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Unequally Yoked

2Corinthians: Paul's Most Underappreciated Epistle

Sep 15, 2019


by: Jack Lash Series: 2Corinthians: Paul's Most Underappreciated Epistle | Category: NT books | Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:14– 7:1
  1. Introduction
    A. 2Cor.6:14-7:1 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” 1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body&spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
     B. There’s lot here and we are going to spend more than one week on this passage. 
    II. Explanation
     A. The first thing to ask is, What is this passage doing here? What it says isn’t strange, but where it says it is very strange indeed. 
      1. Paul’s been exhorting the Corinthians to open their hearts to him just as his heart’s open to them.
      2. Then all of a sudden he’s talking about not being unequally yoked with unbelievers. 
      3. And it’s clear he didn’t just change the subject, because he goes right back to the same subject in 7:2, right after this passage: “Make room in your hearts for us.” just as abruptly as it started. 
      4. So, somehow this 6:14-7:1 section is related to what’s before and after it. But we’re left trying to figure out how.  
     B. I think that in order to understand this, we need to remember the bigger picture which is going on in 2Corinthians. We need to remember that there are opponents of Paul within the Corinthian congregation. These are not people who were part of the congregation when Paul was there, but who came after he left. 
      1. Now, are these opponents of Paul sincere believers who just have an attitude problem toward Paul, or are they snakes, wolves in shepherds’ clothing? They are clearly snakes. 
       a. For one thing, Paul never appeals to them or reaches out to them. He knows what they’re made of.
       b. In 2Cor.11:4 Paul is rebuking the Corinthian Christians for their tolerance of these men: “If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” 
        (1)  another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel
       c. And then in 2Cor.11:13–15 further describes these men: “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
        (1) false apostles, deceitful workmen, counterfeit apostles, servants of Satan, hell-bound 
      2. This means that in Paul’s mind these men were not legitimately part of the Corinthian congregation. They were not the same as the Christians who had come to Christ under Paul’s gospel ministry and had been nurtured and instructed by Paul during his year and a half there.
       a. There were a band of phony “super-apostles” who were feeding the congregation lies about Paul and about Christ. 
      3. The congregation had been falling prey to this evil group, and Paul is trying desperately to stop it.
      4. And one of Paul’s main purposes in this letter is to get the Corinthian believers to stop listening to and cooperating with these guys. He is trying to help them see that they don’t belong together. He is trying to split the two groups apart, to separate the congregation from the false apostles. He wants to convince the believers to go back to listening to him and stop listening to the bad guys. 
     C. So, in the middle of urging them to open their hearts toward him and his fellow workers, Paul suddenly says, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols?”
      1. Who could he be talking about except the false apostles who were poisoning the congregation? 
      2. In other words, Paul is saying, “Open your heart to us, but close your heart to these infiltrators who are feeding you lies, these Judaizers, these unbelievers, unrighteous&lawless, people of darkness and of the devil, idolaters.” “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Satan? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?”
      3. It actually makes a lot of sense! Paul moves from appealing to the Corinthians to open their hearts toward him to urging them to close their hearts to the liars who have come to Corinth. 
     D. Now, in light of this, let’s think about, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” and what follows.
      1. In the laws God gave through Moses, there was a number of strange laws. 
      2. One of them is in Deuteronomy 22:10 “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.”
      3. Now in you were a farmer, you would know that no one would ever try to yoke an ox and a donkey together. That’s the first strange thing about this law. 
      4. But there’s another: why would God care? Why would God command something so trivial? Of all the things to include in His law, why include a rule about who you yoke together? 
      5. Well, the fact is God doesn’t really care about yoking animals together. He gave this law to teach His people something about how to live.
      6. You can see this in 1Cor.9:8-10, where Paul is discussing another law of Moses, the law which says that you should not muzzle an ox as he is treading out the grain (Deut.25:4). And he asks, “Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does He not rather command for our sake? Yes! It was written for our sake.” And he goes on to say that it instructs us about paying leaders for their work. 
      7. In the same way, the law about not yoking oxen and donkeys together is not really about farm animals. It’s about us. And Paul applies that law here when he says, “Do not be unequally yoked to unbelievers. 
      8. That’s the point of the law. And that’s how Paul applies it here to the Corinthians, who were linked up with some folks who were bad news, who had allowed themselves to be yoked to men with whom they as Christians could not walk in lock step. 
      9. “You are Christian people. Don’t try to walk in step with people who ultimately are opposed to Christ. All they will do is trip you up.” 
      10. What is being forbidden by Paul is not our normal interactions with unbelievers, which give opportunity for ministry through love, evangelism and the modeling of hope. Paul, rather, is forbidding the Christian from march through life with someone who is not walking in the footsteps of Christ. 
    III. That’s what the passage means. And now we’re ready to ask, What does it mean to us? 
     A. Some people are gullible & easily duped. Others are ever-suspicious. You know people who are like both of these. But God doesn’t want us to be either of these.  
      1. The issue isn’t being open-hearted or closed-hearted. The issue is: being open-hearted toward the right sources & closed-hearted toward the wrong sources. 
      2. There are many voices competing for our attention. Some of them represent the voice of God. 
      3. There are also things being said which are designed not to teach you or help you but to trip you up. There are lies being told. And just as the truth sets you free, lies put you in bondage.
      4. The two women of Proverbs: Wisdom in Prov.8:1-9:12 and Folly in Prov.9:13-18 (cf. Prov.5&7)
       a. You don’t maintain a friendship with someone who trying to seduce you away from Christ. 
       b. After the description of the woman Folly, it goes on to say of the man who enters into her house: “He does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of hell.” – Prov.9:18 
     B. This passage is about divorcing ourselves from destructive entanglements. 
      1. Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean unfriending your non-Christian friends. God might even use you to win them to Christ. 
       a. Paul even makes this clear in 1Corinthians 5:9–10. 
      2. But, that doesn’t mean that there are no connections which must be severed. 
       a. Specifically here, we see that Paul wants them to sever their connection with false teachers, with pretend apostles, with those who claim to speak for God, but only speak lies. 
      3. V.17 says, “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them.”“
       a. There’s a time when you just have to walk away from a person or a group of people. 
       b. There’s a time when you have to break up with a loved one, not because you don’t love them anymore, but because you don’t belong together. 
       c. There’s a time when you must cut off someone whom you have been very close to, because trying to walk together is causing you to stumble. 
      4. Your old friends may resent you for abandoning them. 
       a. Peter talks about how your old friends may be surprised when you do not join them in their activities anymore, and insult you for it. (1Peter 4:4)
       b. They may accuse you of acting like you’re better than everybody else. They may say you’ve been brain-washed. They may say you’re going through a phase. 
       c. But you must not listen to them, dear ones. 
      5. This is why it’s a little scary to send a young person off to college, because they are so often all alone and surrounded by peers and taught by professors who would love nothing more than to convert a Christian away from Christ. 
       a. And this is why we are so anxious for Christian college students to get involved in a church and in Christian organizations. 
      6. There is a strong temptation to look for common ground.
       a. It sounds so loving and so humble — especially today.
       b. And yet it can be so dangerous. And we see that in this passage: “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with the devil? What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? (14-15)
       c. I’m not saying that there’s no sense in which it is appropriate to look for common ground. 
        (1) You and your dentist have common ground in your interest in your dental health, hopefully. 
        (2) You and your neighbors have a common interest in the removal of trash
      7. But, in the truly important things, we have no common interest with those who oppose Christ, and it can be dangerous to look for some. Why? Because you may find some which isn’t actually there, you may find yourself compromising the truth in order to enjoy the favor of the world. 
      8. James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
      9. Syncretism: there are form of Christianity all over the world which incorporate aspects of what people in that culture believe. When we view them, it is so obvious to us that they have compromised the truth. And they look at us and see ways WE compromise the truth according to our culture. 
       a. Speak to Fabrice or Jody or Margaret 
      10. In every generation it is enticing to either ignore the part of Bible truth which are unpopular, or to bend the church’s message to fit in better with worldly thinking. This is American syncretism. 
      11. This passage condemns that mindset: 14 For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? 
     C. There is nothing in your life more important than walking with Christ, and that means not letting anyone trip you up. And that means being alert to the fact that you have a vicious enemy who has you in his sights, and who will do whatever he can to cause you to fall. 
      1. And one of his favorite techniques is to use people around us to trip us up. How does he do this?
      2. He uses our love for those people, or our desire to be loved by them, to get us to try to walk with them. But donkeys and oxen must not be yoked together, or they will trip and fall.
      3. And believers must not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. 
      4. You see, there is Something so supremely valuable that it is to be obtained at all costs. And if it is already possessed, it must be kept at all costs — even if it means losing everything else, even if it involves living a life of abuse, rejection, and ridicule.