Can Someone Explain...?

[KinaBolina]

Can someone please explain this for me or expound upon this for me...

2 Corinthians 6:14
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

I am in a relationship, a very successful and fruitful, love filled relationship with a non-believer and I don't see how that can be bad as long as one shares their faith and is open and lets their light shine bright for the Lord.

Please share additional scriptures and advice.
Thanks!

 

[Zeena]

Fruitful?

How so?

 

[BigNorsk]

Well, what is happening here is you are substituting your own thoughts for God. Effectively, putting your faith in yourself. Now God doesn't tell you to do things to hurt you, but he doesn't force you to follow his instructions. However, disobedience equals sin and it will hurt your relationship with God. Your basic choice is whether or not to follow God's teachings. That is what faith is, are you going to live by faith or are you going to live some other way?

Marv

 

[Tonks]

Ah, but what if this relationship leads the unbeliever to Christ?

 

[united4Peace]

My husband is a nonbeliever, always has been, Ive always been a believer, and we're doing just fine.
Children are being raised in the Church and my husband supports it. Comes to church with me infact when he can. We both feel its good that the kids get a background knowing God and then when they are an adult they can make up their mind from their as he did.

If you both respect each other then I dont see anything wrong with being together.
The key is respect.
Both can be Christians and not have respect, which then wouldnt be good, better to have respect and love
for ones faith, as I think thats what God would want. But Im not God so I cant speak for her/him

 

[Zeena]

I guess it depends on if you're on FIRE for God or not..

2 Peter 2:8
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds)

 

[JimfromOhio]

I fellowship with a non-believer however I am careful on "how I am fellowshipping" with them. Worst case scenerio, fear of something would happen is always often in everyone's mind. We are to "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."--Matt. 26:41. Biblically, Christians are no longer "in the flesh": "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him" (Rom 8:9). "If Christ is in us, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10). Through the Sword of the Spirit, we have the power to overcome any temptations and evil that we face in this world. People who KNOWS me personally is my biggest evangelism with my own creditbility.

 

[GenemZ]

Can someone please explain this for me or expound upon this for me...

2 Corinthians 6:14
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

I am in a relationship, a very successful and fruitful, love filled relationship with a non-believer and I don't see how that can be bad as long as one shares their faith and is open and lets their light shine bright for the Lord.

Please share additional scriptures and advice.
Thanks!

Why are you asking? Are you walking in the Spirit? Then God knows something you do not yet know.

If you are walking in your flesh? Why even ask? The truth would not even matter.

It can mean several things.

Worst thing you can do is to ask of others for what you should be praying to God alone for. You and God. If you are being spiritual? He will answer prayer. If you are in your flesh? You will reap what you sow.

In Christ, GeneZ

 

[BigNorsk]

Ah, but what if this relationship leads the unbeliever to Christ?

What if it leads her away?

 

[HappyMomof4]

[BIBLE]1 Peter 3

Wives and Husbands

1Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,[/BIBLE]

My husband didn't believe in God for the first 8 years of our marriage. And now he does.

So you never know what might happen.

 

[KinaBolina]

First of all, nothing could sway my faith in Christ. NOTHING. My faith has never waivered and a solid, loving relationship with a person who respects my faith and loves that I love the Lord (even though he is not a a believer) certainly will not cause me to fall away from God. I did not begin this thread to defend my personal relationship with my boyfriend. I am asking for clarification and additional scripture addressing this topic. Thank you to those who provided this information.

Zeena - Fruitful in that we have both grown as a result of the friendship and love we share. We learn things from eachother everyday and have become better people for this relationship we have made. He knows I believe God has blessed this relationship and that I pray for him and for us and that I attribute our strength to the Lord.

BigNorsk - I believe you are making assumptions about me. I am a curious Christian who strives to know the word of God more and to make sure my life is in line with what he wants for my life. If I have invested 2 years of my life into a wonderful relationship and today read a scripture that says God doesn't want that for me, I demand to know why. This involves, praying on the matter, reading his word, and seeking fellowship.

Tonks - Thank you, that is exactly what I feel in my heart to be the truth of this situation. I hope and pray dearly that I will bring my boyfriend to Christ eventually.

JimfromOhio - Thanks, that was awesome! I strive to always live filled with the Spirit of the Lord and I hope that it pierces the heart of my boyfriend.

Genez - Your posed questions are very hepful. I do feel like I am walking in the spirit. I have faith that God will work in my boyfriend's heart through me. I do like to hear the experiences (THANK YOU UNITED4PEACE!!!) of my fellow Christians and it is always valuable to seek out the resources of those who may know more than you. Some people may find scripture that I do not know well enough to find. I pray to God always, but I also find it useful to seek fellowship when I am confused.

 

[Margim]

Can someone please explain this for me or expound upon this for me...

2 Corinthians 6:14
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

I am in a relationship, a very successful and fruitful, love filled relationship with a non-believer and I don't see how that can be bad as long as one shares their faith and is open and lets their light shine bright for the Lord.

Please share additional scriptures and advice.
Thanks!

Nothing to add to that. Its a caution, not a rule. If it works for you, then that's fantastic.

 

[sgrimsley]

Here's a verse that may help you: I Corinthians 7:12-17, "... If a Christian man has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her. And if a Christian woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him. For the Christian wife brings hliness to her marriage, and the Christian husband brings holiness to his marriage... ...16, Don't you wives reallize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don't you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you?" Although Paul did not have divine direction for this piece of advice, he is giving a Christian obligation to the believer of the relationship whose sole purpose is to bring the other to Christ through the holiness of the marriage. Paul says that if your beliefs drive the other away, "let him go, for the Lord wishes you to live in peace." But I think it's clear that God does not wish anything but love in your relationship, but remember that He must come first. God bless you and keep you.

 

[Peaceful Dove]

I believe that the Bible is a bit like a Manufacturers handbook.
Everything in it (NT) was written almost 2000 years ago, before medical miracles, psychology, statistics and all the data and technology we have today but it has withstood the test of time. Imagine that?

God knew from the very beginning what would be good and healthy for his kids.

Today, somewhere around 50% of all marriages fail, end in divorce. How much is that against God's plan?

Almost the entire culture today is designed to destroy the traditional family. A successful marriage, a lasting one is extremely hard to accomplish. Take if from someone who has been married almost 52 years.
With everything working against that success, it is good to study Gods instructions on how he designed it to work.
If you start with one of the scriptures quoted here, women, be submissive to your husband. Husband, love your wife the way God loves His Church.
Immediate rebellion!!!! Me be submissive!!!! What am I to be a doormat????

Anyway, with everything going against the family, it would seem best that in the very important things, God being the most important, it would be best if a couple would be of one mind.

That is not the answer you were looking for but the only one I have to offer.

 

[dcyates]

Can someone please explain this for me or expound upon this for me...

2 Corinthians 6:14
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

I am in a relationship, a very successful and fruitful, love filled relationship with a non-believer and I don't see how that can be bad as long as one shares their faith and is open and lets their light shine bright for the Lord.

Please share additional scriptures and advice.
Thanks!

I feel compelled to throw in my two cents but, although it's going to seem perhaps a bit long-winded and done in a round-about way, I'm confident it'll be worth at least some of your attention.

I think we need to look at the whole passage, which extends from 2 Cor 6.14-7.1. Paul quotes several OT texts which emphasize the huge privilege that God's people have, precidely in being his people. And in one of them he is adapting a biblical promise, not to the people in general, but to the King--to the son who would be born to David, whom God would 'raise up', and to whom God would be a father.

The passage in question is 2 Samuel 7.12-14: "When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, one who will come from your own body, and I will make firm his kingdom. He will build a house to my name, and I will make firm his kingly throne for the ages; I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me."

This passage was, in fact, a favourite quotation in the early church, highlighting the fact that the Messiah, the coming king from the line of David, would be God's own son in a special way. But Paul has made two crucial moves in re-reading the text. First, he has opened it up so that what was promised to the coming king is now promised to all God's people. Second, he has made it clear, in doing so, that the word 'sons' needs to have 'daughters' added, in case anyone thought the promise was for men only, not for women as well (cf. Gal. 3.28).

Does this mean that Paul is simply playing around with the text, making it mean whatever he wants? Not at all. Let's remember what he said back in chapter 1: all God's promises find their 'Yes' in the Messiah, the anointed one... because God has 'anointed' us too (1.20-21)! It is part of Paul's most basic understanding that what is true of the Messiah is true of all his people, and that this is espressed in the fact that God's people have all been 'anointed' with God's own Spirit. That's why he can sometimes even use the word 'Messiah' to refer, not just to Jesus as an individual, but to Jesus-and-his-people together (e.g., 1 cor 1.13, 12.12; Gal. 3.16). Paul may appear at first sign to be using the text to say something quite different, but as usual when we get down underneath we find a deep resonance between the original text and his own interpretation, based in his understanding of the way in which God's promises have come true in the Messiah.

The passage in 2 Samuel 7 goes on to warn David that God will treat his son, God's adopted son, precisely as a son. This will mean that God will bring him up quite strictly, disciplining him when he goes astray. Paul may have that in mind as well throughout this passage, which warns against presuming upon God's love as an excuse for corrupting the purity of the church's life, and verses 16-18 of the present passage echo several other OT passages in which this same note is present. Verse 16: 'I will be their God, they will be my people'; that comes from Ezekiel 37.27, the great promise of restoration after exile seem in terms of resurrection. Verse 17: 'some out from them and be separate'; that comes from Isaiah 52.11, in the middle of the passage about God's coming kingdom, rescuing the exiles from Babylon, and leading on to the work of the Servant of the Lord who would die and rise again to accomplish God's purpose. And verse 18, as well as echoing 2 Samuel 7.14, also carries an echo of Jeremiah 31.9, where God promises once more that he will bring his people back from Babylon, because he is a father to Israel, and Ephraim (one part of Israel) is his firstborn.

These are not passages taken at random. Together they all say: in the Messiah, God has fulfilled his many promises, particularly his promises that he would bring his people from exile. But the real exile was not the exile from Babylon; it was the exile of death itself. And through the Messiah's own death and resurrection this exile has been undone. It is now time for God's people to come home to him, home from the land of sin and death, home to the father who will receive them with open arms. Not for the first time in Paul, we hear in this passage echoes of Jesus' great parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15; esp. vv. 11-32).

Once we understand what Paul is doing in quoting these OT texts, we should be able to understand the appeal of this passage as a whole. This is how it works: if you really are the returned-from-exile people, the people for whom sin and death have been defeated, the people whom the living God has embraced as his own sons and daughters, then you must look around at the pagan world, learn to see it as it really is, and take action appropriately. Paul does not want them to hide from the world, to live in secret; he's already made that clear in 1 Cor 5.9-10. But he doesn't want them to enter into close partnerships with those who are still living by the old way of life, which in fact the way of death. In verses 14-16 he line up the contrasts: you stand for justice, light, the Messiah, faithfulness, and the temple of God, whereas the world that rejects the gospel ultimately stands for injustice, darkness, Beliar (a rare word for the satan), unfaithfulness and idolatry. You must therefore take care to keep yourselves pure, not to let the world drag you down or force you into its own way (see 2 Cor 7.1).

The basic command, in 6.14, could refer to any sort of partnership, such as business. But its most obvious reference is to marriage. In 1 Cor 7.12-16 Paul addresses the question of people who become Christians when their spouse does not, and tells them not to separate unless the unbelieving spouse wants to. But in verse 39 of that same chapter he makes it clear that when contracting a fresh marriage it is important that this be only 'in the Lord', in other words, to a fellow-Christian. That is the thrust of this passage as well.

Paul had no doubt witnessed the tensions and problems that arose when one partner came to belong to the Lord, with all that that meant, and the other one remained unbelieving. Anyone who thinks this doesn't matter very much, Paul would say, has simply not realized how serious belonging to the Messiah really is. If you have received privileges such as the ones he lists here, you mustn't trample on them as though they were worthless. That would be like the Prodigal son spurning his father's welcome and going back to feed the pigs.

Besides, if you end up marrying this fellow, having and raising children with him, when your son or daughter grows older and tells you they're in a serious relationship with a non-Christian (or even a devout member of another religion), be honest with yourself, what are you going to tell them? "Oh, how nice, dear"? "Gee, that's great, sweetie, you've got my full support"? Unless you're willing to answer in such a way, what leg have you got to stand on?

 

[dcyates]

Ah, but what if this relationship leads the unbeliever to Christ?

Showing integrity in living by the Scriptures one purports to believe come from God is a far better witness then it is to disregard its teachings and 'hope for the best'.

 

[dcyates]

My husband is a nonbeliever, always has been, Ive always been a believer, and we're doing just fine.
Children are being raised in the Church and my husband supports it. Comes to church with me infact when he can. We both feel its good that the kids get a background knowing God and then when they are an adult they can make up their mind from their as he did.

If you both respect each other then I dont see anything wrong with being together.
The key is respect.
Both can be Christians and not have respect, which then wouldnt be good, better to have respect and love
for ones faith, as I think thats what God would want. But Im not God so I cant speak for her/him

(Emphasis mine) We don't need to merely "think that's what God would want," nor do we need to presume to "speak for her/him." God has already revealed what his mind is on this subject. We can, of course, choose to disregard it and thereby disobey his instructions, but let's not try to 'soft-pedal' its teaching and, consequently, end up ignoring it.

 

[dcyates]

Nothing to add to that. Its a caution, not a rule. If it works for you, then that's fantastic.

What in the text leads you to conclude it's only "a caution, not a rule"?

Forgive me, Margim, but "If it works for you, then that's fantastic" is absolutely horrible advice.

 

[Zeena]

Here's some applicable text,,
Seeing how this woman claims "nothing could sway my faith in Christ. NOTHING"

Romans 11:20
Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear

 

[BigNorsk]

As for the passages about the unbelieving husband or wife and not divorcing them, that is not applicable here because this is not the situation here. It is one thing if one is a christian to stay with an unbelieving spouse, it is quite another to take an unbeliever as a spouse.

I also don't understand the demand for more verses about not being unequally yoked.

I would make a suggestion to the OP. Come over to the married section, or even the divorce or separated subsections. Ask if others have ignored the command not to marry and unbeliever because they were sure that the unbeliever would come to God through them, and ask what happened.

I'm not telling you to obey God to hurt you, it protects you. You have two loves in your life, can you imagine what a witness it would be to your boyfriend if you broke up with him because it might damage your relationship with your first love? Right now you aren't showing him that loving God is really all that special.

The unequally yoked forum is at http://www.christianforums.com/f239-unequally-yoked.html
Ask them what they would recommend, they have been exactly where you are.
Marv