A Three-Legged Race

Introduction

            With the Winter Olympics right around the corner, more and more stories are being published about Olympic athletes and their respective athletic events. I read an article a few days ago about the US Women’s Olympic bobsled team and specifically about the controversy surrounding the selection of Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones to the team. Although her teammates have defended the decision, critics of the selection say that she is the weak link on the team and that the team may stumble in its pursuit of the Gold Medal. I don’t know why it made me think of this but do you remember Field Day when you where in elementary school? For those of us who were more athletic than we were smart, it was a day when we had a chance to be winners after so often being losers in the classroom. Field Day was much different when my daughters went through elementary school. We didn’t do egg races or water balloon races like they did. We also didn’t have an “athletic” event that was comprised of how many ears of corn could be stuffed into a potato sack in a given amount of time. Instead, we had potato sack races! Remember those? Each person would climb into a potato sack and race by hopping the length of twenty -five yards or so across an open field to the finish line. The crashes were nothing short of spectacular—they were Nascar-esque crashes! We also had sprint races and distances races. We did high jumps and long jumps. And at each finish line, first place received a blue ribbon, second place received a red ribbon, and third place received a white ribbon. Everyone else got nothing (Try that today and you might be facing charges of cruelty or running for your life from a crowd of angry parents wielding lanterns and pitchforks!). Field Day was generally focused on individual achievement. However, there was one particular event that required a partner. The event could be quite graceful or an absolute human catastrophe. That’s right it’s A Three-Legged Race!

It’s hilarious to watch but back when I was in elementary school, it was stressful. Why? Because everyone scrambled to pick the right partner in order to give themselves the best chance to win. This wasn’t for fun mind you; this was for perhaps someone’s first blue ribbon or another blue ribbon to add to someone’s already accumulated stack of blue ribbons; it was serious business! For a few minutes, universal playground rules were suspended so that it didn’t matter if your partner was a boy or a girl; the only thing that matter was winning that blue ribbon even if it meant being temporarily lashed to a “yucky” boy or girl. We pretty much knew each others’ athletic abilities so most kids paired up accordingly. Athletes paired up with athletes and non-athletes paired up with non-athletes. The athletes usually won but it was usually much closer than one might think. However, there would inevitably be some athletes who would get paired with non-athletes and frankly, that often turned into an unmitigated disaster. Very rarely were these odd pairings successful. Nevertheless, they made for great entertainment. Not that elementary school kids can be mean or anything {read: sarcasm}.

            What doesn’t make for great entertainment is when our significant relationships feel like we’re in A Three-Legged Race with a poorly matched race partner. Many Christians enter into relationships of various kinds quite innocently only to find that often those relationships reach a crossroads where Christian values and beliefs intersect with the world’s values and beliefs. Inevitably, the result is compromise. However, it is rare indeed when the world is willing to compromise its values to accommodate a Christian’s values. It is more likely the case that Christians compromise their values to accommodate the more worldly values in their relationships. If you don’t believe me then you haven’t been paying attention to what is going on in the world around you. There is a way to avoid this compromise and accommodation for Christians and this week’s lessons will address this very difficult principle.

Subject Text

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

            ¹⁴Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? ¹⁵What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶What 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.” ¹⁷“Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” ¹⁸“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Context

            At first glance, this instruction appears definitive and absolute but anytime that occurs, we had better pay special attention to the context in order to see how it applies to us or even if it applies to us specifically. As with all biblical instruction, we must decide if the instruction is descriptive or prescriptive. In other words, does the instruction describe the life of faith at the time of the instruction or does it prescribe a life of faith for all time? The text immediately preceding and immediately following our Subject Text seems completely unrelated as they speak of Paul’s hardships and Paul’s joy respectively. And a broader view of the surrounding texts doesn’t add much specifically to help us understand why Paul is giving this instruction either. As a result, we need to take a big step back and look at the context of the Corinthian culture and see if that will give us the necessary insight into why Paul is giving this particular instruction.

            Corinth is located about 50 miles from Athens and around two miles from the narrow isthmus that forms a land bridge between Greece and the Peloponnesus. Because of its geographical location, Corinth controlled two major harbors and ruled the trade routes between Asia and Rome. Corinth catered to the gods of Egypt, Rome and Greece. The Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was in Corinth. Even though the actual temple was not active during Paul’s time, prostitution flourished in the city below where the temple once served as the center for prostitution. As you might imagine, Corinth catered to sailors and merchants from around the world. Even before Paul’s time, Corinth had an awful reputation. Aphrodite’s temple gave Corinth its reputation of overt immorality referenced by Paul (1 Cor 6:9-20; 2 Cor 12:20-21). “She [Corinth] had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but she was also a byword for evil living. The very word korinthiazesthai [Gk], to live like a Corinthian, had become a part of the Greek language, and meant to live with drunken and immoral debauchery…Aelian, the late Greek writer, tells us that if ever a Corinthian was shown upon the stage in a Greek play he was shown drunk. The very name Corinth was synonymous with debauchery and there was one source of evil in the city which was known all over the civilized world. Above the isthmus towered the hill of the Acropolis, and on it stood the great temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To that temple there were attached one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, and in the evenings they descended from the Acropolis and plied their trade upon the streets of Corinth, until it became a Greek proverb, ‘It is not every man who can afford a journey to Corinth.’ In addition to these cruder sins, there flourished far more recondite vices, which had come in with the traders and sailors from the ends of the earth, until Corinth became not only a synonym for wealth and luxury, drunkenness and debauchery, but also for filth.”[1] With that image of Corinth in mind, the purpose of our Subject Text becomes clearer. Furthermore, because we can make a correlation between the Corinthian culture and our own, it seems Paul’s teaching is far more prescriptive than it is simply descriptive. As such, let’s dive into our Subject Text and try to understand exactly what Paul is trying to teach us.

Subject Text

            The NIV translation of v. 14a is good but it doesn’t quite capture the far-reaching intent of the text. There are various translations of this text that try to capture the true spirit of the text and although they are all good translations, I think seeing them together will give you a better idea of just how far this instruction reaches into our relationships. Here are some other translations of the same text:

Don't team up with those who are unbelievers.—New Living Translation

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.—English Standard Version

Do not be bound together with unbelievers.—New American Standard Bible

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers.—Holman Christian Standard Bible

Do not become partners with those who do not believe.—NET Bible

Do not be associates with those who are unbelievers.—Aramaic Bible in Plain English

Stop forming inappropriate relationships with unbelievers.—GOD’S WORD Translation

Be not be diversely yoked with unbelievers.—Darby Bible Translation

Do not come into close association with unbelievers.—Weymouth New Testament

            These translations demonstrate the extent to which Paul’s instruction applies to our relationships. However, the one constant in all of them is that Paul is specifically talking about our relationship with unbelievers. The translation of the Greek word heterozugountes is literally “different-yoking.” Paul’s use of the word “yoke” is somewhat lost on many of us because it is an agricultural term. But the illustration was quite familiar in the largely agrarian culture of Paul’s day. Furthermore, Paul’s use of the word was easily understood by his audience in its relation to all aspects of their lives. “The concept of the yoke was used in relation to marriage and in relation to teachers who agree in their doctrine. A mixed marriage or cooperation [with] one who had a different doctrine was considered to be ‘unequally yoked.’”[2] Paul’s agrarian

culture understood that an ox and a mule could not be yoked together because a team of oxen and a team of mules utilized different types of yokes. The same yoke could not harness different species of animals. Paul wants the Corinthian believers to recognize that they are different than unbelievers and as such must not be harnessed together. Paul creates a narrow focus in v. 14b-c for his instruction when he illustrates just how divergent believers and unbelievers are. Paul’s point is that believers have (or should have) about as much in common as does righteousness and wickedness or light and dark. We can look long and hard for an exception to Paul’s instruction but we won’t find any. Paul makes it clear that believers cannot dabble in a bit of darkness and a bit of light at the same time. “A decision has to be made for one or the other, for God or against him who is light in whom there is no darkness at all (1 Jn 1:5), or to be more precise, for or against Jesus Christ who described himself as the light (Jn 12:46; cf. 8:12). It is his person that provides the yardstick. He who rejects him condemns himself by the same act (Jn 3:18f). On the other hand, he who believes him (Jn 12:46) and follows him (Jn 8:12) no longer walks in darkness.”[3]

            Paul continues to illustrate the incompatibility between believers and unbelievers in v. 15 with two questions; both of which appear to be rhetorical in intent. To begin with, in order to understand the distinction between Christ and Belial in v. 15a, we need to understand who Belial [Gk. Beliar] is. In the context of our lesson we can assume that Belial is the opposite of Christ but the lesson is hard enough to accept for some people that we shouldn’t make any assumptions in case we miss something when Paul uses the term Belial (or Beliar), since its use is only found here in all the New Testament. “It is a Heb. word meaning ‘worthless’ used in Jewish writings and the DSS [Dead Sea Scrolls] to describe Satan, the prince of lawlessness, and darkness.”[4] It seems clear that this is intended to be a rhetorical question as it is obvious that there is no “harmony” between Christ and Satan. However, whether or not v. 15b is intended to be rhetorical is not so clear. What do believers and unbelievers have in common? Well, we work together, we go to school together, we share meals, and generally we live within God’s created world together. It certainly seems that believers and unbelievers have quite a bit in common so what is Paul trying to say? “The absence of meris [Gk “part; shared commonality”] between believer and unbeliever refers to characteristics and interests peculiar to believers, such as concern for the will and glory of God, not necessities of life shared by all humans, such as food, clothing, and shelter…Paul was not a rigorous separatist, calling for believers’ total separation from unbelievers. Correspondingly, he is not here denying the common humanity of believers as citizens of the present cosmos, saying that the Christian and non-Christian have nothing in common. But there are radical differences in behavior and motivation between these two classes of people.”[5]

            Paul continues with his rhetorical questioning in v. 16 in a context that is quite familiar for his audience. Remember the overall context I provided above for the Greek culture in which the Corinthians lived their lives. They were surrounded by shrines and idols to the Greek gods. In contrast, the bodies of believers are, individually and corporately, temples of the living God. As such, the temple of God and that of idols are incompatible. To emphasize his point, Paul paraphrase the Old Testament covenant promise to the Israelite community that God will walk among those who believe in Him and that He will be their God and they will be His people (Lev 26:12; Jer 32:38; Ezek 37:27). That Old Testament covenant promise now extends to all of those who have accepted and put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ. This sets us apart from those who have rejected Christ. “Paul interprets the church as ‘the temple of the living God in terms of her being ‘adopted’ as God sons and daughters…His call for separation and purity makes sense only if the church understands herself not to be just one more institution playing and essential role within the fabric of society. Nor is the church a social service meeting the felt needs of her neighbors. Such a domestication of the church could not be more foreign to Paul’s view of God’s people or to her status as a disenfranchised minority in the Roman world in which Paul lived. Instead, as the new covenant people of God, the church is the ‘family of God’ united by a common identity in Christ and gathered around her common worship and fear of ‘the Lord Almighty.’”[6]

            Paul continues to identify the Church with Israel’s Old Testament promises in vv. 17-18. Specifically, the Israelites were called to separate themselves from the surrounding ungodly cultures for fear they would become contaminated by other ungodly values, practices, and belief systems (Isa 52:11). Too many people see God as only an authoritarian judge. But Paul makes clear that God is instructing us to steer clear of the trappings of the world like a father instructs his children. As a Father who is a perfectly holy judge? Yes; As a Father who knows the dangers of evil in advance? Yes; As Father who demands a life or holiness from those who say they love Him? Yes; As a Father who is jealous and wants you all to himself? Yes; As a Father who would stop and nothing to be in relationship with you? Yes. But most of all as a Father who loves you more than you can ever imagine. Too often we see God the Father as either a harsh task-master who sets the boundaries of what is and is not acceptable and rules His people and His creation with an iron fist or we see God the Father as a Disneyland-dad whose primary objective is to insure we are always happy, healthy, and have everything we ask for. But God is neither of these things as we conceive them to be. These are understandings based on our limited perspective and experiences of flawed, earthly fatherhood. God the Father is particularly special and one-of-a-kind. “God exercises control over all aspects of the lives of believers, which arises from his special concern as Father for his children…The contemporary pagan world held its gods in fear, the Christian view of God’s fatherhood brings an unparalleled element of intimacy into man’s relation with God…It is important to note that the father-child relationship in reference to God is almost wholly reserved for those who are believers. The relationship is the result of the redemptive activity of God…Care must be taken not to reduce the NT [New Testament] view of the fatherhood of God to the level of human experience. No father-son relationship among men is ever perfect, because no human father is perfect. But in God the perfect pattern of true fatherhood is always seen…We need to enquire what ‘fatherhood’ means when applied to God. As far as believers are concerned it means that God is the source of their spiritual life and pours out his love upon them. He is concerned with their welfare and also with their discipline.”[7] In the context or our Subject Text, God’s concern with whom we associate should be understood within the sphere of a Father’s concern with his child’s spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being.

Application

            Honestly, this is a difficult lesson on so many levels; particularly because it can be difficult to know where God intends for us to draw healthy boundaries between us and an unbelieving world. We’re not called to be separatists in a strict sense or else we wouldn’t be able to fulfill Jesus commission to reach out to an unbelieving world with the message of the gospel. Instead, we are called to be in the world not of the world (Jn 17:14-19). However, we are clearly instructed to set ourselves apart from those things of the world that could serve to compromise the commitment we have made to be followers of Christ (1 Jn 2:15-17); the commitment to be holy (1 Pet 1:15); the commitment to live as a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). While that all seems very clear, what is less clear is what that looks like in real life. Let’s look at a few everyday relationships and how this teaching might inform our view of those relationships. Specifically, I want to pick up on some significant relationships after childhood because so much of our childhood faith mirrors that of our parents. Therefore, I want to address relationships at a point when individuals typically begin to take personal responsibility for the direction of their own faith.

Everyday Friendships

           During our early teenage years, friendships are usually closely tied to our identity or at least the identity we would like to have. We want to be liked and popular so we tend to hang around people who we see are liked and popular. In our later teenage years and early adulthood, our attention is often focused on having fun, so we tend to associate with other fun-loving people. Eventually, as we become mature adults with established personalities and tendencies, we are generally more comfortable associating with like-minded people. In each case along our path of maturity, our personality, values and behavior are influenced by the people we associate with. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with any of the stages of development as I have just described them. However, what if the young teenagers who are liked and popular are not believers? What if the fun-loving people we associate with in our early adulthood are unbelievers? What if the like-minded people we feel most comfortable with as an adult are unbelievers? What do you suppose your life would look like as a believer? Would it look like the life of a believer as described by the Bible or would it look more like the life of an unbeliever in the image of all the unbelievers you have aligned yourself with throughout your life?

Business Relationships

           This can be a very difficult area because it involves the ethic of work which itself is divinely appointed for each of us. What I want to focus on instead is how we can compromise our faith commitment by who we work with and for. In some cases, it’s easy to determine what we should and shouldn’t do. For example, is there anything wrong with being a hard-working photographer? Not really. I have a niece who is an amateur photographer and she has taken some amazing pictures of nature. Nothing wrong with that right? Now what would you think about a hard-working pornography photographer? We suddenly go from something that can be a Godly endeavor by my niece to something we should have absolutely nothing to do with at any level. Sometimes these things are not so simple. Sometimes we don’t know the specific world view of the people we work for. Nevertheless, that does not absolve us from the obligation to do what we can to determine whether or not the actions and attitudes of the organization we work for are consistent with our Biblical values. It is not always cut and dry and I recognize that. However, don’t hide behind the idea that the person or organization you work for is neutral on the matter of Biblical values. In this same regard, the same principle holds true in business partnerships. In such cases, our perspective partner(s) should share similar Biblical values for life and business as our own.

Romantic Relationships

            This might be the hardest area of all in our lesson. Specifically because our perspective and decision making skills in the midst of a passionate relationship have a tendency to become grossly distorted. There is often no more influential relationship in our lives than a romantic relationship; for some, more influential than their professed relationship with Christ. I have yet to meet young lovers with the ability to always think clearly beyond their love for one another. The desire to be in a romantic relationship is not exclusive to unbelievers. Both of my daughters attend a Christian university and sometimes I think Christians are more obsessed with entering into romantic relationships than are non-Christians. However, that’s a topic for another time. Currently, the point I want to emphasize is not the romantic relationship between unbelievers or the romantic relationship between believers but the romantic relationship between an unbeliever and a believer. There is no better example of being unequally yoked then a believer entering into a romantic relationship with an unbeliever. Don’t believe me? Let me try and give you a couple of examples:

1. Believers are opposed to sexual relations prior to marriage on a biblical basis. Unbelievers have no such basis for opposition.
2. Believers are called to use their resources, financial and otherwise, for the good of others. Unbelievers have no such calling.
3. Believers are instructed to raise their children according to biblical values. Unbelievers have no basis for absolute values to instill in their children.
4. Believers are compelled to obey God’s calling for their lives. Unbelievers are compelled by their own desires.
5. Believers worship the Lord of the universe in this life with an eye toward eternity. Unbelievers worship the things that bring them satisfaction and happiness in this life only—money, sex, and power.

There are no doubt many other examples but you probably get my point. For all of you who are not yet married and are in this type of relationship, don’t hide behind the excuse that your love is strong enough to overcome any obstacle. The instruction in our Subject Text is not conditioned on the depth of your love for one another—it is an absolute prohibition. Furthermore, don’t make the excuse that you, as a believer, will be able to win over your unbelieving partner. You have removed the primary motivation for your partner to become a believer—the condition of being in a relationship with you. Once that condition is removed, all motivation for the unbeliever to become a believer is removed. And to make matters worse, you have now compromised your own ability to think clearly about whether or not you should be in a relationship with this person because you have allowed yourself to become romantic involved. If you are a believer and this describes your relationship, I’m begging you to consider carefully what you are doing and whether your relationship with your unbelieving partner is more important than being faithful to God’s very clear instruction on this matter.

Marriage Relationships

           Regardless of what the world would like us to believe, marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman whether God is officially recognized in that union or not. In the course of a marriage, if either the man or the woman becomes a believer, the Bible is clear that they are to remain together if the unbelieving spouse is willing to remain married (1 Cor 7:12-16). Why wouldn’t the unbeliever be willing to remain married? What’s the difference? The implication is that the believer must now live according to biblical principles at which point an unbeliever may not be willing to remain married to the believing spouse. So what’s the difference between being in an unequally yoked relationship prior to marriage and an unequally yoked relationship after marriage? The sacred union of marriage and its metaphorical illustration of the relationship of Christ (the Bridegroom) and his Church (the Bride) is the difference. Remember, marriage is a sacred bond whether or not the participants recognize God in that bond or not. It is one thing to deal with the struggle of becoming unequally yoked after marriage. It is quite another to disobey God by entering into a marriage already unequally yoked. As with any marriage, the danger is always the dissolution of the marriage bond in divorce which is never God’s will for marriage relationships even as they are a reality of our fallen world. And entering a marriage unequally yoked from the start adds an element of difficulty to a relationship that is hard enough even when a husband and wife are both believers.

            Please listen to what I’m not saying and what I am saying. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t engage with the unbelieving world around us. We can’t be salt and light if we spend all our time among salt and light. Salt is needed to bring out the full flavor of life that is missing in the lives of unbelievers. And the guiding light of believers is need in a dark unbelieving world. These things are only possible when we engage an unbelieving world. I am saying that we must guard our hearts and minds in the midst all our relationships recognizing that many of those relationships are quite powerful and have the strength to divert our hearts and minds away from our commitment to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. These are the relationships we must temper or avoid altogether. These relationships can make us stumble and fall in our walk of faith. Paul calls our journey of faith a race and we should run that race so as to win (1 Cor 9:24-27). However, being involved in influential relationships with unbelievers is like being unequally yoked in A Three-Legged Race.

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[1] William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, (Lexington, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pp. 2-3.

[2] Fritz Rienecker, A Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980), p. 474.

[3] Colin Brown, gen. ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), p. 424.

[4] Cleon L. Rogers Jr. & Cleon L. Rogers III, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), p. 405.

[5] Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians—The New International Greek Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 503.

[6] Scott J. Hafemann, 2 Corinthians—The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), p. 292.

[7] Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981), p. 80-83.