Anonymous Asks (411)

“I recently came to faith in Christ and am living with an unbeliever. What should I do?”

An excellent question. A couple that attends our church’s Sunday morning service recently answered it: they got married. The man, definitely saved and growing in Christ. The partner of many years, possible. She comes out to the meeting. She looks, listens and lingers, but no definitive evidence of regeneration. Maybe she will follow her new husband’s lead. Maybe she will decide to turn back to Sodom and end up the spiritual analog to Lot’s wife. Nobody knows.

Come now, smart guys (of whom I used to be one): Why is there no easy, black and white, definitive answer for couples with one partner on each side of the line between heaven and hell?

Here’s why, and I didn’t know it as a kid. Because every case is different. This is why the most Christian portion of the Bible (I mean the New Testament) is full of derived principles rather than hard-and-fast rules to follow, like the OT. Principles are elastic. They have some leeway. You can have a conversation about how best to apply them in situations for which they were never designed, but where there are no other guidelines available.

Two Scenarios

Consider two different scenarios in which a new believer might ask this question of the elders in his local church:

In scenario #1, he moved in with his unsaved partner less than a year ago. Both had a track record of failed relationships and agreed to take this new one slowly and see where it goes. To date, neither party has raised the subject of marriage or children. They are taking it day by day. Sometimes the ancient history on both sides makes the going pretty rocky, and he wonders how long the two of them will last.

In scenario #2, he has been living with his partner in an emotionally healthy, committed relationship for over a decade that they have simply never bothered to formalize. Both are children of divorce and lack confidence in the institution. They have three children together. Most of their neighbors think they are married already, and will probably be surprised to find they are not. Legally, they are in a common-law marriage.

In neither scenario can the new believer be sure that his partner will ever come to faith. He’s looking at an unequal yoke, at least in the short term.

No Easy Choices

That’s not a good thing, and many Christians would, with a fair degree of confidence, counsel the first man to break off the relationship immediately rather than marrying an unbeliever. At this stage, he has no legal obligation to his unsaved partner and good reasons not to go looking for one. Assuming there are no other factors in play, that may be the best advice for him.

Alternatively, if he feels a stronger obligation to this woman and a sense of guilt before the Lord about abandoning her, he may decide to tell her he can no longer continue living in an uncommitted relationship. That lets her choose whether she would rather use his conversion as a jumping-off point, or bind herself in marriage to somebody who has pledged allegiance to a God she doesn’t know and maybe doesn’t like. Some Christians will not like putting that option on the table, and it very much depends on the level of commitment both have to one another. Sometimes you don’t know what that is until you’re forced to look at the alternative.

Complications, Complications

The second scenario, however, is even more complicated. Balanced against the prospect of affirming an unequal yoke scripture condemns, you have something awfully like a marriage already in place that scripture might counsel us to respect. Legally speaking, and in the eyes of everyone but some Christians, it is a marriage. You also have three children to think about. Counseling this man to leave the home means considerable added costs and stresses for both parties, destabilizing the children and sending them back and forth between estranged parents, plunging their lives into chaos for reasons they will not understand. The neighbors and his partner’s family, not to mention the kids, may consider that he has abandoned his responsibilities even if continues to be involved in their lives. That’s not a good look.

In such a scenario, I am tempted to apply Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians: “If any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.” They’re not a perfect fit, but they are awfully close. If the partner will agree to formalizing the situation, I’d be inclined to set a date.

The Least-Worst Option

I have painted two scenarios here. Let’s be honest, they are conveniently at the extremes, making the answer to “What should he do?” in each case easier than most where elders are asked to weigh in. In real life, most people living with an unbeliever have domestic situations somewhere on the spectrum in between, making them much more difficult to assess biblically. The sad fact is that often when we sin, we put ourselves in situations in which all possible moves may have negative outcomes. The job of anyone counseling such a person from scripture then becomes to help him choose the least-worst option.

Either way you go, these are not decisions best made lightly or quickly, and they really come down to the conscience of the new believer, which may not be perfectly clear whichever way he goes. Christians who know men or women burdened with choices of this type are wise not to pressure the new believer to make a move in a hurry that he may deeply regret later.

What we can say with confidence is that the new believer who opts to end his current relationship should not be quick to look for a replacement on Christian Mingle. I’ve yet to see that move work out well.