Relationships: Why The Fuss Over Yokes?

A few months ago, somewhere in 2014, we had a heated debate at our Youth Bible Study class. It was escalated by that famous verse in 2 Corinthians 6:14 (Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? (NKJV)).

We zoomed in and zoomed out of the verse. (Quite typical of a Bible study actually.) And as expected, there were those who gladly agreed with it, those who said nothing about it (yeah, expect that in a Bible study) and yet still, there were those who demanded to know why it was such a big deal - this thing of getting unequally yoked with non-believers. 

Well, it came out to be a big deal. For various reasons. (But we'll eventually come to that later in this post.)

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I'm not married. Not yet actually. But I guess that doesn't really matter. At least I know, at the back of my mind, that whatever I'll be talking about in this post applies to me more than to anybody else. So I stand to be judged by the very words I say. 

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The first time I heard about a Christian young person not getting unequally yoked with non-believers, I raised my eyebrows. I was young in salvation (okay, I was young at age too). I was young and naive and was still pleased with enjoying middle ground when it came to most matters of the Christian faith that demand complete abstinence or total obedience and surrender. 

I was sceptical on matters to do with sex before marriage, sexual purity, Christian dating, relationships, the boundaries, do's & don't's within and all the "petty laws" involved. And because no one offered to deliberately answer the "why" questions surrounding these matters, I floated for a while in my own tiny knowledge of things. (But not until the Lord compelled me to read Scripture and find answers for myself.)

And this leads me to say this: the greatest challenge affecting the adoption of Christian values from one generation to another today or at any other time in future history is this: our parents, mentors and teachers have an unequalled ability to command us on what good things to do (or not to do) but they fail at never telling us why it is right or wrong to do these things. Our parents and teachers are really good at pointing out what is wrong but they are very poor at explaining why it is wrong. 

If something is bad, it is simply bad. No reason. No elaboration. No deliberation. It's just bad. Period. Don't question nothing, don't ask nothing. It is the law, just follow it. You know. 

The attitude above is what nurtures our sceptism. We young people are then inclined to ask questions like: Why abstain from sex before marriage? Why follow and believe in the God of my parents? Why not marry a secular person or a Muslim, or a Hindu or just any other person I meet next and fall in love with? 

So unless someone stops and conclusively answers these questions, we won't stop doing wrong and going against the good values we've been taught. 

For this reason, this blog was born. (Yeah, this is for all those who wonder why I blog.) 

I'll try to help us understand the why of not getting unequally yoked with a non-believer if (and when) you are a saved young person. 

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To get to the point, we'll first seek to answer two questions: 

1. Why is it a big deal to God as to whom we get married to as His children? 

2. Why do we take it for granted then? 

Answering the two questions above will give us a closer look at both sides of this coin of intermarriage between believers and non-believers. 

Then at the end, I'll share with us a few Scriptures that support my point. 

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1. Why is it a big deal to God as to whom we get married to as His children? 

(a) When we get unequally yoked to non-believers, we compromise our belief systems. 

It may not be true that I'm "compatible" with every other Christian lady, but at least we will have the same value and belief system if we are to enter into marriage. If I get married to a Muslim or someone who doesn't believe the same things about Christ as I do, it will later influence our family's belief system causing our children to believe different things about God and life. It therefore will affect the unity and agreeableness of we as husband and wife and also of the children that are a fruit of our marriage. The children may decide to follow dad's or mom's value system causing them to grow apart. Also, our unity will be compromised as far as decision making and conflict resolution is concerned. We will always be reading from different scripts. 

And because God sees all these things before we do, He discourages to get into longtime commitments with non-believers (marriage being one of them.) 

(b) Because God sees marriage and most alliances we make in life as a union that makes two people ONE, He desires that the people who get in such commitments will mutually agree to make Him the first priority in their lives, and that they'll agree to allow Him to lead them and take the center place in it. 

(c) God also predicts danger on the part of the believer when we get entangled in such relationships, agreements or contracts. Just as Isaac refused Jacob to take a Canaanite woman in Genesis 28:1 for the reason of being misled by them into pagan worship and also falling a victim of inheriting Canaan's curse through marriage (one proclaimed by Noah in Genesis 9:25), so God also doesn't want us to inherit together with the non-believer the curses and punishment that befalls them when they disobey Him. 

2. Why do we take it for granted? 

(a) We think that it has no moral or spiritual connections with who we should be or who we are in Christ. In some verses I'll quote below, you'll realize that there are so many times Israel becomes a victim of punishment due to the sin of marrying foreign wives and making treaties with pagan kings. It made God angry and separated them from Him. It does the same to us no matter how for granted we take the spirituality of the person we commit ourselves to. It will eventually become our thorn in the flesh. 

(b) We cannot see the future as God sees it. 

I've mentioned above a few examples of what the Lord sees in every illicit relationship. We are mostly blind to such truths.

(c) We look at things with immature eyes - considering only what we say about the person in picture but not what God says. We are overwhelmed by emotion and the other person's acts of love and affection which make us forget the things God says concerning such alliances. We only look at the face value of things: looks, words, false perceptions etc. 

(d) We think we are wiser and that we can change this other person and convince them to love and serve God. This is impossible but we, in our ignorance, decide that we are gods that can bring transformation into another person's life. We forget that only God can wholly change a person. 

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But some would say, "But Morris, Hosea the prophet was unequally yoked to Gomer... and... and... that lady Ruth was a foreigner, right? And what about Queen Esther? Didn't she get married to a pagan king?"

Oh well, each of the above cases are Biblical evidences of unique examples when God allows something to happen for one or two divine purposes. That is not to mean that He exclusively stamped this as the way He Himself would want His children to relate with pagans or non-believers; but that for one reason or another, a lesson was being taught to the nation of Israel. 

Here is their uniqueness:-

Hosea got married to Gomer (a prostitute) as a way of obeying God's command and to use it as a metaphor to reveal to the people of Israel how they were treating Him (their God). (Hosea 1:2 (NKJV): When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: "Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.")

The main thing to note about Ruth from the Book of Ruth is that by the time she marries Boaz, she has already accepted to follow the God of Naomi and Boaz (the God of Israel) thus is converted. (Ruth 1:16 "But Ruth said: 'Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.'") There is therefore no debating on which side she is when she gets married. 

Queen Esther on the other hand was raised in the land of Persia at an appointed time in order to save the Jews from annihilation. We therefore see that it's part of God's plan to have her get married to a pagan king. Esther 4:14 (NKJV): "For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

Unless you are Hosea, Queen Esther or Ruth, why tempt God by marrying a pagan? 

Only husbands or wives who became saved AFTER MARRIAGE are allowed to continue in such relationships for the sake of unity and fulfilling the will of God in those marriages. (1 Peter 3:1-2 and 1 Corinthians 7:12-16). Thus divorce is denied in instances where a husband or wife who previously didn't know Christ gets saved while their partner remains a non-believer. It is encouraged that they conduct themselves in a manner worthy their calling in order to (somehow) convict their partner into repentance. (Although it is also never a guarantee that this will happen.) 

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Finally, here are contextual Bible verses supporting “Do not be unequally yoked with non-believers" All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible.

1. 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

2. Abraham and Hagar (a foreign woman who ends up becoming the mother to "the other child" - a child who later becomes a great opposition to the promised child's inheritance) Genesis 16:1 and Genesis 21:8-10

3. Esau and his foreign women that displeased his father. (Genesis 26:34-35)

4. Ahab and Jezebel (daughter of a pagan king) who led to his fall and the enmity between his house and God (1 Kings 16:30-33)

5. The prophet Balaam led the people of Israel to sin and intermarry with Moabites (descendants from a cursed seed (Lot)) in Numbers 25:1-3. 

6. It was mandatory that Christians of the early church had a believing wife; 1 Corithians 9:5 "Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?" 

7. Amos 3:3 

"Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?”

8. Samson had a habit of falling in love with foreign women who later led to his fall (Judges 14:3)

9. Abraham made his servant swear to him that he will not allow Isaac to marry a foreign woman (Genesis 24:37)

10. Jehoshaphat, a righetous king, made a treaty with evil kings who led to his failure in war; 2 Chronicles 18:1 and 2 Chronicles 19:2.

11. Marrying many foreign women led to the fall of that wise king called Solomon; 1 Kings 11:1-2.

12. The LORD, through Moses, commanded his people not to intermarry with foreign nations; Deuteronomy 7:3 "You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons"

13. After their return to Jerusalem, the people realize the cause of their eviction into slavery in Babylon and the LORD’s incessant anger towards them was due to intermarriage with foreign/pagan women (Ezra 9:1-2)

14. After returning to Jerusalem from Babylon, the people swore not to intemarry with foreign nations because they had been told the consequences (Nehemiah 10:28-30 and Nehemiah 13:23-27);

15. Rebecca to her son Jacob (Genesis 27:46) and Isaac to Jacob too (Genesis 28:1).

16. Joshua warns Israel of intermarrying with foreign/pagan nations (Joshua 23:12-13)

We can go on and on quoting relevant Scripture, but you now get the point: it is a big deal breaker before God when we get entangled in contracts with and get married to non-believers. 

Note: The phrase “foreign woman” or “Canaanite woman” or “foreign nations” in the passages above is used to mean a people who are not born again and do not therefore belong to the family of God, and not necessarily a tribe or country (this is with relevance to Christianity) today. Also, the above Scriptures apply to every lady in the family of God. 

Til next time, 

Bonface Morris. 

In Honor of A Woman

Quote: It is a woman that opens the eyes of the world to infinite possibilities. It is the woman. - Bonface Morris.

Dedicated to my mother, Mrs. Tabitha Olumi.

I love you mom.

And in celebration to International Women's Day, 2015 (March 8, 2015). #MakeItHappen

Long before there was civilization, they (women) were thought only to be servants: servants of men.

The only time it felt right for a woman to say a thing to a man was when giving birth.

Only then was she allowed to yell things at him - to justifiably vent her inner sorrows. But even then, she was careful. She was careful lest her pain would cause her family to part with goats and bullocks; and herself, the stigma of being called a witch.

It was so common then. And real. It was common and real how women suffered silently under the dictatorship of men. Men knew exactly how to manipulate situations to favor them. So the woman always suffered in silence.

She was thought to be an object.

Of pleasure. Of ridicule. Of lessness. 

A conduit for pain.

She was known to be strong but useless. Present but voiceless. Needed but irrelevant.

The girl child existed only as an animal would exist today.

None of her words mattered. None of her feelings and emotions and lamentations and visions and dreams mattered.

She was the uncelebrated martyr. A useful ghost.

That was back then.

That was until civilization slightly came to her rescue.

That was then. That was before civilization held us in its arms.

So when the world turned around and in came a people dressed in wool and speaking not her language; but who oppressed man and vaguely favored the girl child, we smiled.

No, the woman smiled. Wryly.

Wryly, because, as she came to realize, not all of us wanted her free.

Some still wanted - and still demand even today - the services of the slave woman. They demanded to have their slaves back...

Some still wanted to misuse her freedom. Not to fight and bleed for it but to eat it.

Some still wanted to continue enjoying her pain. To bathe, busk and oil themselves in it.

Some still thought (and think even today), "She is lesser than us. Let her kneel as we walk..." They wanted her as an elephant would want the ground. They wanted her as the hen would want her dough.

Some still made merry at the oppression of the girl child and the woman.

Even now, even today, some hide in religion - that good thing that civilization fetched us - to justify their wickedness against the girl child.

Some hide in traditions. Some in intellectualism. Some in capitalism. Some in sexism. Some in uncontrolled narcissism. Some in aberrated philosophies.

All to the sounding of the drums of her oppression.

But the woman - that voice that speaks so firmly yet regarded so lowly - has not turned to dust yet.

Not yet. Not just yet.

She still fights. She still resiliently stages her defense against these devils.

Even when her fighting is silenced, she still fights on.

She fights on because she knows that it is a woman that opens the eyes of the world to infinite possibilities. It is the woman.

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See, when I look at my mom, a woman, the woman - all she is in her countenance - I tend to think that this is the reason she has fought so many wars to get us to where we are.

Wait, you have to get it right.

My mom (and probably yours) got married in a generation when the so-called affirmative action had not even opened its eyes. When people still thought rights and equality are the same thing. Days when the so-called human rights or women rights were still toddlers - still begging for a feeding here and a feeding there, and of course, from time to time, naturally oversleeping.

She was still a girl then. (I saw her photo somewhere, and daaaaamn, she was beautiful.)

Then she picked up on a task she had only been hearing about. Gave birth to five of us. And we've given her hell for a while. But we are who we are today because through her hands, God molded us.

Nothing can compare to who she is to me. To us.

She is irreplaceable.

Listen. 

No one tolerates and yet loves a child so deeply like the mother does.

No one assures the child that it's all gonna be okay like the mother does. No one spanks a child like a mother - hard but soothingly. 

There may be bad mothers out there - bad women - but their tenderness towards their children is unequaled...

And for all this plus more, I choose to celebrate her. To celebrate women.

I choose to celebrate my mom and every other woman in my life.

Every girl, every lady, every mother, every wife. Every woman.

I celebrate you all.

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Woman, you are special.

You're petty, but you are special. Petty but unique. You have a pettiness that makes you special.

We may shun at your fastidious obsession with detail, but you're special.

I celebrate your love for color; just how you are obsessed with seeing every tiny color in its rightful place amazes me. (Like you all decided to "paint it purple" this year during the #MakeItHappen celebrations.)

I celebrate your vigilance. You fight for what is right and good for the children you've born and the people you love without looking back.

I celebrate your tolerance. Yes you can forgive the many sins we men commit so endlessly so many times, but when venting, your wrath knows no end.

I celebrate your resilience and grace. You always bounce back. Always. You smile in the midst of storms, and waves make you stand stronger.

I celebrate your kindness and gentleness. Your hands have forged the paths of many. Without your tenderness, the world would be a sea of wars.

I celebrate your ability to enjoy pain, the pain of giving birth.

I celebrate your selflessness. Just how you'd rather go hungry than suffer your children lack education is a sacrifice we all cannot explain.

I celebrate your strength. That you're called weak yet you're the helper - the support we lean on.

I celebrate your fervency in prayer and service to God; there ain't nobody as dedicated to the Lord as a woman!!

I celebrate your intuition and wisdom. Our homes would be doomed if it were not for your ability to clearly see the future ad to plan it.

I celebrate your weaknesses; because they never hold you back from being all you can be.

I celebrate your sacrifice; it has opened the doors of our eyes to endless possibilities.

I celebrate your love; there ain't nothing like the love of a woman.

Even the good Lord said it: he who finds a wife (a woman) finds a good thing.

I celebrate your madness; it brings the world to sanity.

You keep on fighting even when all is lost.

You die pursuing the best for those around you.

You live longer because you give too much.

You die all the time that others may live.

Although you are not perfect, you're imperfectly awesome.

You can't stop talking and asking and worrying and thinking and planning and tossing forth, bringing hither and taking thither.

You won't stop loving...

You won't stop opening the eyes of the world to infinite possibilities.

I don't know how you do it.

I really don't know how you do it.

Maybe the angels are sent to help you.

Maybe the Lord Himself comes down from the heavens to make your weak selves much stronger than ours.

But I celebrate you anyway.

Yes, when all has been folded, we still need you to unfold it... 

The world still needs you woman. It will always need you.

And I celebrate you.

I salute you.

Bonface Morris. 

Is Singing A Lesser Gift?

If there is a question that comes with arguments and controversy in Christian circles - and especially among those concerned with singing and worship service in the church - it is this one.

It punches worship leaders in the face.

I have even heard that it punches some so heavily to the extent that they are convinced to altogether forsake singing in church in exchange for "the pursuit of a greater and more influential gift...;" because (seemingly) it has been "revealed" to them that music, as a service, is not worthy a crown of glory when we meet Christ on the last day.

What is it all about anyway? What is this pursuit for a greater gift all about?

A pastor teaching a worship team on the importance of the music ministry in the Church

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It may be true that we place less emphasis on the importance and difference of/between gifts and services in the church or that we choose to play middle ground when addressing this matter. The latter is due to avoiding strife on doctrinal matters and therefore covering up our fear with negligence and abandoning the course of teachings on such matters.

Somewhere, you may hear one or two (or several) pastors (music pastors or pastors in general) bellowing: "this or that gift is superior to this or that gift" and so forth and so on, while trying to convince their congregation about gifts and services. 

Elsewhere, another couple of men of God will be heard exalting the significance of the Holy Spirit in empowering Christians in service; and that any one with a gift or a service can be effectively used to bring glory to God in one or many other ways.

There is a third group though. This one denies that singing (or as we love calling it, worship) is not a gift and it therefore has no room among the "major gifts" in the Church. This, they support with a Scripture we all know quite well: Ephesians 4:11-12 (NKJV) "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ..."

Although it does not descriptively and categorically mention that these mentioned above (apostleship, prophesy, evangelism, pastoral work and teaching) are the so-called "five major gifts" in the Church, this group jumps up with this Scripture in defense of their aptness in such matters. It is therefore a dogma among its members that music (or any other gift or service whatsoever) holds no seat amongst the "big five gifts."

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In trying to defend the language with which Christ through His Spirit speaks in many places, and while in some other way attempting to solve this mix-up, I can give us one example which is very practical: in Acts Chapter 10, the apostle Peter is hungry one afternoon and is caught in a trance which leads to the following conversation between him and the Lord (Acts 10:13-15) "And a voice came to him, 'Rise, Peter; kill and eat.' But Peter said, 'Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.' And a voice spoke to him again the second time, 'What God has cleansed you must not call common...'"

Why am I bringing up this story? Consider this...

Christ and Peter could look at the same thing (food) and funny enough, both agree and disagree on what it stood for. According to Peter, the food that was being presented him was unclean. And he was right: God had initially proclaimed the food unclean (Leviticus 11); but now, in this very encounter, the Lord declares the food clean. Was God contradicting Himself? No, I don't think so. Why then was it both "clean" and "unclean" at the same time? It fights logic, right?

Okay, I think it was because the Lord wanted Peter to become flexible to His voice and understand deeply why at all the food could be both clean and unclean. That His voice mattered more than the food. That the issue of clean-ness  and unclean-ness was less important as compared to the ultimate goal that was being sought after. 

...His voice matters more than the food...

This sounds paradoxical yeah, but it is the truth.

When we keenly consider the above conversation, we can, to a considerable extent, draw a conclusion and say that they are both wrong and right all who say, "singing is a lesser gift" and that "singing is not a lesser gift..." Because just as food (in its being clean or unclean) does not really matter in Peter's case but the One who created and serves it to him that afternoon, so does the "less-ness" or "greatness" of music as a service or gift matter to the One who gives it to us for His own glory!

It doesn't matter whether the gifts/services being used in the Church are "major" or "minor"; what matters is whether they are being used effectively for the purpose for which they are/were intended. 

It doesn't matter how many talents the servant was given in Jesus' parable below. What matters is whether the talents were put to work or not!!

Matthew 25:14-15, 19-20, 22, 24-26: "For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.

After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, 'Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.'

He also who had received two talents came and said, 'Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.'

Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.'

But his lord answered and said to him, 'You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed."

In another example, the apostle Paul notes the following to the Corinthian church to show them that every gift (whether important or less important) mattered in the house of God, and that the weaker/lesser gifts (as the Corinthian church was convinced to see them) were being used by God for a greater purpose and to fulfill the unity of the Church...:-

1 Corinthians 12:21-25: "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you,' nor in turn can the head say to the foot, 'I do not need you.' On the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential, and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our unpresentable members are clothed with dignity, but our presentable members do not need this. Instead, God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another."

...God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another...

Whether our enthusiasm in service through singing is in any case killed or promoted due to our doctrinal standings, it is all upto us. We may choose to mumble and fumble in indecision with which side to take, but it's all irrelevant to Christ. We may choose to take no stand at all - it really doesn't matter to Him. What matters is how well our ears are inclined to the voice of the Spirit of God as He attempts to align our tiny theological standings on the part music plays in the Church to His own, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is greater than men (1 Corinthians 1:25.)

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The other few things that are good to understand and put mind as we follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit concerning music in the church are the questions answered below:-

1. What is a gift (or a spiritual gift)?

A gift, in Christian service, refers to the ability given to a Christian by the Holy Spirit towards serving the body of Christ. Also, according to this post and this one I wrote earlier on on discovering your abilities, gifts and talents, talents can compliment or grow into gifts.

References: Romans 1:11,  Romans: 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 7:7, 1 Corinthians Chapter 12, 1 Corinthians Chapter14.

2. What are services?

A service is work done by a Christian (as one person or group) that benefits another person, group and/or God.

References: Romans 12:1, 2 Corinthians 9:12, Ephesians 6:7, Revelation2:9.

3. Who gives gifts and services?

Christ/God through the Holy Spirit.

Reference: Refer to the Scriptures above.

4. Why are gifts and services given to the Church?

(a) For edification (uplifting, encouragement and enlightenment) of the church (1 Corinthians 12:7)

(b) Declaration of both God's goodness and commands (1 Timothy 4:13)

(c) For the betterment of our relationship with God - Him talking and walking with us, and us doing the same (Romans12:1 and Hebrews 13:15-16.)

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As I finish off, here is what C S Lewis had to say one day:

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

So it is whenever God uses our gifts and services in His presence: it is all for His glory.

Note: Most Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

End note: If you have ever tried to think that singing/ministering in music is a lesser gift, try telling that to the 24 elders and angels in Heaven.

Bonface Morris.