Who Are You Yoked To? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

What a yoke actually is

A yoke is the wooden beam that locks two animals together so they pull as one. Once you're in it, you don't get to choose your own pace or direction. That's the picture Paul reaches for in 2 Corinthians 6:14, and it borrows from Deuteronomy 22:10, where an ox and a donkey were never to share a yoke. The point isn't that one animal is bad. They are built differently, and the field never gets plowed straight.

A tie, not a conversation

DeWayne lost baseball as a teenager because this verse was read as a rule about teammates. Fourteen-year-olds counting pitches weren't binding their futures together. The verse is about the commitments that steer your life: who you marry and who you go into business with. A golf league, a job, or a neighbor is contact. Contact is where Jesus spent His time, with the sick and the people who needed Him.

If you are already married

This passage doesn't give anyone a reason to walk out of a marriage. If your spouse doesn't share your faith, that is a call to pray for them, not to leave.

Questions for today

• Is this a commitment I can walk away from, or one that binds me?
• Are we pulling in the same direction?
• Am I avoiding people Jesus would have gone toward?