There once was a village nestled under a great mountain with a bluff overlooking the town. The villagers lived a modest life in their agrarian setting. They farmed and bartered goods among themselves with very little contact with the rest of the world. Occasionally, visitors and peddlers ventured their way which always drew crowds as new faces and voices provided variety to their lives, and news of the outside world.
One day a stranger came to the village and spoke about holiness and purity. He warned the villagers to avoid wealth, but to live modestly. He cautioned about hording possessions, instead, be generous and to share with those in need. He counseled them to treat people fairly, not to exploit, manipulate, or to create transactional relationships. More so, he advised them to protect their heart, for out of the heart comes the worst of evil desires. A number of the villagers gravitated to his teachings, and before he left the village, they swore an oath of obedience to the things he taught.
The teacher’s followers regularly met to discuss his teachings and to encourage each other to remain pure and holy. But they were worried about other villagers who either rejected the teacher or failed to embrace him. They fretted of being tarnished by those who were not following the teacher. In time the villagers moved away from the village believing the separation was vital to remaining pure and holy. But as time passed they witnessed the influence of the village as they still had to trade goods and interact with them. So they relocated their village far up in the great mountain on the bluff. Finally, they were away from the villagers and their influences. But they could still see the village below, and feared some might want to return to the village. Meeting together, they decided to encase their community’s presence by constructing a huge bubble protecting them – some might say isolating them – from the outside world, as they no longer could see or hear anything but themselves. They began the process of building the bubble and sealing themselves inside so no one could leave or have contact with the outside world.
Years passed. Those nestled in the village below looked up at the bubble on the bluff and wondered what had become of the separatists. One day a group decided to go investigate and to see what had become of their fellow-villagers in the bubble. Without finding a natural entrance, they broke in only to discover that everyone had died. Upon further investigation, they realized that the villagers failed to install a proper ventilation system, and tragically, everyone in the bubble had suffocated.
As people who are called to walk in holiness, we often struggle to engage the world for fear of being contaminated by the ungodly. The temptation to withdraw to a protective bubble is real.
I was a teenager when my mom provided an illustration to warn my sister and me of the danger of ill-chosen friends. She took a glass of pure fresh water and dropped a little dirt in it, and began to stir. Suddenly, we witnessed the fresh water morph into dirty, undrinkable water. No matter how much clear water mom added to the glass, it only diluted the dirty water, never sanitizing, purifying or cleansing the water.
Her point was that some of the people we engaged with will taint or dirty our souls, and nothing on our part can purify what has been tainted. We needed to be careful of who we connect our lives to. The irony, of coursel, is that the vast majority of kids we encountered were connected to church as we attended three times a week and were enrolled at a private Christian school. We kinda lived in a bubble, leaving one to ponder, if you can’t trust your Christian friends, who can you trust?
Paul was quite explicit when he told the Corinthians, “Do not be yoked with unbelievers” in 2 Corinthians 6:14. The strong and forceful language draws from the Mosaic Law (Dt. 22:10). One may yoke two donkeys together or two oxen together, but they were never to yoke a donkey with an oxen. The pure size and strength of the oxen would drag the poor donkey into the dirt and kill him, unintentionally, but unmercifully. Paul is saying that believers yoked with unbelievers lacks equality, and someone will end up getting hurt. Really hurt.
This particular section in 2 Corinthians has two unique characteristics. First, it’s held together by Paul’s pleas of reconciliation. On the front end, he claims he has opened his heart to the Corinthians (6:11-12). On the back end, he has been honest and open with them (7:2). Now he implores them to open their hearts to him (stated in 6:13 and repeated in 7:2). But in order to do so the Corinthians must come clean, breaking the yoke they’ve made with “unbelievers.” They must break the yoke of idolatry before they can be yoked once again to the gospel, and to Paul.
Herein lies the second unique characteristic of this passage. Paul asks five rhetorical questions in verses 14-16, constructed in a way that he expects the negative answer.
● “What do righteousness and wickedness have in common” (v. 14b)? Not anything.
● “What fellowship can light have with darkness” (v. 14c)? None.
● “What harmony is there between Christ and Belial” (v. 15a)? Only dissonance.
● “What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever” (v. 15b)? Zilch.
● “What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols” (v. 16a)? Nothing. Absolutely, nothing.
Clearly the answer Paul is seeking to each of these questions is “No.” Thus, his command “not to be yoked with unbelievers” means that the pagan temple is no setting fit for those who are themselves the temple of God.
The Corinthians struggled with idolatry, so much so that Paul spent three chapters in his first letter addressing the issue (1 Cor. 8-10). It’s clear that they have yet to break free from the grips of the temple worship of Aphrodite, Apollo, and Poseidon, a participation in total contrast to the gospel of Jesus. So in order for the church re-forge their bond to Paul, they must break their bonds to idolatry.
Herein lies an important truth. Paul is not telling them to separate from all society, but a segment of society that is rooted in idolatry, a very false reality of the divine, driven by power, manipulation, money, and sex. Yoke is a strong word of identification. From the context, they must break the yoke that ties them to such a false reality of life since they are yoked to Jesus.
If we were to expose the idolatrous environment today where we are unequally yoked, we might delve into individualism at the expense of community, or the desire for transactional relationships, or presuming that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing and that poverty is a sign of God’s rejection , or gravitating toward celebrity charismatic leaders who lack character, or the animalistic sexual identity mainstreamed since the 1960’s, or the cult-like church culture where probing questions are a threat to the control-driven leadership. Paul might tell us to separate ourselves from these environments, but he does not tell us to separate ourselves from the world.
I once preached a sermon where I used the glasses of water with dirt as an illustration of sin. I created the tension of being pure and holy people while absorbing the sinful stains of society. I hit this message hard, saying that the world will contaminate what God has made holy, and when that happens, I didn’t know what we could do to rectify it. I allowed the moment of hopelessness to sink in and unsettle the church.
With proper prep work and instructions, my middle-school son broke the silence and spoke up. “I know what to do, Dad.” He took the glass filled with dirty water and left the sanctuary only to return with the glass filled with clear, pure water. I asked him what he did, and he said, “I washed the cup clean.” He washed it clean, something God has done and continues to do for us too. God washes us clean.
In 1976 John Travolta starred in a movie about a boy who was born with Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Travolta’s character, Todd, could not live without some form of air filtration system. A simple cold might turn into irreparable pneumonia and kill him. Thus, Todd lived his entire life in a sterilized environment where his living quarters were protected by sanitized tarp, or a plastic bubble.
The good news is that Todd grows up and gets to live a life. The bad news is obvious, is being caged up in a plastic bubble really living? Of course not. So by the time he reaches his teenage years, Todd looks for a way to escape his sterile environment so that he is no longer the boy in the plastic bubble.
God never calls for us to pull away from the world, to isolate ourselves from the influences of the world, or to build a bubble of protection. No, we are to engage the world, society, and people on a regular basis in all of its sins and filth. Yes, it can be challenging. Yes, it can be scary. But what’s the alternative? We cannot engage the world if we’re living inside of a bubble.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)