2 Corinthians 6: 14

Mike Rimmer

'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

Although there are many different applications for this verse of scripture, it's most often trotted out as it replies to romantic relationships between Christians and non Christians and that's how I want to look at it today.

The idea of yoking has nothing to do with eggs though as a younger person I thought it did. Instead someone once explained that back in Bible times, when you wanted to get some heavy work done, you would often use a pair of oxen to do the job. It was important to get oxen of the same size and maturity when you yoked or tied them together to do the work.

Otherwise you could have problems because the harness that keeps the animals together wouldn't fit properly or the way the two animals worked together might be disjointed if the animals aren't equally yoked. Ultimately it just leads to problems.

The same is true for our romantic relationships. A girl in my church was chatting to me recently and told me that she's started going out with a bloke. It turns out the guy isn't a Christian and the alarm bells in my head started going off.

If you're a Christian reading this, then the reality of your spiritual life is that God has got plans for you. He has a destiny which has been mapped out since the beginning of time. God has got stuff that he wants you to do TODAY that He has planned in advance for you to do.

You have undergone a spiritual transformation where God has taken you from the Kingdom Of Darkness where your destiny was death because of the sin in your life. Instead He has placed you in the Kingdom Of Life and taken away your sin and brought you into a relationship with Him. That means that you are different from the world around you. The Holy Spirit lives inside you, your values are different and your main motivation is to please God.

That means that God is interested in your whole life - everything in it and the complete span of it. It's important to have vision for what your whole life will be and invest now with good decisions that will affect your future. The choice of a life partner is part of that as it affects everything that happens once you team up with that person.

For me, if you're a Christian and you're willing to get involved in a romantic relationship with someone who isn't a Christian, then I have to question how passionate and serious you are about this relationship with God. You may still be going to church and doing the right things but if you're willing to compromise your relationship with God in the pursuit of romance with a guy or girl who doesn't love Jesus, then you need to think very carefully. I have an old song going around in my head and the words are "There may be trouble ahead".

The best thing that can happen in a romance is that two people join together with God at the centre and together pursue His purposes together for the rest of their lives. There isn't anything more important than that. Obviously all the usual things apply - you have to fancy each other and have more than the fact that you're Christians in common but at the very heart, the desire to find God's purpose together is the most important.

The problem with dating a non Christian is that you cannot share the most important stuff in your life - the God stuff - with the other person in your life. And further down the line it becomes even more difficult and huge compromises have to be made. Would a non Christian husband or wife understand it if God calls you to live in a different city or country, what about giving financially to the church or to Christian initiatives. Would a non Christian spouse allow you to raise your children as passionate Christians and be okay with you regularly attending church meetings? It is inevitable that you would compromise your faith.

Of course there are exceptions to this and maybe you are one where you married an unbeliever and they became a Christian. But in my experience, in the majority of cases, it is the Christian who is pulled away from God. Why put yourself in that position? This scripture is pretty clear that if you're a believer there's no room to get in deep romantically with an unbeliever.

Of course you may see the romance as an opportunity to help the object of your affections to become a Christian. But even in the best cases, can you ever be sure that the other person became a Christian because they wanted God or was it because they wanted you. I have seen couples where the unsaved half becomes a Christian during courtship but once rings are on fingers, their zeal for God evaporates. Is it worth the risk?

Am I painting a gloomy picture? Nope, just being realistic. This is difficult stuff and in a life of faith the true path is a narrow one and compromise so often broadens the path and leads to a watering down of faith and a life of frustration where bigger destiny and purpose go out the window and lives are reduced. Is it worth it?

I don't think so. My encouragement is that it would be better to plug into God and get a bigger sense of your own destiny and purpose. Believe that the God of the universe knows what he is doing with your life and don't compromise your vision. It is better to be happily single and pursuing God with everything you have than compromised and ultimately unhappily married because you do not have the freedom to pursue Christ fully.

If you're not in a relationship, you have the opportunity to make good choices and not try to bring together light and darkness in an unequally yoked relationship. If you're in a relationship with a non believer but not yet married, you need to think seriously about where it is going. Can it be a good thing to bring a non Christian into your life of compromise? You might actually be doing them a favour by pulling away at this point.

Always there are exceptions where the grace of God has ultimately covered compromise but those are exceptions to a command of scripture. Far better to get it right and do what the Bible says in the first place. What fellowship can light and dark have together? Anything that touches on the affairs of the heart can seem difficult but here is the opportunity to walk in the light.