Mismatched

by Matt Laney | published on Jun 8, 2026

Discussion Questions 

  1. Read 2 Corinthians 6; you can find it here. Then read the devotional below, “Mismatched.”  
  1. The devotion challenges the categories of “believer” and “unbeliever.” Where have you seen goodness, wisdom, or grace appear outside expected religious boundaries?  
  1. Rev. Laney writes, “Jesus was not especially worried about contamination.” How does Jesus’s openness to outsiders challenge the way our churches sometimes define belonging?  
  1. What are some “yokes” that connect and heal, and what are some that break us or ask us to compromise our souls?  
  1. The devotion ends by separating from “the very idea of ‘them.’” What would it look like in your life, church, or community to resist creating a “them”? 

Devotional 

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? Or what partnership is there between light and darkness? – 2 Corinthians 6:14 (NRSV) 

Of all the verses I struggle with in the Bible, this one ranks near the top. 

The utter audacity to create a false binary between righteousness and lawlessness, light and darkness, believer and unbeliever. Please. 

As if faith is so easily sorted. As if “believers” are always safe, loving, humble, or just. As if an “unbeliever” cannot be compassionate, honest, generous, or wise. Many of us have been wounded by “Bible-believing Christians” and healed by people who couldn’t quote a single verse. 

Jesus was not especially worried about contamination. He ate with the wrong people, touched the untouchable, praised outsiders, and let strangers reveal God’s grace. The gospel keeps undoing our tidy, “matchy-matchy” categories. 

So let’s not read this verse as permission to shrink our circle, fear difference, or mistake purity for love. Let’s read it as a warning against partnerships that ask us to abandon our souls. Some yokes connect us; some break us. Some relationships and systems heal; others ask us to call cruelty practical, silence holy, greed responsible, and domination peace. 

The true mismatch is not between Christian and non-Christian, but between love and harm; between the liberating Spirit of Christ and anything that demands we become less empathetic, less truthful, less free. 

Let’s separate ourselves from the very idea of “them” and from whatever in us, and around us, keeps partnering with darkness while calling it light. 

Prayer
May I stay open to love and wisdom wherever they appear, and walk away from whatever binds me to harm.

Matt LaneyAbout the Author
Matt Laney is Co-Pastor of Virginia Highland Church UCC in Atlanta, GA, and the author of Pride Wars, a fantasy series for young readers. You can find original children’s stories by Rev. Laney on his YouTube channel, LaneyLit.