Of Yokes and Compromise

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, (2Corintians 6: 14 – 17)

We love compartmentalizing scriptural passages. We choose what we want a passage to tell us as opposed to what it could actually be saying. We choose convenient truth instead of Biblical truth.

The passage above is not exceptional. All my life I have never heard it addressing any other aspect but marriage. You wonder why it does not simply say ‘do not get married to unbelievers’ yet that is a subject that has been addressed many times all through the Bible.

Yet is that passage only dealing with discordant marriage? Does marriage close other interpretations of that passage? Can it be speaking about other issues?

What is a yoke? What is the purpose of a yoke? Why a yoke?

Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. (Deuteronomy 22:10)

The easiest way to describe the yoke is a partnership to accomplish a task that would have been difficult or impossible to accomplish alone. For that purpose marriage strictly does not fall there. Marriage makes two people one. And this is the reason two men or women can never make a marriage as the gay movement want to force us to accept. No wonder God calls it confusion and an abomination as it goes against normality, even nature itself.

Though the verse can be applied to marriage, and there is nothing wrong there, we strip the verses of their power when we restrict them in our teaching to marriage.

Business is the most accurate place to apply the verse. Business partnerships are to me the greatest focus of those verses.

But for our desire for compromise we choose to ignore the plain facts in scripture. Then we can feign ignorance when we reap damnation because we continue to listen to pastors who are more interested in your tithes and offerings than your spiritual health and so won’t mind you getting into those get rich quick partnerships since they will benefit them somehow.

Let me explain. I read of a governor who has interests in a brewery or distillery where these lethal brews are made in this crackdown of illicit brews in Kenya. The shocking fact is that I knew him as an ordained minister, even a leader in a denomination before joining politics. What has gone wrong? Has he left the faith?

I suspect he joined partnership with money hungry friends. Most such agreements are designed by the unbelieving partner. ‘You do the clean bit and I will do the filthy one’ is what many such partnerships are negotiated around. The believer will continue being respectable until the devil needs to unmask him as he has done this friend.

Since a believer has issues with corruption and bribing, the unbelieving yokefellow will deal with those aspects of business as the believer follows the clean paths. Then the believer’s faith will not be compromised as he was never near those dirty deals and therefore is ‘completely unaware’ that they ever took place.

But that ignorance is strategic for the most part. I want a short cut to wealth without dirtying my hands and conscience by partnering with someone whose morals allow them to be wicked. No wonder there is no difference between the righteous and wicked rich as it relates to their wealth. No wonder very few successful business can humbly acknowledge that were it not for the Lord they would be nowhere unless to enable them gain spiritual mileage. Many profess to be self made because they know that God would be very offended to be associated with their success. And of course it is very good public relations to be successful on your terms. And no wonder the next generation is deserting the faith as it is despicable looking at the distance between your confession and conduct through those partnerships.

Let us go to scripture. Do you realize that Solomon was not a womanizer as most portray him? Why do I say so? Many of his wives were negotiated packages that were meant to seal business deals. That is the reason they would carry their gods into Israel. They were not married as normal wives were. As signatures to a business deal, they really were way above a normal wife as they represented a business partnership. And that is the yoking I am talking about.

We see the same with Ahab. Jezebel was not the only wife he had. But she was the wife who represented the kingdom that entered in partnership with.

Produce scriptural evidence. I know someone is shouting. At Ahab’s death there were seventy sons who were safely being raised in Jezreel (2 Kings 10: 1). Of course he also had several daughters, one of whom was married to the king of Judah and probably other grown sons who run his kingdom with him. Jezebel could not have born all of them even if she had been superhuman. It is therefore safe to assume that Ahab had thirty wives or thereabouts if we look at the trends then. Why then do we not hear of any other wife? Jezebel was the product of a yoking between two kings and so above all the other wives.

We see the same with Athaliah her daughter whose case was not different. And we can see her authority, especially when she seeks to clear the royal seed after her son dies, yet the king had other wives. Again she was the signature of a partnership, the evidence of the yoking between two kingdoms.

That is the difference between them and Rahab the Harlot and Ruth. They left their pasts on surrender terms as opposed to negotiated terms. They left them completely to join Israel. There was no partnership, only a submission to the God that Israel worshipped.

I therefore want to put it to you that yoking with unbelievers has more to do with the marketplace than the marriage institution. There are already enough verses, even whole passages that clearly speak about that. And you will find them in both testaments.

From business to farming to entrepreneurship to education to politics, that is the clearest context of these verses.

Imagine you have a partner who sleeps around to get lucrative contracts. Can you really disown yourself from her conduct even if you do not do the same? Suppose like the reverend I have mentioned your partner starts a beer factory though you will never get near it because of your faith. Can you really say that you are not responsible for the many lives are being wasted by your yoking?

We have a saying in our tribe (language if that is more comfortable for you). ‘There is no difference between the thief and the one who looks. Of course I can’t interpret accurately but the point is that a thief who steals and a bystander, maybe lookout, are not any different. In fact that is what in legal terms is called accessory to stealing.

Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God. (Deuteronomy 23:18)

Unequal yoke may also relate to some offerings we receive in our churches. Receiving large offerings from questionable sources will many times lead to compromising our spiritual stand; and this especially if we knew that the sources were questionable but decided to sanctify the money instead of rejecting it because we had a project that really needed that money.

I am not saying we scrutinize all the sources of our offerings. I am talking about a known thief, or swindler, or prostitute, or filthy adulterer coming to sort out the church out of a crisis whether they know about it or not.

I have heard of pastors who were emasculated because they were brought very good suits or a car by a prostitute. They were eventually forced by that generosity into adultery. I know a few pastors who were given very good and expensive gifts by questionable characters become spiritual acrobats when it comes to issues of sin. They will preach everything else but sin because that (or those) gifts blocked his stand against sin.

This is the reason churches look for rich people instead of spiritual people when they choose leaders. They prefer a PhD instead of a fervent intercessor to lead the prayer ministry. They look for the successfull musician instead of a person whose lifestyle challenges people to worship God when they need a worship leader. They would rather overlook scriptural qualification than offend those sources of money.

What do you think? And what is the application?

Suppose God has given you songs that you feel need to be recorded (assuming He has asked you to record them). How do you look for a producer or studio? To many the answer is obvious. Look for the one who will do more than record. Look for the one who will put you on the charts by all means. Should they be believers, then well and good. But faith is not one of the qualities you look for in a production house. And according to the interpretation of those verses you have started on a losing side because you have lost the God dimension.

That is the reason musicians start very spiritual and with success remain with lyrics as the only thing identifying them with the faith. I remember reading an interview of a successful musician in the ‘Gospel’ genre who clearly does not think her divorce has any connection with whatever she calls ministry. Does she read her Bible? I think her success has made the Bible irrelevant.

And it is the same if the roles are reversed and it is the musician who is not a believer.

Or you could be pursuing a business partnership and the person who seems to agree with your terms or has the kind of money you require is not a believer. Reasoning that it is not a spiritual venture will lead you into the kind of yoking we are talking about.

Many times it is an unequal yoke where blood other than the blood of Christ is involved. Relatives make spiritual compromise very wicked because such yoking brings generations of issues. Such partnerships could bring you loads of money but also an excess of demonic influence, especially if those relatives come from a past of spiritual compromise or ungodliness.

Let me leave it there. Look at your situation and ray for God to open your eyes to what reality in His eyes you are in. then act accordingly.

This is because Solomon and Ahab and Jehoshaphat displeased God and were judged through such yoking. And God will never overlook such compromise, irrespective of the kind of money or success it produces for you.