Unequally Yoked

This is a bad example, but:

Let us say your father tosses you the keys to the car, hands you a twenty and asks you to drive over to the local burger joint and pick him up a burger – mustard and pickles only.  He has given you everything you need, told you what to do, so there should be no problem – right?

You leave and come back with his request:

A chicken sub sandwich. Hey, it is healthier for him right?  Hmmm, but not quite what was asked for though by your father…..

Same idea is behind the question of Christians looking for their spouse.  If you are a Christian, Paul tells you to marry another Christian.  How come?  Well, think about the long term problems of being married to a non-Christian - your spouse will:

* Not want to go to church with you
* Will not understand giving, much less tithing
* Will not be able, nor want to, discuss the Bible with you
* Will die and go to Hell
* Will not agree to your child raising ideas
* Will not agree as to kinds of friends
* Will not agree as to kinds of activities
* Will not pray with you
* Will be in your face over your petty beliefs
* Truly will not understand the concept of faith
* Will eventually erode your faith down to their level

So, if being in a constant state of warfare is your idea of marriage, you will have exactly what you are seeking, because you married a non-Christian.  And you can expect a looming divorce in your future.  It is not a guarantee – but you should start expecting it now – before you get married, because it is coming.

Yah, I know, your marriage will be the one exception…..

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Paul is being far from unreasonable when he tells you, as a Christian, to marry a Christian.  He understood the power of shared prayer, shared study, shared faith.  He knew that for true “oneness” to occur, you had to both have the same basis of life - Christianity.

So many women I have known and know today, plus one guy, just do not understand this one simple verse from Paul.  Blame hormones (“He/She is so hot!”), a coddling society that allows its young the freedom to perform stupid acts (“Hey, they can get it right the next time around!”), or even an educational system dedicated to destroying your child’s belief through logic (apparently burger does equal chicken sandwich!).

No matter where you wish to fix blame – the problem is today’s Christian.  They don’t really see the relevance of the Bible any longer.  It has some great stories and many good ideas, but it just does not work in a world ruled by your hormonal needs which demand satisfaction – ‘now’.  After all, the Bible is 2,000 years old and was written to a different people, with less of an education than you have, in a very different setting, and it does have some translation problems after all.

Sound familiar?

Like it or not, believe it or not, want it or not – your opinion really has no validity here: the Bible is the standard by which you are going to be judged.  No, you are not going to go to Hell because you married a non-Christian – you just may think you have arrived there after a few years in that marriage though.  And it is not as if Christian marriages don’t have problems – they do, but if both hearts are sold out to God, there are at least a few recourses they can turn to in order to settle differences – building an even stronger marriage in the process – before complicating their lives with a divorce.

And, I offer this: if you want to have God’s blessing in your marriage and life, it is not going to happen the way it could have, when you marry that special somebody, whom is so hot, and will become a Christian later ("you just know it!").  No, in all of the cases I can think of, not a one of them became Christians after the marriage.  No standard was applied to them before marriage, so no standard would apply afterwards as well.  With one exception, all ended in divorce.  With two exceptions, none made it past 3 years even.

So, as I opened with - if divorce is what you want in your life, go ahead and marry that non Christian.  You will be getting exactly what you want and are asking for. Heck, in the end, you can always blame it on God anyways, right?

Except, you should have known better, because you have already been told - 2,000 years ago!  Just pick up The Book and start living your ‘faith’!  It is not as hard as you think.....