Do not be yoked together with unbelievers
2 Corinthians 6:14 - Perhaps today is the day to think about how the temporary relationships in this life affect your eternal relationship with God.
A yoke of oxen pulling a cart. Image generated by ChatGPT (OpenAI) using the DALL·E model.
“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”
2 Corinthians 6:14 NIV
Oh, what a wonderful verse to write about today! This short verse from the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the early church in Corinth starts with the odd phrase “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers”. If you’re asking “What’s a yoke?”, it’s not the yellow part of an egg (that’s a yolk, pronounced the same way). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language 5th Edition defines a yoke as follows:
A contoured crossbar having two U-shaped attachments that fit around the necks of a team of oxen or other draft animals, with a central ring for hitching the team to a cart, plow, or other load.
A pair of draft animals, such as oxen, joined by a yoke.
A bar used with a double harness to connect the collar of each horse to the pole of a wagon or coach.
That’s what the image at the top of this devotional represents; two yoked oxen pulling a cart. It was a very common sight in Biblical times, and still is in many parts of the world. So what does a yoke of oxen have to do with the Bible?
Actually quite a bit! In the Old Testament, there were strict rules forbidding intermixing of livestock. For example, Leviticus 19:19 told farmers of the time “Do not mate different kinds of animals”, while Deuteronomy 22:10 was even more strict, stating “Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.” But Paul wasn’t advising the Corinthians on their livestock management practices…
What was Paul trying to get at in this verse? Well, two points come to mind. First, believers shouldn’t marry unbelievers, and second, believers should try to avoid spending all their time with unbelievers.
Coincidentally (and I no longer believe in coincidences), our pastor gave a sermon today in which he pointed out that people sometimes get into bad situations because of the crowd they’re hanging out with. That’s part of the message of Paul here. If you spend your time with unbelievers who are always mocking you about your belief in “your invisible friend”, you might very well fall away from faith.
Hang out with a group of heavy drinkers or drug users, and there’s a good chance that you will fall into substance abuse as well. Yoking yourself to unbelievers means that you’re going to be forced into walking along side them down the paths of sin whether you really want to or not.
Barb and I thank the Lord every day that He put it into our hearts and minds to commit to follow Him at the same time. We had fallen away from faith in college, mainly because we were part of a crowd that openly despised Christianity — we went “with the flow” of secularism rather than walking with Jesus. Had one of us gone back to God while the other was still an unbeliever, well, I’m not sure our marriage would have survived.
God had bigger plans for us: Seeing the signs that He gave us, repenting and believing, going back to church, reading the Bible again (for me, really reading it for the first time), serving Him in small ways, discerning that the denomination that we were part of was (and still is) sliding headstrong into apostasy, moving to further faith and service at Bible-centered churches, and eventually starting our own ministry that you’re now part of. He took two unbelievers who were yoked together and pulling an empty cart towards an abyss, turned us around, and pointed us in a direction where we’re hopefully picking up other formerly lost souls on that cart and heading to a wonderful eternity together.
Paul poses a couple of comparative questions in the remainder of this verse that illuminate the differences between believers and unbelievers, the first being “what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?”. Those who believe in God and trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are trying to be righteous - they may not fully succeed, but at least they have the Holy Spirit-driven awareness of right and wrong and try to do what is right.
On the other hand, unbelievers are seemingly drawn to wickedness like moths to a flame. They never question why they are doing what they’re doing or why their lives are in such a sad state as a result, yet they still remained yoked to their unbelief, their idols, their addictions, and their guilt, shame, and pain. Paul is correct: righteousness and wickedness cannot coexist.
Likewise, he asks “what fellowship can light have with darkness”? Paul knew his Scripture very well, so here he’s paraphrasing some of the verses (both from the Old Testament and knowledge of Jesus’s ministry) that yoke light with righteousness and wickedness to darkness:
“The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” Proverbs 4:18 NIV
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” 1 John 1:5-7 NIV
Paul used the righteousness/light - wickedness/darkness analogy quite often in his epistles, and here the analogy works well. In his commentary on this verse, David Guzik of Enduring Word says this:
iv. This speaks especially to the issue of influence. Paul is not suggesting that Christians never associate with unbelievers (he makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13). The principle is that we are to be in the world, but not of the world, like a ship should be in the water, but water shouldn’t be in the ship. If the world is influencing us, it is clear we are unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And this unequal yoke, or ungodly influence, may come through a book, a movie, a television show, a magazine, or even through worldly Christian friends. Most Christians are far too indiscriminate about the things they allow to influence their minds and lives.
v. We all like to believe that we can be around ungodly things as much as we want and that we are strong enough to ward off the influence. But we must take seriously the words of Scripture: Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits” (1 Corinthians 15:33). It needs to come back to the simple question from Romans 12:2: Are we being conformed to this world, or are we being transformed by the renewing of your mind?
vi. The Corinthian Christians thought like worldly people, not like godly people. They gained this way of looking at life — or at least they stayed in it — because of their ungodly associations. Paul tells them to break those yokes of fellowship with the ungodly!
Is your eternity being jeopardized by who you choose to associate with in your earthly life? Perhaps today is the day to think about how the temporary relationships in this life affect your eternal relationship with God.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Heavenly Father, guide me in choosing my relationships wisely, helping me to avoid partnerships that lead me away from You. May I seek fellowship with those who share my faith and values, to grow closer to You in all I do. AMEN