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.

2 Corinthians 6:14-16a

I have heard sermons in the past that used this text to teach that Christians should not marry unbelievers, but wouldn’t that be a funny thing for Paul to get into in a defense of his apostolic ministry? More to the point, wouldn’t there be a potential conflict with his instruction in 1 Corinthians 7:10-14 in which he told the people not to abandon their unbelieving spouses?

Hmm… What is old Paul up to here?

Paul’s wording is interesting: “yoked together”. There are similar references in two other places, Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:10. In Leviticus, different kinds of animals aren’t to be mated together; in Deuteronomy, two different kinds of animals are not to be yoked together to plow a field. To me, particularly since Paul has not given any of his usual hints that he’s changing the subject, the Deuteronomy reference makes a lot more sense than understanding this as a new unit about marriage. Remember, this section began in chapter 3 with outsiders coming into the church to convince people of a host of accusations against Paul…

Oh yes, he is referring to two kinds of animals plowing a field…

So, Paul is going back to the situation that led to the whole problem that broke out in Corinth and nearly destroyed the whole church there, when non-Christians used lies and slanders to attack him, and by extension, Christianity, while in their midst. With this understanding, the rest of this chapter is easy to follow. In our verses above, he uses a series of contrasts to illustrate his point. I should mention that Belial is a name that appears nowhere else in Scripture but was used numerous times in Jewish non-Scriptural literature of the times as a direct reference to Satan.

To support his position, Paul cites three Old Testament passages, and then concludes:

Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

2 Corinthians 7:1

To be holy means to be “set apart”. For the church be holy, it must be set apart for God; that is what it means to live in holiness. Being set apart is not to be better than everyone or to be self-righteous and speaking harshly about other people. Rather, we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves. However, it does mean that the church should not allow itself to be led astray or heavily influenced by non-believers. I have no doubt that the Corinthians who received this letter would happily testify to the disaster that this error caused in their midst.

As we continue, Paul will express his great joy that the Corinthians have repented of the mistake, the mistake he has just been talking about.