The Wise Men Who Visited Jesus as a Baby Were Buddhist Monks Looking for Maitreya

      Who really were the Magi spoken of in the Gospel of Matthew? Were they really Zoroastrian priests from Babylon as it so commonly taught?

     About two years after Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, and there is no legitimate reason to assume other than the Scriptural account of the location of His birth, His mother, adopted father and He were visited by a group of men identified in the Gospel of St. Matthew only as “magoi” in the Greek who had come from the east. The text says that they had followed a star looking for the birth of a newborn “King of the Judeans”, and that they had initially gone to King Herod’s palace looking for Him, only having been directed to Bethlehem after Herod had consulted with scribes and priests to determine where the Jewish “Maschiach” (Anointed One, Grk. “Christos”) would be born.

     While Christian tradition has given us a particular image of who these men were, there is nothing in Matthew’s text to support that image other than the term “magoi”, often rendered “magi” or the more vague and slightly euphemistic “wise men”. There is no account of the number of these travelers to support that there were only three. The word “magos” (the singular form) in Greek refers principally to a class of Zoroastrian priests, practitioners of astrology, centered in the area of Persia. For this reason, it also refers more generally to someone as a “wizard”, “sorceror”, or a practitioner of the magical arts. Another example of the word used in the New Testament is in the Acts of the Apostles referring to “Simon the Magos” in Samaria. It appears clear that Simon was neither Persian in origin nor a Zoroastrian priest.

     The Magi were regarded with extreme renown in their own homeland as scholars, magicians, astrologers, and priests. They were some of the most educated of their people and heavily involved in politics. But in all of the reading I have done on the subject, I have not once encountered a single extra-Biblical account of Zoroastrian Magi traveling outside of their homeland, much less for two years along the caravan routes across the Middle East, to honor newborn royalty they didn’t exactly know where to find (if anyone has such evidence, I would be happy to look at it).

     Furthermore, the trip on foot across the land trade routes between a location in ancient Persian territory (such as Babylon, for example and mentioned often in sermons implying a connection with the prophet Daniel) only runs about 1200 miles, give or take. Figuring 20 miles a day on foot with a caravan, the trip would take approximately two to three months, not one to two years as is implicated by the Biblical text. For this reason, the idea that these were literal Zoroastrian Magi doesn’t fit the description. In order to fit the time frames involved we must go farther east than ancient 1st century Persia.

     In fact, there is a religious group also practiced with astrology that perhaps does fit the scant identifiers given. It is a little discussed fact among Christian theologians and pastors that Buddhism, having been established by Gautama Siddharta around 500 B.C.E., not only existed but flourished during this period in what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, and India. More than this, there is evidence that they regularly sent missionaries west as far as Egypt and are mentioned by Clement of Alexandria in the third century. 

     One region and group in particular that seems to fit is that of Ghandara around what is now Kabul in Afghanistan. This region was conquered by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C.E. and later would become a part of the Indo-Greek kingdoms of the period. It also became a major center for the practice of Indo-Greek Buddhism, patronized by the rulers of the period, Menander I and his successors. One interesting note about Ghandaran Buddhism is its focus on the boddhisatva Maitreya (this is the Sanskrit form; in the Buddha’s native Pali it is “Metteya”), the prophesied successor to Gautama Siddharta (the Buddha), from approximately 30-375 B.C.E.

     About Maitreya, it is written that the Buddha said before he died:

And the Blessed One replied: “I am not the first Buddha who came upon earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time another Buddha will arise in the world, a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals. He will reveal to you the same eternal truths which I have taught you. He will preach his religion, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax, and glorious at the goal, in the spirit and in the letter. He will proclaim a religious life, wholly perfect and pure; such as I now proclaim.”

Ananda said: “How shall we know him?”

The Blessed One said: “He will be known as Metteya, which means 'he whose name is kindness.'”

(The Gospel of Buddha XCVII:12-15)

     It is a well established fact that to this day, Tibetan Buddhists will search far afield for reincarnations of previous teachers known as “lamas”. One of the more sensational occurrences of this is that depicted in the film “Little Buddha” which was based on the true story of a group of Tibetan monks who believed they had found the reincarnation of a great lama in a boy from Washington state in the United States.

     It makes more sense to me, based on the scant details given, that these “magoi” described in the Gospel of St. Matthew were in fact Buddhist monks from either Ghandara or somewhere farther east where Buddhism was thriving. There would have had to be a reason why from the time the star was seen to the time they arrived in Jerusalem was two years give or take. If the “wise men” had come from traditionally Buddhist regions east of Persia, that would explain the much greater length of travel time than was necessary to travel from Persia. 

     If this is true, then why would Buddhist monks make this kind of an arduous journey? They were actively looking for the coming of the man they believed to be the Buddha’s successor (and it appears that at least after 30 C.E., the Buddhists in Ghandara believed they had found him). When the star appeared, probably after much debate, they set out to follow it from “the east”. 

     Not being aware of local Judean, much less Roman, politics, and assuming that the new boddhisatva would be born a prince (which would be a reasonable assumption since Siddharta was born a prince), they traveled first to King Herod’s palace assuming that the new prince would be his son. They would not have known Herod the Great’s reputation. 

     When inquiring about the new born prince, it is possible that they might have included in their explanation the Pali form of the name, “Metteya.” An interesting point about Greek orthography and pronunciation is that the “tt” and the “ss” can be, at times, interchangeable depending on the regional dialect of Greek. It is possible they might have explained in Greek that they were looking for the new born “Metteya” and those hearing understood them to be saying “messias”, the Hellenized form of Aramaic, “meschiach” (“anointed one”, Heb. “maschiach”, Grk. “Christos”) which comes into English as “messiah”. This would explain why Herod and those with him inquired as to where the “Christ” (Grk. “Christos”, Aram. “meschiach”) would be born upon the monk’s announcement they had come to honor a newborn king.

     I imagine their conversation happened along these lines:

Monks: “We have come to do homage to the newborn king of the Judeans.”

Herod: “Sorry, friend. There is no newborn prince in my house.”

Confused, the Monks reply: “We have seen his star far to the east. The Lord Metteya has been born here, we are certain of it.”

Herod, now beginning to shake a little: “Did you just say Messiah’s been born?”

Monks, not understanding the difference: “Yes.”

     I imagine also that Mariam, being one of the few remaining living witnesses to their presence and St. Matthew’s probable source, called them simply “magoi from the east” because, in reality, she may have had little real idea who they actually were or what land they had come from not having been educated in such things being a first century woman either still in puberty or barely out of it. It is easy for me to entertain the idea that a group of Greek speaking Buddhist monks with heavy accents, educated in astrology and with their journey possibly backed by an Indo-Greek king, traveling together might have been described by such a woman as “magoi”. That they may have been looking for a newborn Buddha might be suggested by the three gifts they presented as well. Today, Tibetan monks searching for their reincarnated lamas frequently bring a series of personal objects belonging to the deceased lama along with similar objects not having belonged to them in order to test whether or not the child in question is who they think they are. In this case, they were looking, not for a reincarnation, but for the birth of a new Buddha, and so brought gifts that might indicate the path in life the child would take should he choose them.

The Problem Isn't the Minimum Wage

 The problem isn't the minimum wage. The problem is a cost of living mismanaged by those people who control the resources in order to benefit themselves and not all of society. A microcosm example of this can be found in the worship songs found in churches. 

     During the nineties and oughties in particular (and still today), most worship songs that were not written prior to the late twentieth century had to be licensed every year from the corporations who controlled their copyrights. This could be hundreds of dollars per year for maybe ten to fifteen songs. The churches could not legally perform the songs during a service without paying the licencing fees to the corporations. If they wanted to keep using those songs, they had to keep paying the license fees. Over time, in order to increase their revenue streams, these corporations increased the fees, sometimes as much as 2 or 3 times what they originally had been. For smaller churches, this could mean they couldn't afford a youth pastor, or the money they might have used for some charitable works had to go towards paying those fees. "How Great is Our God" by Christ Tomlin made millions for its controlling company just so these churches could sing a familiar praise song, a familiar liturgy if you will, every Sunday. It has only been lately when this stranglehold has started to be broken by churches returning to the ancient hymnals, writing the worship songs themselves, or using songs which are made available freely to everyone; all things which send the controlling corporations into panic and lawsuit mode.

     When the resources needed to live are gatekept by a very few whose only motivation is profit for themselves, this is when real scarcity occurs. On a world like ours, in a country like the United States, there really shouldn't be any scarcity of either food, housing, or the basic necessities of life. Almost all scarcity of the things needed for living is artificially manufactured in nature by human beings hoarding those resources in order to make themselves more powerful and others powerless.

     This is not what or how we were created to be on a world teeming with anything and everything we as human beings actually need to live. Tribes in the rainforests and grassplains know this truth all too well. Their egalitarian societies function on everyone working for the benefit of the whole clan, village, or tribe. In many such societies, hoarding resources is seen as evil or even a sickness. Consider that. Consider that's the way we should be seeing it, and not something to aspire to.

Judgment on the American Church is Already Underway

 Some folks aren't going to like what I have to say here (not that this is new). I've been watching a lot of videos on why so many churches and Christian organizations are collapsing, and why so many of the younger generations are leaving the churches and not coming back. Most of these are done using AI to scour all parts of the internet for all information and statistics on a subject and then asking the AI to deliver an unbiased, no fluff interpretation of the data. 

     The results are pretty clear. What it boils down to is that, as I said several years ago, the younger generations are calling B.S. They've got immediate access to statistics, science articles, and personal testimonies at their fingertips. They can read the Bible, and most have read it very well, for themselves and compare it to the behavior they see from pastors and the older congregants, and they want no part of the massive contradiction they're seeing. 

     One of the biggest factors is the merging of right wing politics with institutional religion, and MAGA, and it's contradiction of Jesus' actual teachings. That's not speculation. That's what they're saying. They see the leader of the MAGA movement, Donald Trump, and his behavior and can't understand how their pastors and Sunday School teachers idolize this man, even calling him an "American Messiah." But the numbers don't lie. 

     Churches are closing their doors for lack of people and funding. Church attendance has been cut by a third if not a half across the US, and those who remain are my generation (GenX) or older. The generations who were supposed to carry it onwards have, almost with one voice, said "no." The movement and the man to whom many Christians and churches looked to be the savior of American Christianity is becoming one of the main causes of its gutting. As church members die off, if things continue, there will be no one to replace them.

     And the kick of it is, many if not most of those who leave and don't return to any church still believe in God. They still believe in and want to follow Jesus Christ. They still read their Bibles, and many know them thoroughly from what I've seen. They've taken responsibility for their own spiritual development and formation. Even those who adopt the "spiritual but not religious" moniker are often among these. Many of those who would now fall under the "New Age" label have nothing but praise for Jesus Christ and His teachings, and call themselves followers of Jesus. They haven't rejected Jesus. They've rejected the hypocrisy of the institutions who claim to represent Him.

     I've written about and even done a video sermon on a judgment coming to the American Church. I think it was about three years ago now, give or take. What I didn't know then was that it was already underway and is gaining speed and we're actually watching it in real time if we're paying it any attention.

     As Paul wrote, "You reap what you sow." And the American Church is reaping the harvest it's been sowing for decades.

My Review of "Superman" (2025) and Comparison with "Man of Steel"

     This post is going to be a bit different. There's no spiritual point to it. It's just my review of Superman (2025).

      I got around to watching Superman (2025) yesterday. To be honest, I went into it with a bias against it because of WB's behavior towards Zack Snyder, Henry Cavill, and the others of that era of DC films. I also waited until I didn't have to pay full price and picked up a Blueray leftover from Black Friday for $10. So, that's my disclosure. I've seen every Superman series and movie since George Reeves' Adventures of Superman and Christopher Reeve's quadrilogy (also a large amount of the animated movies and series over the last forty to forty-five years), so I think I'm fairly qualified to give my opinion on this one.

     First, David Corenswet did well in his role, as did Rachel Brosnahan. That is, I think they did well with the material which was given to them. The same is true of Nicolas Hoult. I don't think any of the actors in this movie delivered a subpar performance. The special effects were good and were what we've come to expect from movies of this genre in 2025.

     But I do have a gripe. It felt to me like the movie tried too hard to be a comedy rather than a superhero movie. Jokes and intentionally comedic moments were inserted at random and in places where, honestly, they just weren't appropriate. Another gripe is the lack of character development when compared to their counterparts in previous Superman iterations. Jonathan and Martha Kent stand out as prime examples, but Lex Luthor's character suffers from this as well. The characters felt far too two dimensional. The only ones who demonstrated more depth to them were Lois Lane's and Superman's. While I realize Gunn was going for a stricter adaptation of the comic book characterizations, it felt jarring when compared to the depth given to them in previous adaptations (and yes, Man of Steel weighs in heavily here, but so does the Chris Reeve movies and even Superman Returns; it's unfair to bring in Smallville and Superman and Lois because they had far more time to develop and flesh out their characters than a movie has).

     This movie might be a silly one to throw on every so often, but it dodges or barely addresses the big questions asked by the Superman mythos, and when it does, I feel like it mishandles them. To be clear, this isn't the fault of the actors. They all did well with what they had, but what they were given felt like it went out of its way to avoid being anything other than a shallow Saturday matinee movie. For me, it was jarring and disjointed.

     This is just my opinion, and I'm sure many will disagree. If you really liked it, that's great. Not saying I wouldn't watch it again, but given all of the Superman material that came before it, I think Gunn could have done a lot better.

     As a follow up, I rewatched Man of Steel in order to compare it with Superman (2025). Disclosure, I already went into it with a bias towards Man of Steel to begin with. Also disclosure, I didn't start out that way. 

     Initially, I was reluctant to see Man of Steel because I had enjoyed Superman Returns and Brandon Routh's portrayal of the character. He was a spot on drop in for Christopher Reeve and really brought back that feel of the Donner/Salkind movies. Kevin Spacey was phenomenal as Lex Luthor in that one as well, and probably the best cinematic Lex Luthor portrayed to date, or at least on par with Gene Hackman's portrayal. I felt WB had given them a seriously raw deal by not bringing them back, especially when Superman Returns was profitable. And I didn't like that they had cast a British actor for an American midwestern role.

     Then I read the novelization, and I started seeing the trailers and clips on YouTube, and I eventually bought the DVD when it came out. Man of Steel didn't just grow on me, it spoke to me, especially as a kid who also struggled with being different and had challenges growing up. I loved the portrayal of Clark's powers as a disability at first before they became his superpowers. The casting, the acting, the writing, the story telling, the grounded realism that it brought to the Superman mythos was intense, even with and especially with the motivations and depth of the characters. This was superhero film raised to the level of a near biblical epic with Shakespearean overtones. It should have won awards in my opinion, but the Academy didn't tend to recognize superhero films then, which is a crying shame for a number of films and actors which deserved it (Robert Downey Jr.'s final scene in Endgame comes to mind).

     Man of Steel became my favorite cinematic portrayal on its own merits even when I was initially against it.

     Knowing this, I purchased Superman (2025) on sale and decided to give it a go and a chance to change my mind. To be honest, I was disappointed with it. It had its moments, but when compared with Man of Steel, those moments felt unearned. In comparison with Man of Steel, Superman felt surreal and not able to reach the threshold for suspension of disbelief. The characters didn't feel like real people, which, I suppose is what the director was going for in trying to harken back to the silver age of DC comics but it felt jarring. It was difficult to empathize with any of them whereas in Man of Steel, you could empathize with nearly all of the characters, including the villains, and understand to some extant where they were coming from even if you disagreed.

     To me, having recently watched both movies, comparing Man of Steel to Superman (2025) is like comparing Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings to, perhaps, the movie adaptation of Eragon, if not Robin Hood: Men in Tights (though at times Superman feels like it tries too hard to be the latter while maintaining a facade of Superhero drama and action).

     I know there are people who prefer the most recent movie. I really wish I would have been more pleasantly surprised by it, but I just can't see how anyone would say it's the better adaptation. Maybe something for kids on a Saturday afternoon, but it just doesn't reach the level of filmmaking and storytelling that MoS does.

Church Abuse, Pastoral Accountability, and What the NT Says About It All

 I've been watching a series on YouTube which has been diving into the recent history of the collapse of megachurches in particular but also of many churches and denominations in general, especially Evangelicalism. Many well known pastors of churches so large they've become their own brand have succumbed to the temptations of lavish lifestyles and abusing their authority to sexually abuse their congregants in one way or another. This has happened so often it's almost a given that if a church reaches a certain size and celebrity that it's only a matter of time before it happens there too. 

     One of the constant factors in these collapses is the lack of accountability for the pastoral leadership in either their personal conduct, their handling of church finances, or both. In these churches, the pastor is at the top and even if there is a board of elders or deacons, they're usually filled with his friends, family, and those who will rubber stamp everything he does or says (and it's usually a male pastor). When a credible accusation of abuse comes up, the victim is silenced, shamed, and paid off in order to protect the institution and its brand.

     Thing is, this kind of monarchal pastorate isn't what Jesus taught. It isn't even what Paul taught in his letters. Presbyters and bishops, the terms Paul uses for church leadership, were to be held accountable by the rest of the community because of their position as guides and teachers. They were to be the living examples of discipleship that everyone else could see and emulate. They were to not only teach how to operate with the Spirit instead of from their own dysfunctional flesh, they were to demonstrate it. When one of them began to engage with his flesh, with his fear, aggression, or bodily craving responses, the protocols for correcting them were different than for others in the community. There were no private asides. There were no taking two or three other brothers or sisters with you. They were to be confronted publicly and in front of everyone. Paul demonstrated this forcefully in his account of challenging Peter to his face in Antioch. Jesus demonstrated it in also publicly rebuking Peter in front of everyone. In a way, Peter did it with Simon the Sorcerer as well, publicly rebuking him. Whether he was in any kind of a position of leadership among the Samaritan community isn't said, though given his previous social position, it's probably not outside the realm of possibility.

     Part of the problem as well is the current model of church communities and giving. In the ancient Christian communities, all resources were put into a common pool where everyone could draw from as they needed. That included the community's leadership and spiritual guides. They had no more access to the community's resources and finances than anyone else. They were provided for out of them, yes, but no more than anyone else. In the Didache it talks about traveling prophets who would come to stay with these communities. They were to be allowed to stay and draw from the communal pool of resources for no more than three days before being required to move on. Otherwise, with the exception of the pastors, bishops, or presbyters, everyone who drew from the communal pool of resources was required to contribute to it as well as they could. Widows and orphans were obviously exempted from this, though Paul encouraged younger widows to remarry rather than draw from the communal pool for their livelihood. (This was a cultural thing. Unmarried younger women had few recourses for their livelihoods in that time even in Roman society. They were expected to either be married or live from their parents.) This is what Paul meant by "if someone doesn't work, neither should he eat," referring to those capable of working within the communities who stood around all day without working to contribute to those resources. But the key here is being able to contribute to the community in some way. One modern model for these ancient Christian communities is that of a religious order such as the Jesuits where any paycheck is handed over to the order and the order then provides all the necessities of life to its members.

     One who claims to be a teacher of discipleship, a pastor, a bishop, a presbyter must be held accountable by the rest of the community no differently from any other professing disciple except in how they are corrected. They are not to be protected or indulged, but are to be publicly rebuked and exposed in order to bring them back to their senses.

     If we had followed this actual New Testament model for accountability (and for that matter, resource distribution), none of these scandals would have happened in the first place.

The Purpose of Government

 I have a dear friend who believes the Federal government, or any government for that matter, is the real problem and should be dismantled entirely. I have other friends who believe that Billionaires and the ultra wealthy are the problem, and most of their money should be taken from them and redistributed. Still others think that the poor and homeless themselves are the problem, and they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop waiting for handouts.

     The problem isn't any of these. The problem is our common human malfunction, and yes, it is a malfunction or dysfunction peculiar to the human brain. It causes us to overreact to things that please or displease us and treat them as survival necessities or threats to one degree or another. It is the cause of murders, thefts, frauds, rapes, and so on. As much as we want to believe the problem isn't inherent to each and everyone one of us, it is the very reason why laws and rules exist. As Paul wrote to Timothy, "the law isn't put there for a human being who is operating the way he's supposed to, but for the lawless and those refusing to comply." Laws and rules are meant to constrain harmful, selfish, and destructive behavior so that the person doesn't cause harm to themselves or the rest of their community either through overt action or through neglect. They are only effective however if they are enforced by the rest of the community, because, after all, they are only words on paper or stone unless people choose to obey and enforce them.

     Government exists in order to enforce the agreed upon laws and protect the community as a whole. The only reason government exists is because of our common, inherited human dysfunction. Were we all of us operating as we were supposed to, in submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ, there would be no need for laws or rules, and thus no need for government. But as it stands, we are not all doing so. It is fair to say that the vast majority of the eight billion people on the planet operate from their own perception of survival threats and necessities, and either attempt to self-regulate these based on a personal or communal moral code they agree with, or are regulated by the governmental structures and laws put in place by their communities.

     The idea of the poor just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, going and getting a job to solve their problems, etc. is a complicated one at best. Lack of education, lack of opprtunities, mental illness, family stresses or issues, racism, and other factors make it far more complicated than many believe it is. Many of those now who qualify as under the poverty line do in fact have jobs, some two or three. When the cost of living however is far above your paychecks, just having a job doesn't lift anyone out of poverty. Things like social services, food stamps, and medical assistance become survival lifelines without which everything collapses. When the poverty line is $60,000 a year, your $45,000 salary only goes so far. $24,000 salaries fall much farther short.

     Some folks don't believe laws like those which render assistance to the poor should exist. Instead, at best, they believe those services should be provided by non-governmental non-profits. In an ideal world, that might be true. But the reality is that such non-profits would become overwhelmed immediately, as they likely are right now with SNAP benefits going unpaid. The truth is that while there are many wealthy people who donate large sums of money to such organizations, the majority do not. It is the instinct of the human malfunction to hoard those things it sees as beneficial to itself and attempt to destroy those things it sees as a threat. This plays out frequently among the wealthy. This is why the laws surrounding food and medical assistance for the poor exist, because the human instinct to hoard is often greater than the human instinct for compassion.

     The existence of Government may not be the ideal, but it is a necessary evil until we are all relieved of our common human dysfunction and operate the way we're supposed to. We may not like the government forcing us to pay for assistance to those under the poverty line with our taxes, but they only do it because we won't otherwise.

2 Corinthians 6:14 and Interfaith Marriages

      Why do we assume 2 Corinthians 6:14 has anything to do with marriage, or marriage specifically? There's nothing in the immediate context to even suggest it. Nowhere before or after the whole passage, or even within the passage, is Paul discussing marriage or any kind of relationship. So why do we apply this to marriages specifically?

     My point is that nothing in any of the verses preceding 14 has anything to do with marriage or relationships. It's a weird, jarring transition to suddenly go from explaining or defending your apostleship to "don't marry unbelievers." And the language itself doesn't really necessitate that interpretation either. There's no actual mention of marriage itself in 14. Another thing too that's weird in the verse. There's no word in the Greek for "with" in this sentence. The translation we usually have is really from the Latin, "nolite iugum ducere cum infidelibus", which literally reads, "Don't lead the yoke with unbelievers." But the Greek literally says, "Don't become differently yoked by/to/for untrusted/unbelieving [people]." You'd expect the preposition "sun (syn)" meaning "together with" but it's not there. I checked the Textus Receptus, Byzantine, and Critical Texts and it's not present in any of them. It's just the plural substantive in the dative case. That's actually weird. There are three different prepositions which could have been used for "with" but none of them are present. Now, There are also about four hundred years in between the Greek of Paul's writing and the Greek which Jerome would have known when he translated it in the fifth century. That's almost to the point of unintelligibility between different stages of the same language. I kind of wonder if language evolution had anything to do with how he rendered it. 

     Regardless, interpreting it as meaning "don't marry unbelievers" doesn't fit the preceding context or anything afterwards. It also somewhat contradicts what he said in 1 Corinthians about not leaving an unbelieving spouse if they're content to stay married to you. If Paul had applied the same reasoning that he does in the rest of the chapter, he would have encouraged them to leave. Something doesn't mesh.

     It makes more sense in the context of both of Paul's letters to Corinth that Paul is talking about not being "unequally yoked" with, as he says in 1 Corinthians 5, "anyone named a brother who is immoral, greedy, a slanderer, drunkard," and so on and "not even to eat with such a person. In truth, in his letters to the Corinthians, this is the only group of people that he is so harsh with, those who call themselves Christians but "whose god is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." This makes perfect sense when he says "don't be unequally yoked by the untrusted/untrustworthy/unfaithful. As he writes of those outside of the Church, "I didn't tell you to keep away from those on the outside of the Church, otherwise you'd have to leave the world completely, but to not keep company with the one named a brother who is immoral..." This interpretation also fits the harsh language he uses in the rest of 6 where he quotes from the LXX, "Exit out from the middle of them and be excommunicate [from them] says the Lord." As I wrote before, Paul did not have marriage or other personal relationships with "those on the outside" in mind when he wrote these words, but continued communion with those named Christians who do not actually live as Jesus Christ taught or walk as He walked. This should also be illustrated in that, in 1 Corinthians 7, believing spouses were not to divorce their unbelieving spouses if they consented to live with and remain married to them.

     Paul wasn't forbidding interfaith marriages, he was reiterating a point that he makes over and over again, that the Corinthian Christians should have nothing to do with and no communion with those who, as John describes, claim to walk in the light but walk in darkness instead.