The Social Network

2 Corinthians 14 says, “¹⁴ Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? ¹⁵ What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.”

Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth. By reading the first letter with the second letter we begin to see that he was having to give much instruction about righteous living. It seems that they were doing just about everything possible to abuse grace and freedom, and were mixing their old ways of sin with their new lives in christ (which by the way is not new to us today). In this passage he was explaining what we might call the social network. People who were claiming to call themselves Christians were being pulled away by social relationships from their walk with Christ.

In this passage the first important concept is when he says “do not be yoked together with unbelievers.” It’s very important to understand this concept. A yoke was used to connect to ox or cattle together to become one in their work. When two beasts of burden were equally yoked it was like a finely tuned mustang. It was powerful and effective. But when the two animals were unequally yoked, the weaker animal would pull down the stronger animal and both would become less effective.

The yoke concept was also used in the old testament to describe the law passed down from Moses, like a burden that was difficult to keep. But in the context of 1 Corinthians I believe that the exact usage of this word is only used once in this context (Stong’s number 2086).

The first thought that comes to mind is that we are not to be friends with non-christians…does this make sense? Not at all! Of course we are to love everyone and encourage those around us with love and the word. We are to minister to others. Paul himself says earlier in the letter: ⁹ I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— ¹⁰ not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.”

The concept of the yoke is what puts us in context. It is telling us that when the time comes to do the good work, we can’t be socially networked with the world that it would pull us away from Christ. Facebook seems to be the ultimate network, however, I think it times it is the perfect example of being yoked with the wrong people. We can become consumed with looking into other people’s lives that it is a bit voyeuristic. But that is another conversation.

I pray God bring me into the right relationships at the right time with the right people!