Grains of Sand

" Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? " —2 Corinthians 6:14-16a, NIV One of recurring themes of the Old Testament was Israel's interaction with the nations around her. She was to be a witness of God's grace in a pagan world. At the same time God was very specific that there were to be no intimate relationships established with her unbelieving neighbours particularly in the areas of intermarriage and worship (i.e. Ezra 9:10-15). These instructions are picked up again in the New Testament. In these verses from 2 Corinthians we discover Paul asking some pointed questions about the relationships being built between the Corinthian believers and the society around them. But how do we reach un...

Other Food: Daily Devos (Google Images) He wouldn't win any prizes for being the best of Judah's kings, but one incident in Amaziah's story, contains a lesson many people choose to ignore. Friction between neighbours in the Middle East is nothing new. Amaziah felt that he needed to bolster the number of soldiers he could call on if he was attacked, so he hired a hundred thousand fighting men from Israel (2 Chronicles 25:6). And got his knuckles rapped for doing it. God's prophet arrived on the scene and said: " O king, these troops from Israel must not march with you, for the Lord is not with Israel—not with any of the people of Ephraim. Even if you go and fight courageously in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy, for the Lord has power to help or to overthrow " (25:7, 8, NIV). The New Testament would call this an "unequal yoke," an instruction given to us in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 that begins like this: " Do not be yoked ...