How exactly do you define being equally yoked in Christianity?

Question

Me and my girl are madly in love with each other. We are now going to church together because she says we cannot be together if we are not equally yoked because then we would be pulling in different directions. If you haven't guessed it, she is Christian.

But I am not sure what exactly is meant by equally yoked. I used to go to church twice a week, called myself a christian, gave up the ways of the flesh, etc. But I stopped going to church and fell of the path. I prayed for someone like her and I think God sent her to me partly to bring me back to him. I never became really bad, I just stopped following the dogma.

Now I am going to church again and I like it, but am still not sure at what point we are equally yoked. I take it that it means that we both love God more than anything and put Him first. But is there anything else?

Answer 1

First off, being a Christian doesn't have anything to do with how good or how bad your are. It has to do with striving to follow God above all else. If you think that God has brought you this girl to bring you back to the faith, then follow his call and rededicate yourself to God. You obviously are thinking about it or you wouldn't think that God brought her to you for that purpose. Deep down, it is something you want to do or it wouldn't be on your mind.

Being equally yoked can be understood when you get the picture of what a yoke really is. It's a device used to hold two animals together. If you are an ox attached to another ox for the purpose of work, then the two of you cannot stray in different directions. If one isn't carrying an equal amount of the work, then they are unequal and the work isn't done efficiently or sometimes not at all.

In our spiritually lives, we have spiritual work to do. The work isn't the same as what an ox has to do, but we have work/our calling in life and we have the commands that Christ gave to us (to love each other, love our enemies, prayer, fast, attending church, and so on). The person that you are married to or dating is someone that is an important part of your life. In a way, you are yoked to them. If you are yoked to them in the way that you both aren't trying to do your own spiritual work, then your joint spiritual lives are going to suffer.

In a relationship, strive to keep a different type of intimacy called spiritual intimacy. In the relationship we have with Christ, we are to be very close with Christ. When you date someone seriously with the intention to marry, you need to allow that person into your spiritual life by letting them know what is going on, when you are weak, when you need prayer, when you don't understand a scripture, someone to keep you accountable, and so on. It's a spiritual intimacy when you let someone into your spiritual life.

Being equally yoked, just like those oxen, is that you are both going in the same direction -- in this case -- spiritually. This is especially important in relationships that have the possibility to result in a marriage. Stop for a minute and reevaluate things and see if you are going in the same spiritual direction. If you aren't, you will end up hurting the relationship. A relationship needs that spiritual aspect as well as the rest of it. If you aren't going in the same direction, sit and figure out if you WANT to do something about it NOT for the relationship alone but because you want to get back with God in the proper way.

Answer 2

Equally Yoked

Answer 3

Equally yoked...if you plow a field with a young mare and an old ***, your field will not have even rows. The blade won't always dig into the ground in a necessary fashion. In some places it will be deep and in others it will be shallow. So in order to sow a field correctly, you need two beasts that are approximately equal in energy.

Now that would be the literal translation. I think it is best to meditate on this and see how it relates to your life. I also think it is important that you realize a couple of things:

1. Your girlfriend is controlling.
2. No beast...old or young...enjoys being yoked. So is there a greater good that would come out of such an arrangement?
3. What do you think love is? Do you really love god? Your girlfriend? Does your definition of love peak at the marriage point?

Answer 4

Yours is a really good question and one I care deeply about.

To get an idea of how to be equally yoked, let me paint you some pictures of un-equally yoked. Think of two animals pulling a plow.....

A two thousand pound clydesdale and a fifty pound collie.
A horse and a sheep.
An adult quarter horse and a two week old quarter horse.

Note that in the last example, even though both animals are the same kind, they could not pull equally and would produce poor results.

Here is how I describe what you should do "to find an equally yoked mate".....
1 - Run as hard as you can for Christ. Keep it up untill you have "established your pace". This could be called your mature state, or where you shouldn't shrink from.
2 - Look to your left and to your right - you may "court" any girls that interest you that are keeping up with you, and have also reached their mature state.

What too many people do today (and why over 50% of marriages, whether Christian or not end in divorce) is to first "go fall in love" with someone, and then think about what it takes to make a marriage last.

You and your girlfriend don't know what either of you are going to be like once you've "established your pace". It's like taking two animal fetuses (before knowing what they'll be) and deciding that they will be sharing a plow in three years. The odds that they'll be perfect for each other diminish the "farther from maturity" that the pick gets made.

You and your girlfriend need to mature in Christ - not "for" each other, but for your own relationship with Christ. You may or may not be right for each other. Only after you've both matured will you be equiped to even consider each other.

Feel free to email me - if you have questions, comments, if you're angry at me even - I don't want to break you up, I want for each of you to get married only one time, and live happily ever after. Isn't that what you'd like for yourself? And for her?

Answer 5

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RE:
How exactly do you define being equally yoked in Christianity?
Me and my girl are madly in love with each other. We are now going to church together because she says we cannot be together if we are not equally yoked because then we would be pulling in different directions. If you haven't guessed it, she is Christian.

But I am not sure what exactly is...

Answer 6

Well, for starters, it's great that you both love God and sounds like you're both striving after God. And well, if you've both given your hearts to Jesus, and when you put him first before anything(including your relationship), and both strive for a deeper relationship with God, you will be equally yoked. In my opinion anyway. You'll both be striving after God, and learning more about him together. I don't think that there's a real' "specific point" of being equally yoked, it'll be a learning process for both of you. But as long as both your first love is God, you won't be pulling in different directions. Unless you both feel from God that you shouldn't be together. That's a whole other topic.
Well, I hope this helped.

Answer 7

what is yoked??

a yoke is a harness that is attached to an animal in order for them to pull something (a carriage, a plow, a sled) in order for you to be equally yoked your union with another should depict just this, pulling in the same direction. when two oxen are yoked together it is in such a way where neither one is carrying more of the burden than the other, in unity. this is important in a relationship that is going to be successful with each other as well as with raising children sharing the same morals and values.

Answer 8

You are exactly right.
Good for you for making an effort in the right direction.
If you both believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Lord of your life...I would say you are equally yoked.
I personally think the Bible is warning us not to marry someone of a different faith.

Answer 9

I have been married three times....never dated anyone else except those three until I was almost 50....I grew up sheltered...a farm girl with wholesome values.....I thought when someone was interested in you and you had an attraction to them that was love...you married....whatever differences you had u just worked out....but what I know now...that I didn't know then is that the initial feeling of being attracted to someone goes away and then your left with the person they really are......and I was raised in church.....and never heard the term evenly yoked until many years later......I had known people married all of their life.....and seemed as much in love as yet they were young......the way their body language towards eachother was.....the way they spoke about the other....a beautiful dance...communion between two souls....and I had never had or felt that until I was almost 50....God gave us the word and is the word...there is a reason he said and two will become one......that is evenly yoked...god set up from the beginning of time souls that were made to fit the other...like a pair of shoes that glove your feet in perfect fashion...not all pair of shoes will fit right.....you have to keep trying to you find the one that fits you....just for you.....when you do find that someone who you are spiritually yoked for.....the connection is so deep that you would rather listened to them breath as they sleep then be anywhere else on the earth....they are with you and you can feel them even when they are away....you know their smell....and it comforts you....dirty, clean, sick, well.....you can know what they are saying....before they say it.....bound by something supernatural....or so we seem to think....but naturally in the spiritual world....as god had intended it to be from the beginning.....He created the whole world.....Why is it so hard to believe he also created one man for one women.....after all...that's how he did it......the society doesn't believe in dating anymore.......You may be spiritually yoked with someone who doesn't go to church.....hasent answered the call yet......but god knows that they will....and has appropriated them for you......its kind of like how do we know when the wind blows....because we feel it.....when your find the other half of your soul you will know it......and when your intimate with that person....it is more than just being intimate.....it is supernatural.....a true gift from a god that loves us so much he created only one....to give us lasting love.....that is uncomparable to anything in this world.

Answer 10

Equally yoked can mean that each of you breaks an egg at the same time, and if the yolks have approximately the same size you are equally yoked...

In Christian terms, it means that both of you are justified by grace through faith in Christ. If both of you believe that you are fallen, not capable of redeeming yourselves, in need of an external agent for that, and trust that Christ IS that agent, that he lived a perfect life for you, died in total payment for your sins, was resurrected, then you are equally yoked.

Try reading the Apostle's Creed. If you both agree with that very old and well worded confession of faith, then you are equally yoked...

God Bless.