dtt said:
And 2 Corinthians 6:14 does not forbid Christians from marrying non-Christians in all circumstances from how I understand it. In fact as I understand it, it does not pertain to marriage or even avoiding non-believers. As I understand it, it has to do with not letting people have a unequally stronger yoking or interconnected influence on you such that they influence you to sin, more than if you were not yoked with them or than if you were yoked with them in a different way.
The context of the verse is Paul's instructions to a troubled church, and is not about marriage specifically. It is wise advice about not entangling oneself in worldly affairs with non-believers. We can't avoid contact with non-believers if we are to share the Gospel, but we should avoid getting entangled with them in many circumstances. For example, it would be extremely unwise to become partners in a business with a non-believer, but it is certainly permissible do business with non-believing business owners. (We all do that frequently; it is doubtful that every business we patronize is owned by Christians!)
Bels claims (she is probably correct - hope my agreeing with you doesn't cause your head to explode!
) that, in most cases where Christian men marry Muslim women, the men convert to Islam more often than the women convert to Christianity.
There are a couple of examples in the OT of men taking pagan wives.
Solomon allowed his foreign wives to lead him away from the Lord. That, of course, is an extreme situation - it's rather doubtful that anyone reading this forum will have 1,000 women, many of whom are daughters of pagan kings!
The other example is during the rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, found in Ezra chapters 9 and 10. The Jewish men put away their pagan wives. Doing that averted the disaster that befell Solomon.
However, in both cases, the men involved went against direct commandments of God. Kings were not to multiply wives, which Solomon did. And the Jewish people were not to give their daughters to pagan men nor to take the daughters of pagans as wives.
Having said all that, I don't believe that the injunction against intermarrying with pagans as given to the Jewish people in Deuteronomy chapter 7 applies to Christians. That was not a general prohibition - they were told specifically not to intermarry with those whom the Lord would drive out of the Promised Land:
Deuteronomy 7:3 NKJV Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son.
That was because God's judgment was about to fall on those inhabitants.
We as born-again Believers have come out of the world, we are not going in and possessing a land from which God will drive out the present inhabitants.
According to the false marriage doctrine that the Church now teaches, it is wrong for a man to have more than one wife. Marriage is taught to be more-or-less egalitarian, meaning there is some ambiguity about who is really head of the family. (In some cases, there is no doubt: a wimpy man with a domineering wife... :lol: ) Under those circumstances, it would be foolish for any believer, man or woman, to marry a non-believer.
But if the Church would teach true Biblical Marriage (Christian patriarchy) and we men will act as men, there would be only a small danger for a believing man to marry a non-believing woman. And in some cases, God might call a Godly man to do just that - especially if he already has another wife who is a strong Christian. That might be the only means of leading some non-believing women to the Lord, an opportunity missed by the Church due to false marriage doctrine. Evangelism via marriage? Just a thought...and it's not a good idea unless you really are sure that the Lord is leading in that direction.
If a man has problems walking with the Lord (that is, he is not a strong Christian), he should not get married at all. Not to even one wife, not even to a woman who is a strong Christian.
And if many of us on this forum have the right idea about widows and orphans, there is no shortage of women who are at least nominally Christians from whom we could potentially choose wives.
To sum up MHO: it is always a mistake for a Christian woman to marry weak Christian or a non-Christian, because such a man is not equipped to be the spiritual leader that the Bible says he should be. This applies to those who still believe the false marriage doctrine that is taught by the Church as well as those who believe and practice what the Bible really teaches about marriage. It may not be a sin to do so, but it will be likely to lead you into sin. For those Christian men who still believe the false marriage doctrine taught by the Church, it is always a mistake to marry a non-Christian. (Same comments about sin apply.) And for those of us who believe and practice what the Bible teaches about marriage, it is usually (but not always) a mistake for a Christian man to marry a non-Christian. But it is not necessarily a sin to do so, and if you are the spiritual leader that you are supposed to be, it probably won't lead you into sin.
, and resulted from a combination of what others said in this thread in response to my first post about believers marrying non-believers, reflection on things I had already studied, and some new study.