The context of II Corinthians
In looking back at today’s reading in the Transformation Journal, I was worried that some might be a bit confused by the II Corinthians text that was assigned in addition to the passage from Deuteronomy 7. I hope that a few words about the context of this passage will shed some light on the application of it to our lives today.
One of the issues that comes to the forefront in Paul’s letters to the church at Corinth as a substantial problem is the presence of what Paul calls “false teachers” within the church. Again and again, Corinth seemed to always be struggling with becoming a “personality” cult. In Paul’s first letter to the church, there is interal strife in the community around three different “pastors” who had recently provided teaching for the church: Apollos, Peter and Paul. The people are literally fighting in Corinth over their allegiance to their “favorite” preacher.
What Paul is addressing in this second letter to the church is not petty arguments over different teaching styles, but rather the introduction of teachings that were incompatible to “The Way” of Jesus that he, Apollos, and Peter had taught the church. So when Paul talks about “being yoked together with unbelievers,” he is talking about much more than having a relationship with someone who is outside of the church. He is talking about the compromise of Christian faith that is taking place because of the subtle but profound influence the unbeliever is having on the entire community. The defense that Paul is making, much like the argument Moses is making in Deuteronomy 7, is against the perversion of his teaching, Christian witness practice.
God does call us beyond the walls of our Christian community to “reach the world for Christ,” but in that process, it is our ability to stand firm in our convictions of God’s grace for all people and God’s plan for the redeeming of the entire world, that enables us to establish relationships that begin to truly transform our world. Pauls’ words are not “Christian isolationism.” They are instead a defense of our identity as the “temple of the living God” and our role of being, “a light unto the world.”
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