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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.
For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 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.”
Therefore, “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 Corinthians 6:14-18
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
You are what you eat.
Maybe you have heard this saying used before.
The saying’s origin goes all the way back to the early 1800’s when a French lawyer by the name of Anthelme Brillat-Savarin published an article titled “Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante”. In the article, he wrote "Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." Which translated means “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are”.
The point is that our health relies largely on the foods we eat. Consume foods that are unhealthy and you will more likely than not find yourself with any variety of afflictions that come from it like diabetes or congestive heart failure or even any number of cancers. Conversely, commit yourself to eat foods that are healthy and promote the development of a fit body and you can minimize the chances that sickness will fall upon you.
In taking these physiological truths and translating them into a spiritual illustration, we can point at the large variety of influences in life and treat them as if we were talking about food. For whatever you open up your eyes and ears to will impact the state of your heart.
This applies to the songs that we listen to. It applies to the shows we watch on television, the movies we watch, or what we choose to stream off the internet. And it applies to the people we decide to connect ourselves to, either directly or indirectly, people who can persuade us to think, speak, or behave in ways that are sinful and unacceptable to our Lord.
In regard to the latter, we see in our scripture passage for today that God warns His believers to exercise absolute caution in whom they chose to hang with. For there were numerous belief systems in place at the time God brought His people to the land He promised and He knew that the Israelites could easily be swayed to place their life’s direction and heart’s affection on false gods which really was any god except for Him, the one and only true God. And so He spoke to His people through the messengers he appointed, messengers which included Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Samuel who we find the Apostle Paul quoting as he writes these closing words of 2 Corinthians 6:
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.
For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 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.”
Therefore, “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 Corinthians 6:14-18
In verse 14, we find Paul sharing Old Testament advice in the New. He didn’t want the Corinthian Christians to be corrupted in what they believed and so he commands them to not yoke together with unbeliever. The New Living Translation takes the word “yoked” and replaces it with “don’t team up with those who are unbelievers”. Using our English slang, we might say today, “Don’t hang out with unbelievers”. Any and all of these send the same warning. Be careful who you associate with.
So why should Christians resist in attaching themselves to unbelievers?
Paul shows the stark
contrast that exists in these kinds of potential relationships through our
passage.
Christians live in righteousness while unbelievers choose to live for the world and its wickedness. There have been so many horrific acts of violence punctuated by senseless killings. The world would have us believe it’s a gun problem. It’s really a God problem as in a godlessness problem with non-believers. No one who truly believes in the Lord is going to kill someone else out of personal motive because God commanded His people not to murder.
Christians live in His light where unbelievers walk in the darkness of the world and its ways. Darkness is where we find evil happening most of the time as non-believers sin under the cloak of night so they can avoid detection. The problem is that God sees everything. What is done in the dark will be brought to light by Him.
Christians are defined by their relationship with Jesus and the saving work He calls them to do. These Christ believers have nothing in common with Belial, a Hebrew word used to define people who are wicked and worthless.
In the end translation, there is no commonality to justify a close and intimate relationship between Christians and those who have rejected Jesus. Just as God commanded His people to divorce themselves from unclean things, we are to do the same today. This is what was pleasing in His sight.
Yes, Christians are called to bring the Gospel message to the unclean. There is no question about this. Jesus called His disciples to go and make disciples. But note He didn’t tell us to build long standing relationships with those who rejected Him. For He knew that Satan would like nothing better than to draw a Christian believer into sinful behavior through one of his minions with the intent of discrediting them so they would lose integrity and effectiveness in bringing the good news of salvation through Jesus to others.
Like Jesus, we are to associate with sinful non-believers but only to share the Gospel with them. If they choose to continue refusing God’s offer of eternal life through His Son, then Christians need to move on to someone who will accept it just as Jesus told the Twelve to leave anyplace they weren’t welcomed, knocking the dust off their sandals.
Christ followers are to be careful who they hang with to avoid being adversely influenced to think, speak, or behave in ways that run counter to the way Jesus lived. In the end translation, we honor Jesus by becoming more and more like Him every day through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We only become Christians in the truest sense when He is the One who is guiding the things we think, say, and do.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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