Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends on this first Monday of November,
Without question you and I will MANY times this week be faced with information or images calling us to make choices, sometimes difficult moral and ethical choices…. right or wrong; helpful or hurtful; holy or wicked. Almost every voice in our world will call us to compromise, seek an agreeable middle ground, find a way to set aside differences, lower the standards.
This is not new of course, 2000 years ago the few Christians in the crazy, wild, immoral city of Corinth were under tremendous pressure to do the same. Paul understood their challenge well. Christians were facing similar moral and ethical challenges all across the Roman empire. So Paul wrote these words calling the Christians to take the high ground: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?” (2 Cor. 6:14)
In those days everyone understood harnessing mules or yoking oxen together to pull heavy loads. Doing so was not easy. The animals needed to be of similar size and stride to be able to work well together. Especially the heavy wooden yoke was inflexible and would wear the animal’s neck raw if unequally yoked with an animal much different. The Christians in Corinth knew exactly what Paul was talking about.
Some were ‘unequally yoked’ in marriage, others were ‘unequally yoked’ in business partnerships, and they were paying a heavy, painful price, as their differences were causing conflict with those they were yoked with. Now let’s be careful here. Paul was NOT urging them to divorce their unsaved spouses or break business contracts.
Paul was warning them to look closely at all their relationships and be alert to any which may be drawing them toward contractual yoking with people who did not share their Godly values or even their Christian world view. Have you lately invited the Holy Spirit to help you evaluate all of your relationship to see if there’s potential danger ahead?
Paul continued: “What harmony is there between Jesus Christ and Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:15) Corinth, like many large cities in the Roman Empire was filled with the worship of many false gods and both altars and idols were everywhere. Gross immorality and bloodshed was often part of these worship practices and certain demonic activity was very prevalent.
‘Belial’ is a name not found elsewhere in the Bible, but found in quite a bit of historical literature of that era, describing the leader of forces opposed to God and holiness. It may be fair to view “Belial” as another name for Satan. So Paul is correct, there is no harmony between Jesus Christ and His great enemy Satan.
And thus Paul continued: “What does a believer [in Jesus Christ] have in common with an unbeliever [a person who rejects Jesus]? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said ‘I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be My people.” (2 Cor. 6:15,16)
Do you remember Paul had written a radical, powerful statement about this matter of the Spirit of God living in God’s people, in his first letter to these Corinthian Christians: “Flee from sexual immorality. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Cor. 6:18-20) Do you see the alignment of what Paul has written in both these powerful letters to the Corinthians?
A few years later the apostle Peter added these words to clarify the price God paid for our redemption from our sin bondage: “You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 1:18,19)
In view of that priceless outrageous, sin penalty price which God paid, with the death of His Son Jesus, Paul and Peter both call all Christians, of all time, to watch closely their relationships with the darkness and those people still entrapped by or embracing the darkness. They are NOT calling us to sever our relationships with everyone who is NOT a Christian! Oh no, we Christians are the people through whom Jesus will draw unbelievers, those in bondage in the darkness, to come to Jesus!
Paul challenged the Corinthians to not succumb to the appeal of the darkness by quoting Isaiah again: “Come out from them and be separate, says the LORD; Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you. And I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” (2 Cor. 6:17,18; Is. 52:11)
What a remarkable promise from God in response to their courageous stand keeping themselves undefiled by the evil all around them. Can we take courage from those words my friends and can we take the action needed to remain pure in heart and mind before our Savior Jesus?
Both Paul and Peter are warning us to be careful about allowing friendships to draw us into being yoked or contractually united with people who do not share our commitment to Jesus Christ and to God honoring values.
In fact, Paul continues with these words: “Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” (2 Cor. 7:1)
Now my friends, as challenging as that was for the Corinthians, are you and I mature enough in our minds and hearts, and committed to the holiness of God enough, that in our world of social media and non-stop internet access, and our oversexualized world…can we protect our souls and spirits from any defiling by the wickedness all around us?
Do we have the courage, the fortitude, the self discipline, to protect our marriages and families from the powerful appeal of darkness that would seduce them and us to self-destruction?
Is the Holy Spirit empowering you enough, guiding you enough, so you can stay strong and pure my friends?
The ‘lessons learned’ will again be so very helpful to us today, and the worship song celebrating a thousand hallelujahs will draw us into God’s throne room. And I’ll meet you here tomorrow, again…
Today’s Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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