2 Corinthians 6:14–18

2 Corinthians 6:14 — "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers" Paul opens with an agricultural image rooted in Deuteronomy 22:10, which forbade yoking an ox and a donkey together — creatures of incompatible natures and unequal strength. The Greek heterozygountes ("unequally yoked") is strikingly vivid: to be yoked with what is fundamentally unlike you deforms both your gait and your direction. Paul is not counseling absolute social withdrawal from non-Christians (he explicitly rules this out in 1 Cor 5:10), but rather prohibiting binding spiritual, covenantal, or morally compromising alliances — including, in the Corinthian context, participation in cultic banquets at pagan temples (cf. 1 Cor 8–10). The verse opens with the first of five antithetical rhetorical questions, each expecting the obvious answer: "None whatsoever." "Righteousness" (dikaiosynē) and "iniquity" (anomia, literally "lawlessness") are not merely ethical opposites but covenantal ones: one belongs to the order of God's kingdom, the other to its rejection.

2 Corinthians 6:15 — "What agreement does Christ have with Belial?" The name Belial (Hebrew beliyya'al, meaning "worthlessness" or "without profit") appears frequently in the Dead Sea Scrolls as the personal name of Satan, the prince of darkness opposing God's elect. This is its only New Testament occurrence, and its presence here likely reflects Paul's familiarity with Jewish apocalyptic tradition, particularly the dualistic framework of the Qumran community (compare the Community Rule's "sons of light vs. sons of darkness"). The contrast is therefore not merely ethical but cosmic and eschatological: Christ and Belial represent two incompatible dominions over creation, and a believer cannot hold dual citizenship. The word meris ("portion, share") in the second question echoes the Old Testament concept of a covenantal "portion" or inheritance (cf. Ps 16:5; Col 1:12): one's ultimate allegiance determines one's ultimate destiny.

2 Corinthians 6:16 — "You are a temple of the living God" This verse is the theological summit of the passage. Paul transitions from rhetorical questions to direct declaration: the community of believers — and by extension each believer — is the temple (naos, the inner sanctuary, not merely the outer courts) of the living God. The phrase "living God" (theos zōn) is a distinctly Jewish and anti-idolatrous formulation: unlike the mute, static idols of Corinth's many shrines, Israel's God is active, relational, and present. Paul then assembles a chain of Old Testament quotations: "I will dwell in them and walk in them; I will be their God and they will be my people" conflates Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 32:38, and Ezekiel 37:27. This is not accidental; these three texts all belong to covenant-renewal contexts — Leviticus in the Sinai covenant's blessings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel in promises of the New Covenant after exile. Paul reads these texts typologically: what the tabernacle and Jerusalem Temple signified spatially and liturgically is now fulfilled personally and communally in Christ's Body, the Church.

Verses 17–18 — "Come out from among them… I will be to you a Father" Verse 17 echoes Isaiah 52:11 (originally the call to priests carrying sacred vessels out of Babylon) and is applied to the entire covenant community: all believers are now a priestly people called to liturgical purity. The phrase "touch no unclean thing" (akatharton) carries both ritual and moral resonance — the old purity distinctions now serve as types of the deeper moral and spiritual separation Paul demands. The movement from "come out" to "I will receive you" mirrors the prodigal son's return: separation from what defiles is simultaneously an embrace by the Father. Verse 18 then quotes 2 Samuel 7:14, God's promise to David regarding his royal son, and dramatically universalizes it: the covenantal Fatherhood once promised to the Davidic king is now extended to "sons and daughters," the entire new-covenant community. The phrase "sons and daughters" is notable — it goes beyond 2 Samuel's masculine singular, suggesting a deliberately inclusive fulfillment in Christ.

The Catholic interpretive tradition brings several distinctive lenses to bear on this passage.

The Temple as the Church: The Second Vatican Council's Lumen Gentium (§6) echoes this Pauline imagery in describing the Church as the "temple of the Holy Spirit," where God truly dwells among His people. The Catechism (§§797–798) develops this by grounding the Church's holiness not in the moral perfection of its members but in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit — precisely the "dwelling" Paul invokes from Leviticus and Ezekiel.

The Fathers on Belial and Spiritual Combat: St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on 2 Corinthians, Hom. 13) reads the five antitheses of vv. 14–15 as a complete account of the impossibility of communion between good and evil: "He who mingles himself with evil does not elevate evil, but is himself dragged down." St. Augustine (On the City of God XI.33) deploys the light/darkness contrast to articulate the fundamental metaphysical distinction between the City of God and the City of Man.

Typological Fulfillment of the Temple: The Church Fathers consistently read the Sinai and Solomonic temple as types fulfilled in Christ and the Church. St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies V.6.1) argues that it is precisely because we are temples of God that the human body is destined for resurrection — a profoundly anti-Gnostic point. The Catechism (§1197) develops this typological line, noting that the liturgy of the Church "fulfills and surpasses" the temple worship of the old covenant.

Filial Adoption: The climactic promise "I will be to you a Father" grounds the call to holiness not in fear or mere legal obligation but in the logic of adoption. The CCC (§2782) teaches that the filial boldness (parrhēsia) of calling God "Father" is itself an incentive to holiness: "we ought to behave as sons of God."

Contemporary Catholics face the pressure of "unequal yoking" not primarily through pagan temple banquets but through subtler forms: business partnerships that require moral compromise, entertainment and media that gradually normalize what Paul calls anomia (lawlessness), and a cultural pressure to treat all worldviews as interchangeable. This passage does not call Catholics to sectarian withdrawal or contempt for non-believers; it calls them to a clear-eyed discernment of which alliances, habits, and cultural immersions are slowly reshaping their interior temple.

Practically: St. Paul's argument implies a regular examination of conscience structured not merely around individual acts but around systemic entanglements — what relationships, contracts, or habitual media consumption is quietly yoking you to a value system incompatible with the Gospel? The passage also reframes personal purity positively: you are not avoiding sin merely out of duty, but because your body and your community are the naos, the inner sanctuary, of the living God. Catholic spiritual direction has long used this passage to help the faithful see that the call to holiness is fundamentally a call to remember who lives inside you.