married begin to influence their partner in the ways that they think and in the things that they value. This is sometimes good but often it can be negative.

In this case, God is warning His people not to intermarry with those of other nations because in doing so, the result is that they would undoubtedly be led astray spiritually. Over time, their worldview would change and their religious practices would shift in order to accommodate their spouse.

This is why Paul, in 2 Corinthians 6:14 (ESV) says that we are not to be “unequally yoked with unbelievers.”

The admonition is not to avoid marrying a person of another race, but to avoid marrying a person who does not share the same views and devotion to God.

Reflection

What do you think it means when God says He wants to maintain the purity of His people? What does purity look like?

What do you think are some of the reasons why people might say interracial marriages are wrong?

If you are married, what are some examples of ways that you have influenced your spouse’s views and what are some ways your spouse has influenced your views?

What examples can you think of (from the Bible or your personal experience) that demonstrate the dangers in marrying someone who does not share your same spiritual views and values?

What examples can you think of from the Bible that might support the idea that God is not against interracial marriages?

Photo by Désirée Fawn on Unsplash