In our study this morning we will look at a passage which includes a verse that is probably familiar to many of you. Paul warns us not to be "unequally yoked". In previous studies I think we've looked at this principle before in regard to marriage and business partnerships. But today we are going to look at it in regard to idolatry. The traditional type of idolatry is in view here in Chapter 6: the type that involves bowing down to the image of a false god. Paul warns his readers to be careful about the company they keep because they might be seduced back into their old ways of living.
But his advice isn't only valid for first century Christians. We all have to guard against idolatry, except here in the year 2018 idolatry is usually disguised as something else. If someone asked me to bow down before an image with them, I would refuse because I am able to see that this would be wrong. But modern idolatry has been cleverly disguised. Satan knows that in most developed countries we are too sophisticated to bring incense and offerings to an image, so he tempts us into other forms of idolatry. We must keep in mind that an idol is anything we value more than God or more than our relationship with Him.
"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14) Paul isn't saying we aren't to associate with unbelievers. That would be literally impossible, for as he said in 1 Corinthians 5:10, to avoid unbelievers we would have to leave the world altogether. Besides, if we were never to associate with unbelievers, how could we share the gospel with them? How could we minister to them in any way? He is talking instead about very close associations, and he uses an agricultural example in order to fix his meaning in the minds of his readers. A yoke was used to harness two animals together in order to plow a field. The farmer would choose two animals (let's say two bulls) that were as similar as possible in size and strength. This created the best team to perform the work. The farmer would never dream of putting a small and weak bull in a yoke with a large and strong bull. The strong bull would become weary and worn out from doing all the work, the weak bull would get injured from being dragged along by the stronger partner, and the rows in the garden wouldn't be straight.
Paul is saying, "You are believers and this makes you big and strong. You have power, courage, and endurance. Why would you want to get in a yoke with unbelievers who are weak and faithless and fearful? Forming a close relationship with someone like that is going to wear you down. It's going to cause you to drift from the straight and narrow. You may think you can help and change the unbeliever, but being in a yoke with them is not the way to do this. Either you will hurt them by dragging them along behind you, or else you will lower yourself to their level and become just as weak."
"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 o God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God." (2 Corinthians 6:15-16a) I have friends who are non-Christians and I have friends who don't even believe in God. Paul's not telling us we can't associate with people of different faiths or with agnostics or atheists. He's talking about being in the yoke with an unbeliever, of being in a very close partnership with them. This is good advice for dating. A believer shouldn't even start going out with an unbeliever. What if they fall in love? That would lead to the two of them being unequally yoked together in holy matrimony. It's good advice for business, since the believing partner and the unbelieving partner will have completely different ideas and methods for running the business. It's good advice for selecting a best friend as well. If this is going to be the type of friendship where one person is hardly ever seen without the other, it's important that both friends share the same values. The unbeliever can't encourage the believer in the faith. The friendship itself might be satisfying in a lot of ways, but if this is the person we are going to spend most of our leisure time with, and if this is the first person we are going to call when we need help, it's best if both of us share the same faith.
Would we take the temple of God and build an addition onto it for a false god? Of course we wouldn't literally do such a thing, but Paul says we are symbolically doing such a thing when we yoke ourselves tightly together with an unbeliever. We are the temple of God because His Spirit lives within us; therefore when we enter into a close partnership with an unbeliever it is the same as building an idolatrous addition to God's temple. In Paul's day most people who didn't believe in the God of Israel believed in some other god or gods. In our day and in the United States most people who don't believe in the God of Israel don't believe in any god at all, but in a way they have made gods of themselves. If God doesn't exist, then they have nothing to go by but their own definition of morality, and in that sense they are a law unto themselves and a god unto themselves. Who defines for them what is right or wrong? They do! To whom will they have to answer if God does not exist? No one. So does it matter whether they do right or wrong? No. Being closely yoked with an unbeliever has the capability of skewing our own moral compasses, so Paul says to beware of an association like this, repeating an earlier warning he made in 1 Corinthians 15:33, "Do not be misled: 'Bad company corrupts good character.'"
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