Don't Scramble Your Yokes

I want to look briefly at the famous verse used by all of our grandmothers to warn us about dating or marrying non-christians. Well maybe your grandmother didn't tell you this verse and come to think of it, I don't think mine did either but I'm sure you've heard it said;

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"

This is a verse from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians and I think this verse has some major implications, but I do think many have misunderstood this verse and taken it out of context to meet their own personal agendas and beliefs. That's why you may have also heard a hellfire and brimestone fundamentalist Christian use this verse to support his claim that we should not hang out with non-christians, go to party, celebrate Halloween, or sit in a sport's bar and watch a football game. So does this verse mean, we shouldn't even share our scrambled eggs at breakfast with a non-christian in fear of our yokes gettting mixed together? Maybe, in a different kind of way, let me explain.

Let's talk about yokes. It might help to know what a yoke is, and no its not the kind that comes from an egg. To know about yokes we have to know about Rabbis. In Jesus' day there were rabbi's everywhere, in fact Jesus' diciples called him rabbi or "teacher." A rabbi was basically an interpreter. His role was to study, meditate and make interpretations on what it meant to live out the Torah or the first 5 books of the Old Testament. So rabbis went around teaching their interpretations of the scripture, which were basically sets of rules or lists on what was permitted and what was forbade for a faithful Jew. Different rabbis had different interpretations for what it meant to obey the Law; one example being the command to keep the Sabbath day holy. That's why we see Jesus' interpretation of the Sabbath command in Matthew 12, and various other times when Jesus says "You have heard it said...but I tell you..." Now these sets of rules and lists which were basically the rabbi's interpretation of how to live out the Torah as a faithful Jew, were called that rabbi's yoke. So if you were a disciple of a rabbi then you were following him because you believed that rabbi's interpretations were the closest to what God originally intended in the Sciptures. So whenever you followed a rabbi, it was said that you were taking up that rabbi's yoke. *

So don't quit on me now, we are gettin to the good stuff. Lets take our knowledge of yokes now and apply it to our feature verse in 2 Corinithians 6:14. "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers." What do you think Paul meant by this verse? I think it means that we shouldn't be yoked to an unbeliever like a disciple is to a rabbi. Or in other words, our core beliefs and interpretations on how to live life shouldn't be the same as a non-christian. Now can this happen if we celebrate halloween, hangout with unbelievers at parties, and go to sports bars? Maybe, but only if we fall into the ways of this world and take up another person's yoke. This verse doesn't mean that we shouldn't eat supper with our Atheist buddy, it just means that our beliefs shouldn't be influenced and changed to be the same as our Atheist buddy. This might make it hard to marry a non-christian who has a different yoke than you, especially since marriage means you become "one" with that person and your eggs are now in the same basket. Makes sense right. Good. Your Granny was right afterall. So don't be scramblin your yokes with other homies yo! Take up the yoke of the only rabbi who had it right, Jesus!

* Credit to Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis. Check this book out for a detailed explanation of a rabbi's yoke.