NOTES for 2 Кор 6:11-18
Today's reading contains the apostle Paul's well-known words: “What accord has Christ with Belial?... What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” These words convey to us something very important which God fostered in His people for centuries and which is not at all obvious to those of us who did not inherit that formation: the rejection of mixture. For centuries the Law fostered this trait among the Jews by forbidding not only the mixing of faiths but even the mixing of linen and woolen threads in one fabric.
In the twentieth century (and in the nineteenth too), agreement between the temple of God and idols was a popular idea. The new religious movements of the past two centuries are almost always a vinaigrette of finely chopped Christianity and all manner of religions. Alas, however much we may wish otherwise, reconciliation and accord with one another are possible only in the Truth. Showing mercy to one another makes sense not because it makes no difference which gods we worship, but because this is what the one true God expects of us.