I'm part of a reformed Christian group on social media. Mostly I just read what others post on the group. I have found it to be enjoyable, enlightening, and educational on more than one occasion. While I still find that to be the case there have been a few things posted to that list lately that have made me wonder how those things found their way into a reformed group.
The first was a man that posted a short thank you to the group. It went something like this...thank you for letting me join. I'm a Roman Catholic. That really had me wondering what would cause a Roman Catholic to want to join a reformed Christian group. It seemed that I wasn't the only one. There were a number of people that questioned him on why he wanted to be a part of the list and what his beliefs were. The last I saw of that post they were still discussing his beliefs and his reasons for joining a reformed list. There was even a secondary conversation going on between the others on the group because some of the members had addressed the priest as 'brother in Christ' and some kept saying that a priest cannot be a brother in Christ.
I never saw the end of that discussion, although I've tried to find it again several times, but having seen the discussion and read the comments I am left wondering about several things. What would make a Roman Catholic want to join a reformed group? Why would a supposed reformed Christian ever refer to a Roman Catholic as a brother in Christ? I have no problem with a Roman Catholic joining the group. So long as a non Reformed Christian isn't trying to cause trouble I have no problems with anyone joining the group. I think a Reformed group is more than most people can handle but if they can handle it than they might learn a bit of Truth and that would be a good thing. But...a Roman Catholic in a Reformed group is definitely something that seems a bit strange to me.
I have a friend that once professed to believe in a monergistic way. About a year after this friend said that my reformed believes nearly became the destruction of our friendship. Not because I was trying to destroy the friendship but because this friend couldn't seem to accept that I didn't believe in free will. And that was a long term friendship that had weathered storms before. How then can a Roman Catholic handle being a part of a reformed group, a group where most people think their beliefs are heresy?
Not long after the Catholic Priest joined the group I saw another post on the same group. This post was a link to a blog article about being unequally yoked in marriage. The person that shared the link wrote a short paragraph on the same topic. I don't recall exactly what they said but it held to reformed beliefs. I was intrigued with what they wrote and what kind of article had prompted them to write it so I clicked on the link. It was good enough at first.
In fact at the beginning of the article the writer made a point that reminded me of something I told someone a couple of years ago. This someone was talking to me about marriage and how they didn't want to marry anyone that believed the way my husband and I do. My response was that I hoped that they didn't marry anyone with our kinds of beliefs either. It hurt me a whole lot to say that at the time because I very much loved the person I was talking to and would like nothing more for this person than for them to share my beliefs and to marry someone with the same beliefs but at the time I had to tell them that I wouldn't want them to marry anyone with those beliefs. I meant it then and I would still mean it today. At the time that this person said that to me they were pulling away, maybe running away would be a better definition, from what little faith they had. Today this same person denounces any belief in the Lord.
Because of their beliefs, or lack of, at the time we had that conversation I had to tell them I would never want them to marry anyone that believed as I do but I said it not so much for the sake of the loved one but for the sake of the person that they might marry. I was thinking of how bad it would be for a reformed person to be married to someone that had very little (at the time) faith in the Lord. Looking back on that conversation now I can only imagine the heartache that both the non believer and the believer would experience.
And I was reminded of all of that as I read that blog post on being unequally yoked in marriage. For the believer they would be tied to a union that could never be fully functioning. It could never be what marriage is supposed to be. I've thought many times of how marriage must truly be designed strictly for the Lord's elect. I'm not saying that no one but true Christians should ever marry, obviously the Lord works His plans out through the elect and the non elect. But when I truly think of what marriage is, what it should be, and what it represents, I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that no unbeliever really has what it takes to do marriage justice...if that's the right description. How can a non believer truly engage in and partake of a union that borders on being Holy, if it doesn't outright cross the line into being holy? How can a non believer, or a professing believer, ever rightly experience, partake in, enjoy, much less treasure a relationship that is designed to represent Christ and His ekklesia?
I think of the many married couples that I've known and honestly can't imagine ever wanting to enter into a relationship like most of them had. Even those people whose marriages managed to stand the test of time did not, to my way of thinking manage to do so in a way that would ever make me say 'I want what they have' or 'I want to be a part of that'. I think of the married couple who the husband clocked the wife's odometer to make sure she wasn't 'running around' while he was coming and going and seeing any woman he wanted. I think of the married couple that argued over every little thing, seemed to actually enjoy arguing with each other. I think of the husbands that I have known beat their wives. Of the couple that would stand in their front yard and scream at each other. And even when I think of the couples that seemed to get along well, I still can't recall any that gave a good enough representation of marriage to ever make me think 'I want what they have'.
The thing is I always wanted marriage but for me the marriage I wanted was an ideal I had in my mind, where that ideal came from...it took me years to understand, but I wanted what no one I ever saw seemed to have. I remember people telling me in my younger, premarriage days, that there isn't a marriage out there like what I wanted. But those people were wrong. That kind of marriage does exist. The thing is it only exists when it's in Christ. It takes two people living for a totally different reason than what most people live for to be able to achieve that kind of marriage. I have been blessed to be able to experience the kind of marriage I used to dream about.
And it's through eyes that know that kind of marriage does exist and what it takes to have that kind of marriage that I viewed what I thought was going to be a reformed article on marriage. There were a few things at the beginning of the article that were a bit off but overall it started out good. Trouble was, long before I reached the end of the article, which I never got to, it sort of just fell apart. It was still a pretty good article, I suppose, for a professing believer.
What started making me wonder at the direction the article was going was when the author said their son was a 'Christian' and that he had been raised in a 'Christian' home. Umm....Is there ever truly such a thing? Even when both parents are truly Christians...that does not mean that everyone else that will ever live in their home will be. I met someone once that informed me that it's completely possible to ensure your children are believers. The implication this person made was that you can discipline your beliefs into your children. At the time I had children quite a bit older than that persons kids were. I had to point out that you can only influence your kids so far. I can instill my Christian beliefs in any child I ever raise but that does not mean they will embrace them when they get old enough to think for themselves. I can demand anyone, child or adult, that lives in my house live according to my beliefs but even if I manage to get them to comply it does not mean they will share my beliefs. In fact, chances are, all I will succeed in doing is making them resent my beliefs. But that person truly believed that enough discipline would make their children believe as they did.
History alone tells us that cannot happen. How many people have died for their beliefs? How many non-Christians have died for their beliefs? Scripture gives us the basis of understanding why that is. Only certain people truly belong to the Lord. They are the only ones that will ever have salvation. If a person isn't one of God's elect they can never attain salvation no matter how hard they try. And if a person is one of God's elect they can never escape salvation no matter how hard they try.
Who in their right mind, before being truly converted, would ever want to embrace true Christianity?
I think of the professing 'Christians' and how pretty much anything goes in their beliefs and all I can think is how hard it must be. Even when your 'God' allows you to do what you want and loves you anyway...how hard it must be to stick to the most basic of Christian values. It's no wonder they pick and chose which parts of Scripture they believe apply to them. It would be impossible for them to measure up to even a tiny speck of Scripture if they took it as it really is, in whole and in truth.
And I think of the flat out non believer...what need to they have for even a single Christian value...and their marriage to a true Christian. Scripture gives us the definition of being unequally yoked, ant they are, but when I think of what it means to be yoked together, something we rarely see in our modern world, I think of cows, horses, donkeys, oxen, etc being harnessed together in a situation where they must work together as a team to accomplish something. Then I imagine what an unequally yoked team in a situation like that would be...yoking a horse and an ox? A cow and a donkey? I can easily imagine the trouble one would have trying to handle such and unequally yoked team but that trouble doesn't come close to what I think an unequally yoked marriage would truly be. Maybe it would be more like trying to yoke an ox and a chihuahua or maybe a bird and a horse. Or maybe it goes way beyond even those images to be an owl and a snake, or a cat and a mouse. Maybe its more like predator and prey.
Scripture says that light and darkness cannot mix. If you mix a non believer and a true Christian, you have mixed light and darkness. You have mixed enemies. They may love each other, they may skate along the surface and appear to have no problems for a while, but how long before the enmity of their souls must clash? How long before the evil in the soul of the non believer will feel threatened and will begin to fight the spirit of the Christian? Scripture tells us that we fight a spiritual battle, one that cannot be seen but that rages all around around us, even through us, and will rage through all time until Christ returns. That spiritual battle cannot be changed, altered, or stopped simply because a Christian loves a non Christian, or even a professing Christian. Love, in the human form, cannot override the spiritual hate that a non believer, or an unregenerate person, will feel in their own souls.
It's actually amazing to think about. To consider the unregenerate people we love, the unregenerate people that love us, and to know that those same people truly hate us deep inside their souls. That the evil that controls their souls would truly destroy the souls of the people that they love in this human life simply because the Christians soul belongs to Christ and theirs belongs to Satan.
That situation does not change simply because a Christian loves an unregenerate person in this human life. It does not change if the unregenerate person loves them in this human life. And it will not change just because that love may take the form of a husband and a wife. Sooner or later their souls will battle no matter their human affections. And then what?
What wins?
Who wins?
And where can they possibly go in their marriage? The Christian will most likely settle in and be prepared to weather the storm, come what may. The non believer...that's anyone's guess. But battle they will even if no harsh words are ever spoken.
But that isn't what that article I read spoke of. In the article the author went into how the 'Christian' will want to go on mission trips and the non believer won't, of how the 'Christian' will want to go to 'church' and the non believer won't... Those things may create strife in a marriage but I cannot see them as the problems of being unequally yoked. Those sorts of issues are, to me, on par with will we go eat pizza tonight or hamburgers. I can see no difference in one person wanting to go on a mission trip and the other not wanting to than I see one person wanting to vacation at the beach while the other wants to vacation in the mountains. They may be issues but they don't come close to being the problem of being unequally yoked.
A mission trip may, or may not, be a good thing for a person to participate in but having one spouse that wants to do so and one that does not cannot come close to the everyday, unseen battle that will rage between a Christian and an unregenerate person. A mission trip is an earthly, mostly feel good, type situation. Professing believers feel the need to go on mission trips because they believe that their presence in an unregenerate people can and will make all the difference in the salvation of those lost people. They believe they are bringing salvation to those people and more often than not they count the trip a success if they can count the 'souls' that were 'saved' while they were there. Those saved souls are, for the most part, nothing more than a fairy tale that they believe in because they offered the unregenerate, or lost people, something that drew them in through their emotions and the 'Christian' then gets an emotional high because they get to say they 'saved' another soul. I know there are exceptions to this scenario but those exceptions are few and far between in what we call mission trips. I've met the missionaries, seen the videos, heard their testimonies and in almost all cases it comes down to what the Christian accomplished. It's an emotional high. It's not truth and in most cases it's not Scriptural.
And yet that is what the author of that article used, time and again, to show the problem in an unequally yoked marriage. That's not unequally yoked. Unequally yoked is that unseen battle that rages in the spiritual world. It's the unseen battle that will destroy not only a marriage but the very people in a marriage that happens between a believer and an unbeliever. And I can only imagine that that battle would influence anyone that comes into contact with the married couple.
Years ago we had a neighbor that I can't exactly say I was friends with but we did have something of a friendship. This neighbor was married and had several kids. In fact they not only had several of their own kids they took in several other kids during the time we lived near them. This couple was...unusual, I guess. They fought like cats and dogs. The wife never had a good word to say about her husband and in fact seemed to actually hate him.
I was simply a neighbor that crossed paths with them from time to time. I would stand in the yard and visit with the wife. And never once did she say anything not derogatory about her husband. I was never in their home more than a few minutes at a time so never really saw what went on behind closed doors but even a few minutes in their presence was enough to feel the battle that constantly seemed to rage between them. How much more so did their children and the kids they took in feel that battle? How much more so did their family members feel it?
And that was with a couple whose battles were very much visible to anyone around them. They were unregenerate people living in a fallen world and trying to make a go of a marriage that at least one of them seemed to not want to be a part of. In fact I spoke with that neighbor a few months ago. I hadn't seen her in years and happened upon her. She very quickly and very happily informed my that she is now 'happily divorced'.
The battles that couple experienced were out in the open, they didn't even hide them from the neighbors. Battles in a marriage between a Christian and a non Christian might not be visible for anyone to see, maybe not even the married couple, but they're still there, they exist and they have a force to them that no unregenerate couple would ever encounter.
That is what being unequally yoked means to me. Predator and prey. Light and darkness. Evilness and holyness.
