Christianity on Relationships

NOTE: I know I have a lot of people in my circle of friends that are not Christian. While this is intended for a Christian audience, anyone can take a spiritual message from this mini-“lecture” regarding their own spiritual journey, especially if you constantly find yourself defending your faith.

This is in no way an attack on anyone that has beliefs regarding a difference in interpretation of the Bible on these subjects. Actually I’m writing this in support of a friend (whom shall remain nameless) because I felt inspired by their self-honesty with their faith to write this for others as well.

A lot of things can the drawn from the passages held within the Bible about our interactions with anyone. Some take the verse about being “unequally yoked” and draw a variety of beliefs on what it means. I’ve heard everything from “Don’t marry outside of your race” to “don’t marry an unbeliever”. Those that look to the old testament will show that you should not mingle with others outside of your beliefs. Christianity is so widely varied, that it is difficult to find the truth of what it really means to follow Christ’s example. Sadly, we have pulled away so much from God, that many of us simply do not know how to find the answers ourselves. We rely heavily on what our pastors tell us, accepting that what we feel in a church is the accuracy of what God wants us to understand. In order to understand what we should do regarding our relationships with others, however, we first need to understand our relationship with God.

A Pastor can relay to us stories and interpretations of the Bible, but ultimately they should not be the determining factor of our Christian Faith. Instead, their role in the world is facilitate a relationship between you and Christ. They act as an intermediary when you cannot find your connection to God in those times of extreme crisis, to help you find your way back to the relationship YOU are intended to have, not the one the pastor intends for you to have. Any good pastor both knows this and hopes that the rest of the congregation understands such.

And this is where we begin our journey as it pertains to how we (Christians) interact with others. I’m not going to put the verses in here, because I want you to open your Bible and read them yourself. The following are verses you should read, in their entirety: 1Corinthians 7, 2Corinthians 6 and Acts 10. DO NOT SKIP OUT ON ANYTHING IN THESE CHAPTERS.

Like any story, you have to understand the whole before you can form an understanding of what they mean. Most of the time, people look to these chapters and pick out a couple of lines, putting them out of context for what the overarching message God is telling us through Paul and Peter. While the two Corinthian verses seem to be in direct contradiction of one another, or could be interpreted as “If you come to Christ before Marriage, don’t marry (insert interpretation here). If you come to Christ after Marriage, stay with them until they no long want to be with you”, the question you need to ask yourself isn’t whether or not you’re relationship is against God. It has to be a different question entirely: What is my relationship with God? Only when you have YOUR answer to this question, can you truly ask yourself how these verses relate to your situation. That’s what the Bible teaches us, not to judge others based on the Bible, but rather how to judge ourselves based on the verses contained within the binding.

For me, God revealed a long time ago the answer: If your relationship with me is not strong enough, you should refrain from interacting with people that are unbelievers. If you have the strength of faith to follow me regardless of how tempting it is to follow others, then you are not at risk of losing me.

This is where self-honesty needs to happen for each and every person. I have come to know a good deal of people that find themselves consumed by something other than the God they claim to follow, and it ruins their relationship. They will periodically return to Church and break down realizing just how much they have fallen from what it is Christ wants for them, only to find themselves sucked back into the same passion that was used to distract them from God. I oftentimes find that those who feel the need to defend their faith against other beliefs are the ones that do not have enough stability in their relationship with God, so they try to convince themselves and others that their beliefs are unshakable. That is to say, someone who uses evidence (only God could create the world with all of it’s diversity) against an Atheist may be insecure and need to find validity over the logical argument an Atheist might persent.


Pointing to the Pagan community as an example of what should happen in Christianity. Pagans have a very deep love for their deities, to the point that they find ways to enrich their practices through ritual and observation of what their deities teach. They are always finding ways to make their path exciting through practices that are “hands on” and deeply spiritual. In an effort to recreate this, Christians today draw upon ideas and concepts that come from both pagan traditions (Easter, Christmas, Halloween, just to name a few that have pagan inspired practices involved) and early Jewish Traditions (Kabbalah, Passover) in order to find something that can better connect to God. In and of itself, these are not bad ideas, but they miss the point.

Throughout the history of the Bible, stories surround individuals that found their own way to connect with God. We can tell that ritual is not necessarily a bad thing, as sacrifices were made to God, and Christ’s most well known meal was a ritual of sorts. Prayer is a form of meditation, and it helps you connect with God. Over the years, Christian Mystics have used Prayer to discover the meanings of different things Christ taught so they could pass it along to others. This is something each individual Christian needs to develop for themselves- how they personally connect with Christ and His teachings.

So this is where every Christian needs to start. Find a way to connect with God that makes your relationship personal, just as you would with your best friend. Because that is who God should be- your best friend. Only when you have that established relationship, can you truly comprehend what he wants for you in your relationships with others around you.

God consistently asks us to come to Him with our questions, so that we might seek the answers we cannot find ourselves. If you are not doing this now, perhaps it is time you reconnected with your Christian side.