What does it mean to be unequally yoked? | GotQuestions.org

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The phrase unequally yoked comes from this passage in the King James Version Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness?

The New American Standard Version says Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness?

A yoke is a wooden bar that joins two oxen to each other and to the burden they pull.

An unequally yoked team has one stronger ox and one weaker or one taller and one shorter.

The weaker or shorter ox would walk more slowly than the taller, stronger one causing the load to go around in circles.

When oxen are unequally yoked, they cannot perform the task set before them.

Instead of working together, they are at odds with one another. Paul's admonition is part of a larger discourse to the church at Corinth on the

Christian life. He discouraged them because believers and unbelievers are opposite just as light and darkness are opposites.

They simply have nothing in common just as Christ has nothing in common with Belial, a

Hebrew word meaning worthlessness. Here, Paul uses it to refer to Satan. The idea is that the pagan, wicked, unbelieving world is governed by the principles of Satan and that Christians should be separate from that wicked world just as Christ was separate from Satan.

Jesus didn't join in Satan's plans or methods. Neither should we. Attempting to live a Christian life with a non -Christian as our close friend and ally will only cause us to go around in circles.

Of course, the closest alliance one can have with another is found in marriage and this is how the passage is usually interpreted.

God's plan is for a man and a woman to become one flesh, a relationship so intimate that one literally and figuratively becomes part of the other.

Uniting a believer with an unbeliever is essentially uniting opposites which makes for a very difficult marriage.

The unequal yoke is often applied to business relationships. Daily business decisions will reflect the worldview of either partner.

For business partners with opposing worldviews to work together, one or the other must abandon his moral center and move toward that of the other.

Often, it is the believer who finds himself pressured to leave his Christian principles behind for the sake of profit and company growth.

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