“Whoring” for His Good Pleasure

It seems to be the common teaching among American churches in recent years that Christians are forbidden by God to intermarry: Christian to non-Christian. This simply is not a teaching that has any warrant inside of Scripture. In actuality, there is more evidence that men should marry non-Christian women1 as opposed to abstaining from the institution all-together. This became apparent to me over this past summer when I was pursuing a more intimate relationship with a girl who was not a Professing Christian at the time.
There were brothers in my church who had very strong warnings against what I was doing, and even my ex-youth pastor got involved. Yet with every confrontation about my situation, the arguments I presented in scripture to my defense always came out on top, without any legitimate refutation. If religious intermarriage is seen as such a grievous thing to many in the Church, and is regarded as sinful, or even blasphemous, it would follow that there would be multiple proofs of this apparent outrage, and yet there is not a single one inside of Scripture. People try to make certain passages mean what they want them to mean, but this is a severe transgression on their part. For the Church to look at a man who is pursuing an un-saved woman for marriage purposes, and condemn him for it is a serious problem that must be corrected. It is aproblem because not only do people misinterpret Scripture in this area, (which is enough of a problem in itself), but it also stifles any good that could come out of such a pursuit. A union like the one in question could prove to be a very God-glorifying one, despite the vast belief that it is an abomination. Pursuing the marriage of an unsaved person is not prohibited within the Bible, and is even warranted.
Many people will look at this hypothesis and immediately turn their attention to 2 Corinthians 6:14 which apparently prohibits Christians from marrying non-Christians. What people seem to ignore though, is the fact that the writer never mentions marriage in the passage itself, nor in the surrounding context. The section of 2 Corinthians people point to as proof to their argument is a mere seven sentences long. That small paragraph is right in the middle of the writer’s--Paul the Apostle--recollection and contemplation on his previous trials. Why would someone go into detail about all the persecution that goes along with being a Christian, randomly insert an instruction on the marriage sacrament, and then go on to analyze his experiences in his trials? It makes more sense that the passage speaking about being “unequally yoked” is referring to Paul’s trials rather than marriage.
“Though verses 14-15 are often applied to various sorts of alliances (e.g., mixed marriages, improper business associations), Paul’s primary association was probably ecclesiastical.2” Paul wasn’t writing to the Church to warn them from marrying non-Christians, but was exhorting them to expel the pagan worshippers from among them so as to keep the Church pure for times of trouble. The Church is a body, and just like a body, if there are parasites or contaminated parts, the body as a whole is more susceptible to falter in times of sickness or pain. If their is a fortress made of cement bricks, but in a few places are some bricks made of soft clay, the fortress will crumble because of those few bricks that were posing as legitimate strongholds. Christians are constantly under persecution, trials, and stress, and if there are Pagans who are imposing to be strong uplifters of the actual Christians around them, the believers will lose to worldly powers.
Paul was writing to the Corinthians in a time when the early Church was being widely persecuted. Even the Apostle himself, “five times, received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times was beaten with rods. Once was stoned. Three times was shipwrecked; a night and a day was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from [his] own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure (2 Corinthians 11:24-27).” Just before Paul speaks of being unequally yoked, in verses 6:3-10, he refers to these trials that he and his brothers with him had to go through. He lists the tribulations, gives the charge to not be unequally yoked, and finally rejoices in his afflictions. The logical flow of things leads the reader to infer that when verse fourteen turns up, Paul is referring to his brothers who went through the trials with him. If he was “yoked” with non-Christians, Paul would have been demoralized and deterred in his mission to evangelize the nations.
“Yoke was used figuratively as a symbol of hardship, submission, or servitude.3” Trials are burdens: yokes are burdens. Paul talks about his trials, and immediately refers to a yoke. Somewhere in Church history, someone decided to separate and misinterpret the two passages, and it has left the Church confusing the verse for decades. When people misinterpret a passage of scripture, it is easy to debunk the delusion when one takes the context into account. It nails the
point home though, when one can not only disprove the fallacy using the surrounding text, but can identify instances in Scripture where the interpretation actually conflicts with other passages. To interpret 2 Corinthians 6.14 the way the majority of American “Christianity” does would be to contradict the entire book of Hosea.
“For the purpose of depicting before the eyes of the sinful people the judgment to which Israel has exposed itself through its apostasy from the Lord, Hosea is to marry a prostitute, and beget children by her, whose names are so appointed by Jehovah as to point out the evil fruits of the departure from God.4” The book of Hosea is an account of God’s command to His prophet to marry a prostitute. A prostitute is not a Christian because she is living one of the most detestable lifestyles one can live, yet it pleased God that His representative would become one flesh (and even produce children), with a pagan whore. “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have dchildren of whoredom, for ethe land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.5” “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.6” God commands the man twice to marry the non-Christian woman, and Hosea obeys with God’s blessing. Most modern evangelicals cringe at the idea of a combined, Christian/non-Christian marriage, let alone one who’s better half is a cult prostitute.
Another instance where God commands His people to marry pagan women is in Numbers 31. God commands, “But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him fkeep alive for yourselves7” which blatantly goes against any thoughts that cross-religion marriages are wrong. The Israelites had just finished conquering the Midianite men, and were then instructed by God to take for themselves, the virgin women of the land. The Midianites were a pagan
people, and common thought in the Church today would prohibit such a practice, but to do so would be to contradict God.
There are innumerable good things that could possibly come out of a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian. For the Israelites, there were more women with which to bear children and grow the population. With Hosea, he depicted to the Israelites, exactly how whorish they were being towards God. The Church is hurting today because of it’s legalism in this regard. They accept the sayings of their elders without question, when there is scripture that contradicts people’s claims. Not only does misinterpretation on the Church’s part, hurt her, but the good things that could come out of such marriages are being stifled. It’s difficult to say how that would look practically, but who would have thought God would have told a prophet to marry a whore for His good pleasure? Change needs to happen, because this is a problem.




























1 Notice the clarification: men marrying women. While I would argue that it is not necessarily “UN-Biblical” for a man to marry a pagan woman, it is utterly sinful for a woman to marry an unsaved man (1 Cor. 11.3; 14.35 ESV). Chapter eleven of “First Corinthians” makes the man out to be ‘the head’ in the relationship, in correlation to Christ being ‘the head’ of the man, and God being Christ’s ‘head.’ So the implication is that the man is the ‘spiritual father’ to the woman, just as it is with the relationship between The Father and Christ, and Christ and the man.
Moving on to chapter fourteen of “First Corinthians,” the context is an exhortation to women to keep silent in the congregation, and instead of inquiring at the church gathering, to ask her questions to her husband in the privacy of their own home. The implication is that 1) the husband of the wife must be knowledgeable enough in the Word, to be ready for any question his wife presents to him, 2) that he must be saved, so as to be acquainted with Spiritual truths, once and for all, delivered to the saints (Jude 1.3), and 3) that he should always be in the process of being concerned with the spiritual state of his wife: discipling her, and growing her up in the Faith, so that she doesn’t have to question what she hears in church.
2 John F. Walvoord, Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary., The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-c1985), 2:570.
3Paul J. Achtemeier, Publishers. Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature., Harper's Bible Dictionary, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 1153.
4 Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 10:26.
dch. 2:4 e[ch. 2:5]; See Ezek. 16:15
5 dch. 2:4 e[ch. 2:5]; See Ezek. 16:15 5The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ho 1:2.
6 The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ho 3:1. fSee Deut. 21:10–14
7 fSee Deut. 21:10–14 7 The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Nu 31:17-18.