In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile
than usual.
Let me give you a scenario that plays out over and over again.
I’m a young Christian man, say … or maybe I’m a middle-aged Christian woman.
Who knows? It doesn’t matter. But let’s go with the young Christian man for
a minute.
I have always been told that, for some reason, it’s bad for a believer to partner
up with an unbeliever. But now that I’m in the situation myself, I can’t quite
see why.
Immanuel Can: After all, girl X (my intended) is a lovely person. She’s just like me. We have great
conversations. She thinks exactly like I do about practically everything
that matters. We have wonderful times together. And I have deep feelings for her.
Tom: “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right …”
The Best Possible Person
IC: Right. In every way I can think of, she seems like the best possible person for me to be
with, and I can’t stand any thought that there would be any reason
I can’t take the relationship to the next stage … which I’m thinking
about doing. And I don’t really want to be talked out of that, but
I do want my conscience to feel better as I go forward. This business
of the so-called “unequal yoke” is the last fly in my ointment, so to speak.
So explain to me, Tom: have you got any reason I haven’t thought of that I should
be concerned? Or should I maybe be content to consider this just a bad idea
created by a bygone era of Christians, and just get past it? What do
you say?
Tom: Well, first, it is the scripture. God said it, not a team of
psychologists or Dear Abby. And I’m batting something like 0-60 in situations
where I go ahead and do something the Bible tells me not to do. I don’t fancy
your odds will be any better than mine.
IC: Okay, so you’re going to tell me it hasn’t worked out for you.
Maybe so. But (says the young Christian in question) I’m not you. My
situation’s different.
Tom: This girl is SPECIAL™ …
IC: And while I can’t account for your experiences, and shouldn’t have
to, I can tell you that in my own experience I feel like going ahead makes more
sense, and maybe it will work out for me.
It’s Not Complicated
Tom: Okay. Second, it’s about as straightforward a command as is
possible to deliver: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what
fellowship has light with darkness?” You cannot possibly misunderstand it. You
can only misapply it, or fail to apply it.
If, for instance, you were only
contemplating getting into a business venture with an unsaved person, we might
be able to argue that if your proposed contract gives you an “out” of some
sort, or gives you the final word in any decisions to be made, then what you
are doing is not technically getting “yoked” together, or that the yoke is not
“equal”, and therefore the verses do not apply. However, the one and only situation
to which they always apply is marriage.
IC: That’s a good point. If the commandment not to “yoke” with unbelievers means anything —
anything it all — it must surely apply to marriage relationships. There’s
no reasonable doubt there at all. Good answer.
Playing the Vegas Odds
What would you say if the young Christian were to respond, “Well, I wasn’t thinking
about marriage, just about maybe hanging out or dating and seeing where things
go. Like, maybe girl X will even get saved …”
Tom: I will concede that in fifty-something years I’ve heard of two that did get saved
(not that I can speak to the quality of those marriages one way or another, or
speculate what might have been if the now-husband had been obedient in the
first instance). And I’ve also heard of maybe a hundred that didn’t.
But, you know, if you like Vegas odds ...
Okay, if you’re going to be difficult, it might be
worth looking up what the Bible tells you to do when you’re tempted: watch and
pray (Matthew 26:41); pray (Luke 22:40); do not make provision for
what your flesh is telling you to do (Romans 13:14); and flee it
(2 Timothy 2:22-24). But I’m sure you know better.
You can certainly do your own thing on this issue if
you don’t mind ending up as a cautionary tale. Just don’t claim to be living
like a Christian when you do it. The standard is not up for debate, regardless
of your personal situation or the intensity of your feelings.
The Question That Remains
IC: Okay. So far I’ve
been playing advocate for the young Christian who’s in the situation. And I think technically you’ve got him. If he believes the scripture at all, he’s to the point where he cannot escape the realization that in pursuing a
relationship with an unbeliever he is in direct contravention of the explicit
word of God. But as much as I have to admit that, I think there’s still a
question, and one that is more pressing to the present generation than to past
ones: what about the fact that I don’t feel what you’re saying?
Tom: Oh, you mean like most sins ...
IC: Now, being older than some, you and I might well be tempted to dismiss such a reply as merely
reluctance to obey. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t. But I think that many
people simply won’t. The residual intuition that they can or could
establish a working, intimate relationship with the unbeliever in question
would simply be too compelling to them. And yet, God says they simply cannot.
If we look at the chain of opposites in 2 Corinthians 6, it’s very
stark: not just believer/unbeliever, but in parallel construction,
light/darkness, Christ/Belial, temple of God/[temple of] idols …
Two Reasons
So let me put the question this way: if it’s such a clear matter of stark
contrast, how can I possibly account for my lack of sensing that, or having the
experience that the issues are really as clear as scripture suggests? Shouldn’t
I have some sense in my personal experience that things are as stark as all
that? Why don’t I?
Tom: Well, part of it
is cultural. We Christians in the West do not generally live separated lives.
We don’t do a lot of talking amongst ourselves about the things that it is
better to do differently from the world when our kids are young. So advice to
your daughter like, “Look for a Christian husband who wants kids and can
provide rather than a career” or “Marry young”, or advice to your son like,
“Put away the videogames and learn how to make enough money to own a house and
raise a family” ... well, these are rare sentiments. We are not raising
realists or pragmatists. We’re raising fantasists who buy in to the romantic
myths peddled by the media. So of course we live and act pretty much like the
more civilized worldlings around us.
The other part of it is not cultural at all: it’s a problem that plagued Adonijah,
Samson and many other men throughout history, and that is that an attractive
woman is an attractive woman, and infatuation is a powerful thing. It messes
with your head. It will not make doing the right thing feel like it is the
right thing.
IC: Yes, I think you’re right. The second motive you talk about is simpler to understand, but I think perhaps the first accounts better for the emotional difficulty many people have in detecting within their own experiences the truth of what God is
saying. The bottom line is this: that a shallow Christian is actually not all
that far from a very nice unbeliever … and there are some very nice
unbelievers around.
Tom: I think you’ve put your finger on it.
Two Meadows
IC: Picture it like this: there are two meadows adjacent to one another. Call the southern one “the
meadow of the world”. Call the north one “the meadow of Christ”. A shallow,
immature or naive Christian may be living every day on the south perimeter of
the north meadow; just as a very nice, moral, decent unbeliever may spend all
her time near the north fence of the south meadow. The two can easily meet,
converse, make company, form ties emotionally, and so on … and from their
relative living spots, it’s not difficult at all. And that’s what makes the
Lord’s strong statements about the incompatibility of believers and unbelievers
so hard to verify for some on the basis of their emotions or personal
experience. If that’s their situation, I can understand why they may not feel
the truth of what God is telling them.
Tom: And feelings are everything to the current generation.
IC: But here’s the thing: between the two meadows is a high, high fence. It’s infinitely long, and
infinitely strong, because God put it there and he maintains it. Once you’re
genuinely on the Christian side of the fence, you are kept by divine power from
ever going back: it just cannot happen. So long as you’re not a Christian, you
can never get through that fence by any other means than abandoning your home
meadow, dying to your old life, and giving yourself to Christ.
Tom: That’s 2 Corinthians 6 in a nutshell.
Meeting at the Fence
IC: Right. Now, meanwhile, you can still meet at the fence. You can talk through the fence. You
can hold hands through the fence. You can kiss through the fence. But you just
cannot ever really be together in the way God intends. And if either one of you
decides to make further “progress” in the respective meadows in which each of
you lives, you can only do so by leaving the fence, and moving farther away
from the partnership you’ve formed.
A Christian who wants to grow and develop in his spiritual life must necessarily
leave the south fence and walk north. A worldly person who decides to become
more worldly will be going south. A gap will open in the relationship if either
of you decides to become more of what you truly are. And if neither of you
does, then both of you will end up living shallow, uncommitted inauthentic
lives, never being able to explore the fullness of what your “meadow” offers.
Tom: And here’s the
thing: your feelings will always lie to you about the presence of the fence.
Maybe it’s not really that high or wide. Maybe there’s a little hole over here
or there that you might be able to sneak through. That’s what your feelings
will tell you. And not without reason: God has indeed at times graciously
overlooked egregious violations of his law and his word. The problem is that
you can never count on being that rare instance.
Foolery and Faith
IC: Yes. And worse than that, you can actually fool yourself into thinking you are the
exception. But life has a way of changing that — if not a whole lot
sooner, then certainly when your first child comes along. Because then you’ve
got to ask yourself what you’re going to do.
So you sold your partner on the idea that your own Christianity didn’t matter. But
now are you going to sacrifice your children on the altar of your relationship
with the unbeliever? But what will you tell them now, since you’ve been
pretending it didn’t matter? And how will you now be credible, since you have
been selling out all along?
Tom: Isn’t faith the real issue here? Faith, and your view of our heavenly Father.
IC: Yes, quite. That’s the key. Do we believe our heavenly Father actually knows what’s best for us,
and provides according to that? Or do we just say that publicly, and secretly
hold a different view?
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