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NASB | 2 Corinthians 6:14 ¶ Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 2 Corinthians 6:14 ¶ Do not be unequally bound together with unbelievers [do not make mismatched alliances with them, inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership can righteousness have with lawlessness? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? |
Subject: Interracial marriages? Bible says what? |
Bible Note: xmikx - Thank you for your contribution to this latest thread on what the Bible says about interracial marriage. .... It should be pointed out, however, that the passages from Ezra and Nehemiah that you cite in your post, in order to be exegeted correctly, must be read within the full context of God's dealings with His covenant people, the Jews. If modern readers, to whom such words as "race" and "racial" evoke ideas of racism and racial discrimmination based on physical characteristics such as color of skin or slant of eyes, read into the words of Ezra and Nehemiah a proscription against intermarriage based purely on physcial features, they miss the point. To hold and teach that Scripture in any manner promotes racism as we define it in our culture today is to fall into grievous error. The Bible does not teach racism as it is defined today, not in any way! The Old Testament prohibition against Jews intermarrying with "the nations" of Old Covenant times was based on religious grounds and nothing more or less. What the Bible calls "the nations" were paganistic, polytheistic worshipers of idols, false gods. Intermarriage among Jews and pagans would lead and did lead the Jews to theological corruption, to idolatry, to disobedience of God and rupture of His covenant relationship with His chosen people. Thus God's prohibition of this practice in the Old Testament had everything to do with the preservation of spiritual purity and nothing to do with physical. It was, in fact, not unlike what He says in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 6:14: "Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?" This passage from Corinthians primarily relates to the false teachers who were troubling the church, though it may apply to other alliances such as marriage and even business relationships. In any event, neither the Old Testament nor the New teaches racism nor condemns "mixed marriages" based on color of skin or other physical distinctives. A question to ponder: Which is better for a believer -- to marry a non-believer of the same skin color, or to marry a believer whose skin is darker (or lighter) than his own? ....... Here's how it is and how it must be in Christ's church, among the sheep of His pasture: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." ...... Call it what we will -- bigotry, racial superiority, racism -- there is no room in the Church for racial discrimination of any form or for any reason. --Hank |