About being unequally yoked to Baby Button Eyes is now in the comments here. I’m open to discussion about it. Honestly, I’m confused and …. stuff.
About being unequally yoked to Baby Button Eyes is now in the comments here. I’m open to discussion about it. Honestly, I’m confused and …. stuff.
Hmmm. For the record, I agreed with Sue Bob about the environment part. As for the “yoked” thing, I thought it was a landlord-tenant comment, and I am sure that there are better contracts (if any at all) to be had.
I’m not sure why people get so hung up on problems having to have a “spiritual” component all the time. Or anything else having to have it, for that matter.
First let say that when I read Sue Bob’s post, I heard it as a matter-of-fact statement that says, “in the world you will have this.” I didn’t read it as an indictment. It is just what happens in a world that is vicious at times. When you end up connected with people who do not share your values it can be terribly rough. Not trying to speak for Sue Bob, that’s just how I read it.
And here’s my take on the yoking thing from 2 Corinthians 6:14-15: it’s hard to button down. It can refer to a large-scale tying of persons and therefore yield a large-scale prohibition (marriage, partnership, alliance, etc.). But any relationship we have with anyone can have elements of a “yoke†that you can’t avoid, and certainly you can’t test the pedigree of everyone you have dealings with. And as you said, someone calling themselves a Christian does not guarantee they will behave as one. However, it does suggest that in the connections we have with people, we need to be on our guard knowing these things are not unexpected, as unfortunate as they are. In the end, you make the most responsible decisions you can, and accept no guilt for the outcome. Appropriate guilt is for premeditation, not honest situations that turn out wrong.
Interestingly, I have worked for several Christian employers over several decades. The Christian I am working for now is the first one I can respect. He has restored to me all that the others have taken way.
Kate P — Oh, absolutely, I agree about the environment part. Honestly, though, that’s something I didn’t realize until I’d been there a couple months. He seemed quite accommodating in the beginning, you know?
Witness — You know, I’m sure it wasn’t meant that way. I imagine it was more my frame of mind when I read it. But then, I still don’t know how a Christian can be in the business world if everything could be subjected to the unequally yoked standard. Do you base all dealings in business based on whether someone is a Christian then?
And if a believer is wrong in being in an “unequally yoked” situation, is the non-believer also in the wrong? Or is the wrong applied to one side only? I realize I’m moving away from my specific situation, but I’m just wonderin’ is all.
Actually, I don’t think it’s a matter of right and wrong. It’s a matter of wise or unwise. It’s not a moral issue. Some believers are able to successfully navigate and function in that business environment, while others find it a trap. Part of your confusion may be in the use of superlatives: //I still don’t know how a Christian can be in the business world if everything could be subjected to the unequally yoked standard.// “Everything†isn’t. What a loss it would be if Christians were never connected with non-believers. I do happen to believe that when a believer _marries_ a non-believer it creates a situation that most are not able to deal with without a lot of anguish. Very unwise, especially when the believer wants to be dynamic in his or her faith. This takes on the realm of morality because marriage is a covenant.
When it comes to things like business, however, it is a matter of maintaining a realistic perspective and an honest and wise evaluation. A business relationship is not a covenant. You can make substantive, fundamental changes and negotiate things including getting out of the relationship and still have your moral self in tact.
The rightness and wrongness is not in the yoking, but in the individual behaviors of each person. If the overlord does something wrong, he’s wrong based on what the act was, not whether of not you have a business connection with him. And of course, the same is true with you. If you smash his widow, for example, (I’m not making a suggestion here) you would be wrong regardless of your business ties.
Personally, I’ve been *in* the mind-set you’re wondering about. (Former Fundamentalist Pentecostal, now Catholic.) And you’re right to be wary: in that mindset, there’s an agoraphobic prerequisite which dictates that before you do anything, (any business dealing, attend any school, buy fast food, purchase clothing) you must first narrow your eyes and “discern” whether the person you’re buying, selling or contracting with is a “Christian”. If they’re not, “boo-bye”. And I actually know people who live their lives that way.
To my mind, that seems incredibly tiring, inefficient, close-minded and anti-Christian. That’s “law thinking” not “New Covenant” thinking. That’s a very Jewish, “have-no-contact-with-Gentiles” frame of mind.
(That said, I don’t think that’s what Sue Bob meant. Nor do I mean to imply she did.)
The passage from 2 Corinthians makes it pretty clear — the proscription against unequal “yoking” is only aimed at people who enter into it voluntarily, refusing to sever old alliances with people they already know to be evil — a very important decision which absolutely HAS to be made by a new believer.
If you look at the context of the verse within the entire Chapter, it’s crystal clear. And certainly not applicable in this case. For this verse to apply to you, you would have had to have been a pagan; known and been friends with Baby Button Eyes beforehand; suddenly become a Chrisitian; and then decided to go into business with him anyway, even though you knew he was a scumsucker.
Not. What. Happened.
What I mean by the “yoke” is the legal agreement that you made when you leased the space. This is a man in open rebellion against God, and who flaunts his rebellion. The descriptions I’ve read convince me that he has no moral integrity–while you have complete integrity. He reveled in rubbing it in your face.
This is not an indictment of you, it’s merely been my observation and belief from the first post about him that he is not your moral equal–though he had more power than you because he owns the premises. I feared from the first description of him that he was going to do damage you or your business in some way. I was just making the point that you are legally obligated via lease to a man without scruples. Witness is totally correct that I was making a matter of fact observation–and I was giving a warning because I could see this coming.
I am not suggesting that Christians have to do business with only Christians. I do represent clients that are not Christians. However, I would never represent a client in a Terri Schiavo situation ( I mean one who advocates withdrawal of food and water). In such a situation, I would be “yoked” via contract to a client with whom I had a profound moral disagreement.
I see nothing in the New Testament that says that we should seek out and stay in such situations.
WordGirl, I’m of the Reform persuasion and believe in a healthy amount of “law-thinking” to balance Grace. My second favorite book to the Bible is the Institutes of Biblical Law by R.J.Rushdoony.
Sue Bob — Well, I see what you’re saying; however — and this is a bit of the story that I haven’t yet mentioned, I guess — I don’t have a lease with him. I’m not bound to him. There is absolutely nothing in writing. Months ago, after he handed us a blank generic lease that he downloaded from the internet, we (MB and I) wrote up some changes to be included. We met with him. He agreed to the changes. I said, “Give us that amended lease and we’ll sign it.” He never did. He never has. As time went on with him, frankly, I didn’t want anything in writing. I didn’t want him having any more pieces of me than he was already getting in terms of money.
At this point in the game — and, sadly, it’s become a game — that works in my favor. Anyway, all that to say, I guess I don’t feel yoked to him, but I can see your point and I’m sorry for how I misinterpreted you.
Tracey, a legal agreement can be oral. You leased the space because you made an oral agreement and paid rent in return for consideration in the form of a property right to space. Please be careful as you extricate yourself from him. It may be that, in your state, your oral “lease” would be considered to be month to month. You need to ascertain what you need to do in order to extricate yourself without being potentially liable for an additional month’s rent.
Right. And I do have a lawyer.
Tracey – to chime in somewhat after the fact… for my money Word Girl’s explanation is splendid. This isn’t per se a warning against having business or personal relationships with unbelievers. There are two ideas I read in this passage:
1 – do not do as the unbelievers themselves do in their dealings… “come out from among them… do not touch what is unclean,” as verse 6:17 has it; consistent with Christ’s teaching that it is what comes from within our heart that makes us clean or unclean.
2 – don’t enter into a grossly unfair relationship, either personal or professional. In the end, the one with the hammer is going to drop it – and you can easily see how this applies in your situation, as ol’ Button Eyes refused to sign the amended lease and thus has taken all sorts of liberties.
We can see that #2 leads back into #1… because in order to try to restore some balance to that relationship, there’s the temptation to take liberties in reply, thus adopting the unfair practices of the more powerful party in the deal. Or, if we are the more powerful party, the less powerful may do all sorts of illegal or immoral things to try to gain the upper hand, even if we haven’t exploited or harmed them in any way. The inequality itself can get the better of us, as we fear what may happen.
Sometimes I think this is one among the many reasons that God became Man for our sake. He is unavoidably the stronger party in any covenant He makes, and that can get the better of us. We begin to fear what He may ask us to do and withhold parts of ourselves: hedging our bets in order to have something left that is ours. He lived our life and knows that fear, and gave it voice in Gethsemani… and then made an act of total surrender to God, to show that we don’t need to squirrel away bits of ourselves from Him.
In a way God Himself is “yoked unequally with unbelievers” – namely US – and so He very graciously follows His own rule and lowers Himself, to the point where He can say, in the flesh, that the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.
Beautifully said, NF.
Sue Bob: I can’t “hear” (sadly) tone of voice in blog-space, but I hope I haven’t misinterpreted your response to me.
In any case, before your mention, I had never heard of the volumes of the “Institutes of Biblical Law” by Mr. Rushdoony. And the synopsis/review of this work on Amazon is… mixed. Some think him a genius, others as radical and dangerous as Osama Bin Laden (not unlike the reviews Pope Benedict may receive — depending on the reviewer). So I won’t go that route (because I am sadly uneducated on his views).
But I will restate my original claim in response #6 to this blogpost: “…That’s “law thinking†not “New Covenant†thinking. That’s a very Jewish, “have-no-contact-with-Gentiles†frame of mind.(That said, I don’t think that’s what Sue Bob meant. Nor do I mean to imply she did.)“
I hope I didn’t lead you to believe I was picking on you. I was merely speaking to a VERY strict frame-of-mind some Fundamentalist sects find themselves in — one of which I am a survivor.