“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15).
In addition to the possibilities we’ve already considered, Paul the Apostle may have suspected that the members of the Corinthian church were not more open and loving with him for another reason: they knew Paul would not approve of the relationships they had been forming with others. To address that issue, Paul will go on to illustrate the impropriety of certain relationships over the final verses of this chapter with five contrasting elements.
He began by using an illustration that would have been familiar to the first-century inhabitants of Corinth but might not be so easily understood by the modern-day residents of a non-farm economy: “Do not yoke yourselves together in a team with unbelievers” (CJB). For those who are unacquainted with the idea behind this illustration, a “yoke” describes a type of harness that is placed between two animals to unite them together in order to pull a wagon or a plow.
It was in the farmer’s best interest to place two or more of the same animals together to obtain the best result from this working arrangement. Doing so would help ensure that each animal shared the same physical ability and increased the likelihood that they would get along together. This not only made good sense but also formed the basis of a directive from the Old Testament Scriptures as well (see Deuteronomy 22:10).
One source expands on this illustration in regard to the members of the church at Corinth…
“As this relates to Corinth, history reveals that the Corinthians were notorious for their associationalism. They had guilds, societies, or associations for practically everything. Every society had its own idol or protective deity. To fail to do obeisance to this idol would be to anger the god and bring its wrath down on the guild. Thus, the Corinthians tried to go along with this idol even though they did not believe in it.” (1)
Much like the difficulties that were certain to arise from an attempt to use two mismatched animals to pull a wagon, Paul saw a similar issue arising from a Christian who was “harnessed” together with someone whose first priority was something other than Christ. We’ll look at the potential issues that might arise from such a relationship next.
(1) Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary (p. 1503). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.