The concept of Soul Ties is very popular in the Charismatic movement but I have always heard it preached, talked about and written about with half the truth. It is time we tell people the whole truth. Soul ties are when two people come together and they are emotional and spiritual attached to each other. That is the most simple explanation for the concept in general. One of the most powerful ways this happens is sex. The truth is that sexual is where two become one, positive (marriage) or negative (fornication.) Every person you are intimate with takes a part of you and gives you part of them. The physical element of the least important. There is an emotional tying together of people in intimacy. If you are attached to someone physically and not emotionally, that is called Emotional Dysfunctional Disorder, a real mental health problem that needs a therapist. Emotions to be expected as part of intimacy. There is also a mental element of people being in intimacy. They began to think like each other and on behalf of each other. There is a fusion of choices that are made in intimacy. Thought process become what is best for deeper levels of intimacy than what is best for one person. The final element of a soul tie should be and must be spiritual. The fusion of two people, called by God and put together by Him, should become more like the other spiritually. If they do not see the beauty of each other’s calling, something is horribly wrong. Each other should benefit the other’s spiritual DNA. The truth is that we SHOULD have soul ties to the person that God has called us to do life with. If you do not have this dynamic, things will go horribly wrong over time. The real problem is people are afraid of this fusion because they only hear of soul ties as negative.

Why Soul Ties form

The truth is that we have this major problem today in our churches because we have been soft on sin and especially sexual sin. It is not uncommon for people to live in sin. Fornication is a regular thing for believers. It is almost not even seen as sin anymore. Pastors don’t preach against it and in some cases, fornicators are given leadership positions. When we go soft on fornication, adultery, and divorce; you can expect a lot of brokenness because people are forming soul ties with people they should not be. I have seen this first hand. Scripture is very clear that we are not to form a soul tie with someone we are not marry to, we are to not break it with our spouse, and we are not form one with anyone that we are married to. It is completely unbelievable that so many pastors struggle to have a hard line on this. As a result of not standing strong on sexual issues in the church, we have a lot of broken believers trying to figure out why they are so confused. The reason is they were not told to get out of sin and be set free. It is one thing for someone to come to Christ with soul ties; it is another for the saints to take them on after conversion. However, the presence of sinful soul ties that are formed by bad choices does not reduce the reality of holy soul ties within the context of marriage. Positive ones are critical and if they are not there, something is seriously wrong. I do not hear this part of the discussion on the matter.

Soul ties in light of Mental Health

One thing that fornication does is open the door to all types of mental health problems. I have seen people who practice the sin often end up so broken that they become Borderline Personality Disorder patients. They have given up so many pieces to random people they don’t even know who they are anymore. Others with broken soul ties end up become Narcissistic Personality Disorder. While people throw the term around so loosely these days, NPD is a real mental health concern and people who have dozens of soul ties. In the end, people need both deliverance and therapy because their values become so confused. Out of soul ties that are broken when they are not rooted in fornication comes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The breaking of a covenant relationship is traumatic. Many do not ever recover from it. It is not something to take lightly. If someone has PTSD from a relationship, there is a chance that a soul tie was broken in the context of marriage that was not meant to be broken. So what happens when you are called by God and joined together by the Lord to someone that has PTSD or a past that caused them to have spiritual identity issues? Do you throw them under the bus and cry the covenant was a mistake? Scriptures tells us to fight for it and to sanctify the soul ties; not destroy it.

What about other soul ties?

While the majority of them is between a man and a woman in marriage, there are social soul ties that cause fusion between people for ministry or business. People who have walked together and form a team in ministry is a form of it as well. We can look at the relationship of Elijah and Elisha to see it or we can look at Paul and Timothy. One that many normally miss the inter working of the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus. It is clear that there was a deep emotional, mental and spiritual connection between them in the gospels. As you see, some of these ties are powerful and bring forward great advancement of the gospel. They can be as peers or they can be as spiritual fathers and sons. One of them I think about is the connection that Leonard Ravenhill had with Steve Hill. It was a divine tie that released the greatest revival in American history. We normal see impartation differently but at the core, it is a divine soul ties that causes fusion of people together in intimacy. Elisha clearly understood this when he refused to leave his spiritual father in 1 Kings. There is something poweful about them and we need to see the glory of soul ties, not just the negative.

How now shall we live?

The question become now that we know there is good soul ties, bad one and even one in ministry or business; what do we do to walk in the fullness of the glory of the Lord in our lives? The answer starts with discernment. The first step is to know if one is from the Lord or from the enemy. This is the difference between breaking it off or investing into it. This is why this correction in our understanding has to happen. Sometimes we are trying to break off what the Holy Spirit is trying to impart into us. If there is a relationship that clearly is based on fornication and other sin, without question you need to break it off. If it a relationship that draws you from the Lord, it must be dealt with properly. However, it is a relationship that draws you closer to the purposes of God and it based on purity and revival, it is time to invest in those soul ties. Build them, strengthen them, grow them. This is where discernment is critical. We need to know which ones are toxic and the ones we need to be who we are called to be in Christ. It is also worth saying that some of those can seem toxic can become some of the most important relationships we have in Christ.