Dwell in the Word: 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1

Consider these questions as you dwell in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1:

1. Paul uses the metaphor of being unequally yoked to caution against close partnerships with non-believers who have different life philosophies. How can believers strike a balance between maintaining relationships with non-believers while adhering to Paul's advice about being yoked with fellow believers? What practical steps can one take to honor this balance in daily life?

2. The concept of holiness and being set apart for God's purpose is emphasized in this passage. How does Paul's exhortation to cleanse oneself from defilement of body and spirit resonate in the modern context? In a society with diverse moral and ethical standards, how can individuals navigate adhering to holiness while engaging with the world?

3. Paul draws connections between the temple being set apart for God's dwelling and believers being temples of the Holy Spirit. What implications does this analogy hold for believers today in terms of personal conduct, behavior, and interactions? How does understanding oneself as a temple of the Holy Spirit influence one's choices and relationships?

Transcript:

 So, we come to this passage, and we see Paul calling back upon an Old Testament passage about not unequally yoking animals. Now, Paul is obviously seeing a deeper spiritual reality here. Now we understand the idea of unequally yoking animals being counterproductive, right? Animals of different size animals who have maybe ideas of different directions to go.

It's going to cause this not to work. And so, the same thing applies for our lives as believers. We need to be careful, according to Paul, not to yoke ourselves to people who are going in another direction. An unbeliever is headed to a different end goal, has a different set of philosophies on how they view the world.

Now, this does not mean that we are not polite. It doesn't mean that we're not loving. It doesn't mean that we don't bring the gospel to them. All of the things that are important. We are to do. But Paul is talking about living a life together in such a way Where the unrighteousness of the pagan lifestyle or the un-Christian lifestyle is going to cause Difficulty and so we see that here in what he brings out for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness Why would we want to be too much of a partner with someone who is not righteous not righteous or lawless?

Because we're supposed to desire to follow God's law. What fellowship has light with darkness?  There it is, you know, what are we to do there? Right? What accord has Christ with Belial? Belial is another word for Satan. We see the obvious connotation there that What do Christ and the devil have in common that?

That they would want, we would want to be yoked with someone who is functionally a servant of, of the devil. Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? We, our portion is our salvation in Christ, right? They do not have that. The overlap there isn't going to work very well. Now again, this doesn't mean we aren't friends.

It doesn't mean we aren't, uh, polite. And loving towards them and sharing the gospel with them, but Paul expands this whole idea here to talk about us as Christians being the temple of God and his idea here is that that god has set himself apart and possessed through the Holy Spirit. Possessed isn't the right word.

That sounds bad, right? How about indwelled the believers through the Holy Spirit and so we are set apart for his work. And we see Paul making these different quotations from the Old Testament drawing this out. That, that God says he'll make his dwelling among his people. He'll walk among them. He'll be their God and they shall be his people.

The people of God are set apart for a particular purpose.  This is important. And what Paul is driving at here with the idea of not touching clean things or unclean things in the temple and the temple being set apart is that we are to strive to live a life of holiness. And so, if we are going to do that, we need to be focused.

We need to make sure that we are yoked with someone who is heading in the same direction as us. A perfect example. If we spend all our time with a friend who is tempting us with, with something that is contrary to how we believe, we're going to find ourselves being pulled that direction because  we can pull one direction with the yoke, right?

But they can do the same. And we're not going to find ourselves heading down that path of holiness like we are called to do. And so, Paul is calling out to the people in Corinth here. Yoke yourself with fellow believers so that you can head in the same direction because the ultimate goal is holiness.

And so, Paul wants us to understand that the desire we are to have is found here in verse 1. Since we have these promises that God has set us apart, Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit bringing holiness to completion in the fear of god Remember back to First Corinthians and some of the issues that were happening there the sexual immorality And remember when that when that sexual immorality stuff is being brought up yes, it is individual things that people are turning away from god, but ultimately It is about a pagan form of sexuality, a pagan view of viewing the world, as opposed to one where God sets apart for himself a people, and he calls them to be pure sexually, to have one marriage partner between a man and woman for life.

He calls them to do that. That was what they were going up against. And so, here, we see the Apostle Paul reminding them to cleanse themselves of every defilement of the body. He's drawing back to the issues that they have had in the church in Corinth. And so, he is calling them to be holy in the midst of a world that is filled.

And that is where we can find our application for today, isn't it?  We live in a world, as anybody and every time, there's nothing particularly exceptional about the level of iniquity in our time, right? This has always been the case, but we live in a time. Where it's very easy to be led astray, very easy to be drawn a particular direction.

And so, the best thing that we can do is yoke ourselves with other believers. That not only includes our marriage relationship, our family relationship, our friendship relationships, but also, it's important to be yoking yourselves.

And so, that is the call on us to yoke ourselves with other believers in Jesus Christ, that we might be heading in the same direction in service to him and following him in holiness.