Amos 3:3

Amos 3:3, Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?

For a long time this has been a beacon verse for me in making decisions in a host of situations and especially about what marriage ceremonies I agree to officiate.  I will not marry a believer to a non-believer meaning I will not marry a Christian to a non-Christian (I Corinthians 6:14).  [To determine if a person is truly a Christ-lover and follower, I ask a number of questions to hear their heart about Jesus.  I used to officiate at weddings of two non-believers, but no longer do so as their values and desires are just too difficult to control in order to keep the ceremony somewhat pleasing to God.]

Deuteronomy 22:10, You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

A believer and a non-believer are different like an ox and a donkey are different.  An ox and a donkey hitched together is nothing short of brutal for both!  They will fuss with each other, rub their shoulders raw, and eventually destroy things around them.  So hitches need to be of similar animals.  And again, believers and non-believers are NOT the same!  A true believer has a different focus in life and a different direction – showing and telling Jesus with eternity in view – while the non-believer is about self and things now.  Hitching a believer to a non-believer is not good.

Abraham understood the concept of hitching things similar.  Consider what he told Eleazer, his servant, when sending him to get a wife for Isaac: “And I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell; but you shall go to my country and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac,” Genesis 24:3-4.

The wife had to be of the same family, not just any family.  In spiritual terminology that means a man of God needs to find a wife from the family of God.  They both need to be believers.

Now there is a secondary point to consider.  Note Abraham’s servant’s question and Abe’s answer:  “And the servant said to him, ‘Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land.  Must I take your son back to the land from which you came?’  But Abraham said to him, ‘Beware that you do not take my son back there.  The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my family, and who spoke to me and swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land.’” Gen. 24:5-7

The servant understood the first principle – a wife from the same group.  Then came a secondary principle which is there must be common thought about roles and headship.

Say two horses are to be hitched together to pull a wagon.  What if one is a huge Belgian and the other a Shetland pony?  They are of the same family – both horses, but yoked together they would be a mess.  So it is one thing to match the same kind but they need also to be similar in size.  A good team of horses are matched in size – say both 16 hands tall.  Spiritually, two Christians seeking to be married need to be similar in beliefs.  Obviously not talking about salvation beliefs for those are agreed upon in the first principle.  The secondary beliefs that are important are having similar positions on the mission of marriage, their roles, how to rear children, the importance of church, infant baptism, the millennium, etc.

A couple seeking to be married need to be of the same book (the Bible, the Book of Morman, the Human Manifesto II, the Koran, or other) AND in the same chapter (that their secondary beliefs are similar) but they do not need to be on the same page.  I don’t buy the idea that one has to know for certain they have found the perfect soul mate.  No, they need to find one person of the book and of the same chapter and all will work out fine if they stay focused on Jesus and committed to their vows.

Two horses, similar in size, hitched together can do a lot of work for a long time!  So two people both saved and of similar beliefs hitched together can be of great service to one another and to others.