ContradictionsReading order 224Bible context 2 min read
Is it OK to marry unbelievers?
One instruction preserves mixed-belief marriages, while the other urges separation from unbelievers in broad terms.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
Preserving existing mixed marriages strains broad separation language, but the latter never expressly includes marriage.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Believers should remain with willing unbelieving spouses
But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
1 Corinthians 7:12-14
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:1 Corinthians 7
Believers should separate themselves from unbelievers
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,