I get emails —
Jay,
I have done some counseling with people in the church. One brother in his 60’s told me recently that he had been very unhappy and even miserable in his married life for over 35 years. They stayed married but now his grown children are fairly miserable and depressed themselves. This man told me he wonders if he will go to heaven because he was such a bad father (not abusive or a drunkard, just ineffectual and unhappy). Have we (Christian teachers) led people to believe they would be better off being miserable for 40 years than getting a divorce and going to hell?
I am so blessed to be with someone I could love for many years. But not everyone is so fortunate. Is it right for me to tell someone less fortunate you must remain in this wretched, pathetic marriage for the rest of your life because you made a bad decision when you were a 19 year old? In fact, I haven’t said that , but that is what most church of Christ people believe and if a preacher told them differently it would start a firestorm of trouble.
I usually say something like, “knowing that God wants you to be faithful and happy, what do you need to do for that to happen?” Any further feedback or advice from scripture you or your readers can give me?
Marriage is a covenant. The scriptures often speak of God’s relationship with the church as a covenant, which is an extension of God’s covenant with Abraham and later Israel. And we know from the Old Testament that God was faithful to his covenant with Israel despite its unfaithfulness. Just one particularly graphic example would be —
(Hos 1:2 ESV) When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”
Despite God accusing Israel of whoredom, God was faithful to his covenant — but no to every single Jew. Rather, some Jews were lost because of lack of faith or deliberate disobedience.
(Psa 95:7-11 ESV) Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Compare Heb 3:8 ff.
Although some argue that we must be as faithful to our marriage covenants as God is to covenants, I think the better analogy is at the individual level. How faithful is God to his covenant with individual Christians? Well, those of the Calvinistic school of thought would argue that God is so faithful that no one can fall away so as to be lost, but as regular readers know, that’s not by view. But neither do I believe people fall away for every mistake or sin.
Rather, as I taught at GraceConversation, there are three ways to fall away —
- A Christian falls away when he no longer has faith. “Faith” means faith in Jesus.
- A Christian falls away when he is no longer penitent. Equivalently, a Christian falls away when he no longer submits to Jesus as Lord. Equivalently, a Christian falls away when he willfully continues to sin.
- A Christian falls away when he seeks to be justified other than by faith in Jesus.
Now, Todd Deaver and I defend those propositions at GraceConversation, and I’ll not repeat the many pages of argument here. Rather, let’s see what would be analogous to those breaches of covenant in a marriage?
Faith/faithfulness
A spouse no longer has faith in his or her spouse. It’s hard to find an exact equivalent, as we normally think of “faith,” but the word in the Greek also means “faithfulness,” and it often carries this double meaning in the New Testament — although rarely picked up by the translators. Indeed, the “faith of Jesus” mentioned in Rom 3 and Gal 2 is his faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham.
(Rom 3:22 ESV) the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for [Greek: “faithfulness of Jesus Christ to”] all who believe. For there is no distinction:
(Gal 2:16 ESV) yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ [Greek: “faithfulness of Jesus Christ”], so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ [Greek: “the faithfulness of Christ”] and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Therefore, the marriage-equivalent of “faith” would being faithful to your spouse. Now, this is more than sexual faithfulness, but it certainly includes that. Rather, “faithfulness” means honoring your covenant with your spouse. This includes several things.
(Exo 21:10 ESV) If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.
Moses states that a man taking a second wife must not deny the first food, clothing, or “marital rights,” that is, sexual relations. Paul likely had this passage in mind when he commanded that spouses not deny each other sexual fulfillment in 1 Cor 7. This was standard rabbinic teaching in Jesus’ day, and a close study of rabbinic debates shows that rabbis who insisted on this (all of them) also debated the grounds for divorce found in Deu 34 — fornication vs. any ground at all — without mentioning these, and yet the rabbis of both schools of though routinely allowed divorce (and remarriage) for a breach of these commands. David Instone-Brewer covers this in remarkable detail in Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context. I summarize his work in much more detail in my ebook posted online But If You Do Marry … and the earlier series on divorce called “MDR.”
The deeper teaching is found in Ephesians —
(Eph 5:21-33 NIV) 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
My views on this are detailed at —
Ephesians 5 Part 2 (“Submission”)
Additional Material on Ephesians 5:21
Suffice to say that Paul compares the relationship of husbands to wives to Christ’s sacrificial relationship to the church — supporting the overall thesis of this post. The key command is: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The reference to the crucifixion is explicit and routinely ignored. The covenant of the husband is submission just as Christ submitted —
(Phi 2:5-8 NIV) 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!
Surrender, self-emptying (making oneself nothing), and humility reflect the nature of Jesus as shown by the cross.
Wives, of course, are taught by Paul to submit as their husbands, but husbands, to be like Christ, must also submit —
(Heb 5:7 NIV) 7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.
And, I believe, the command of mutual submission ultimately subsumes the commands for food, clothing, and marital rights — they are still true, of course, but the principle is much, much deeper.
Repentance
To repent is to live what you confess —
(Rom 10:9-10 NIV) 9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
Now, only Jesus is Lord, but both husbands and wives must be faithful to their covenants and must submit to one another. This submission is the essence of marriage in Christ.
Justification by works
Galatians teaches that our salvation is by faith in Jesus and not works. Indeed, seeking justification by works rather than faith causes one to fall away. It’s a scary book! Works salvation is also known as legalism — the idea that there are a bunch of rules we can obey and so deserve salvation or that there are rules other than faith in Jesus that define the boundaries of the kingdom.
The marital equivalent of legalism is seeking to earn your spouse’s love or, much more commonly, demanding that your spouse earn your love — that is, making your love conditional on meeting some standard of behavior.
Now, there is, of course, a standard we really want our spouses to meet, right? We really want them to be sexual faithful. We want them to carry their share of the load. There are many, many standards we want our spouses to meet. Just so, God has extremely high expectations of us his children. But God’s covenant is not legalistic.
Rather, God acts first. He pursues us and gives us grace. We respond in obedience, but a very imperfect obedience. Nonetheless, as God gives himself to us, even living in us to form a kind-of unity through his Spirit, we grow in our obedience and love, and the relationship deepens.
I’m no marriage counselor, but many a counselor gives this advice: pursue your wife or husband. Don’t demand her or his love. Rather, be the first to love, the first to serve, the first to submit — asking nothing in return other than the opportunity to love. And, the counselors teach, no spouse can resist such unconditional love. Love changes people.
You see, we must learn from God’s grace how to be gracious to others — especially to our spouses. Submit by being willing to sacrifice for the other first. It’s works for God. It’ll work for you.
Christian marriage
There are three kinds of marriages — marriages between non-Christians, marriages between Christians, and mixed marriages. Let’s take them one at a time.
For non-Christians, the Bible doesn’t really have a lot to say. Obviously, God deeply cares how the spouses treat each other and their children, because God love them all. But the church can’t do much for non-Christian couples, nor can we call them to live like Jesus.
For mixed marriage, the Bible is quite clear.
(1Pe 3:1-2 ESV) Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
(1Co 7:12-17 ESV) 12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? 17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
The believing spouse must remain married in hopes of converting the unbeliever. The failure of a spouse to convert does not, by itself, justify a divorce. But where other grounds exist, they’d certainly apply.
Now, for marriages between Christians, the rules are as discussed above, and absent disease, God and the church insist that the spouses treat each other as described in Ephesians 5. And when spouses do this, they’ll get along — especially if they are part of a Christian community where good marriages are modeled and the leadership supports them in their efforts to make a good marriage.
I’m convinced that virtually all miserable marriages are miserable because of one or both spouses’ selfishness. I mean, self-giving, Christ-like spouses can make a marriage work, even if they aren’t intrinsically compatible. They just have to grow up and do what the Bible says.
The sad truth, however, is that our churches are pretty good at producing spiritual midgets because we teach a selfish Christianity. Indeed, our marketing often emphasizes what the convert gets out of Christianity, rather than the joys of missional living. When the church is selling coffee in the lobby and child care and great worship rather than mission with Jesus, it’ll produce selfish Christians and failed marriages.
I have nothing against coffee, child care, and great worship. I just don’t think they should be the reason anyone joins my church. If they join because of what they get out of it rather than because of how well they’ll be equipped for ministry, well, we leaders aren’t doing our jobs.
Therefore, the most important cure for miserable marriages is Christianity — the Phillippians 2 kind, not the marketing kind. Get that right, and we’ll not fix them all, but we’ll fix a whole lot of them!
Discipline
If a Christian spouse insists on being a selfish jerk to his wife, he should be counseled, prayed with, and warned. Professional counseling should be made available. We may even need him to take a physical and make sure his problem isn’t due to some disease. But after everything else has been tried, he may need to be disfellowshipped. (Obviously, the same rule applies for wives who are selfish jerks.)
Very understandably, elderships are reluctant to get involved in such matters, because there will always be a lot of “he said, she said,” and most of us aren’t qualified counselors. But, ultimately, a church that won’t insist its members stop being selfish isn’t really much of a church. It’s not optional behavior.
(Phi 2:1-4 NIV) If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Christianity changes hearts and lives. And we should certainly treat our spouses at least as well as Paul tells us to treat our fellow church members. This is the heart of Christianity.
(1Co 13:1-8 NIV) If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
Again, this passage is about how to treat your fellow church member, and we can properly insist that spouses do at least as well with each other.
I’m convinced that countless marriages could have been saved and many a husband or wife spared untold misery by a church that teaches a Christ-like Christianity, that insists that we honor these commands, and that is willing to discipline those who refuse. I doubt many will refuse if the teachings are taught properly.
Jay,
I have had questions in my mind about marriage for sometime. This might sound trivial on its face, but I think it is very important.
In the U.S., in most if not all jurisdictions, a couple are not married until they obtain a marriage license, have a wedding ceremony (however brief) and a document is signed by the one officiating and witnesses. The church only recognizes this process as a legal marriage and assumes that God only approves unions where the couple have gone through this process.
In some places on earth a marriage consists of a couple having a feast with their families and friends, some dancing and song, and he takes the woman (or girl) to his hut. Of course there are different marriage rites around the world which reflect the customs and heritage of the people involved.
In both of these examples the ritual only validates and makes official what has already happened. Hopefully, and I think everyone would agree, that most couples have already committed themselves to the other or they wouldn't have the ceremonial ordeal.
I agree with you that an extended separation is really a divorce, the one partner has "put away" the other. In the same way two people who have decided to join their hearts and lives in a monogamous relationship are married it seems to me. I have never said this publically before, but I have thought it for a long, long time.
Many of our states in the U.S. recognize this union as "common law" marriage. I have known couples who have lived long lives, raised families, and died committed to their mate but never got the piece of paper.
There is one thing for sure. No person can make the defense that couples who go through the process are more likely to stay together than those couples who do not make their union legal. This sadly is true of people in the church as well. I believe the divorce rate among evangelical Christians is about what it is with the unchurched.
I am not for abolishing marriage the way we do it. What I am for is rethinking labeling every couple who are in monogamous, committed, loving, relationships as fornicators, whores, etc. Tens of thousands of people have no welcome in the local church this Sunday because they are in "common law" marriages.
Here is my question. Does God have different standards for marriage depending on the laws of the jurisdiction the couple lives in? Or, does he recognize two hearts committed to one another in any jurisdiction. I just have a problem believing what is marriage in one place on earth is not marriage in another place in God's view. It is God who joins two in marriage after all, license or no license, church or court house.
Well, I'm ready for the arrows. Let'm fly.
Royce
Royce,
i've actually thought along similar lines for a while. i just came at it from the back door. The question to me was, is 'what constitutes a marriage' determined by the state or by God? God does mention at least one reason (fornication) for divorce being permissible. If we lived in a country where such a reason was outlawed, then what? Would we be allowed to divorce because God said so? Or not allowed because the state said so? i think the former is true. If the former is true, then it's not the state that determines what constitutes a marriage.
(And i think that's important to tell a lot of divorced, conservative CoCer's who might've lost sleep over the precise wording of their divorce decree.)
–Guy
A celebration or going to a court house … either way the marriage is being announced and made public. It has the status of a covenant and witnesses are involved.
This sets marriage apart from just "living together" without public commitment. And we see different forms of making this marriage covenant in Scripture – in any case it was clear who was married to whom.
But I agree that this is a very difficult question. If we consider that sleeping with an unmarried woman is an obligation to marry her according the Mosaic Law – and I see no reason why this should not be the case today as well – we sure face a dilemma in our age where it is common even for teenagers to have sexual intercourse.
We probably won't be able to change the society, but we must earnestly teach the children and youth in our church about these issues. And – even if it were a tough rule – enforce the obligation to marry after having had sex. This would be a new way of doing thing the ancient ways …
Alexander
Anon. see how wrong you were, I totally, and completely agree with Royce on some things. I couldn't agree more.
Guy.
Tthere is not a lot of divorced conservative Cof C since they are not allowed to place membership if ever been divorced. If a mamber and divorced, usually leave on their own rather than be withdrawn from. Some cultures even jumped over a broom!
I agree with Royce too.
Something is wrong when a person can beat, terribly mistreat or even kill his wife or her him, repent and ask forgiveness from God and get it right then but if he divorces her or she him except for sexual misconduct, they are lost forever.
I believe we have misinterpreted Adultery and Fornication as being only sex anyway.
We are way too obsessed with sex .
Much worse and more harmful things are done to a family, like child abuse and many wives would pray he would just have sex with someone and leave them alone. Sadly,usually the wife is talked to and couneled into staying and be an good christian wife while enduring more and more rather than leaving or shooting the ______. As it is taught here, she could get forgiveness if she did shoot. and would be accepted by the church. If she just couldn't take it anymore and left, it is debatable if he then has sex if her leaving him caused it.. Crazy picture !!!
I've seen so many stupid things done and confessions cooerced from one divorced that has left the church in order for the one remaining to be able to be "remarried scripturally" and thus accepted by a church.
Royce,
"Common law" marriage is marriage made by a couple in the manner that existed before the Catholic Church took marriage over as a sacrament to be handled by only the church. The government eventually took away the church's monopoly.
Alabama is one of the few pure common law states left. Here a couple is married at such time as they agree to be currently married (as opposed to be married in the future) and give objective evidence of this intent — such as by telling their friends that are married. It can happen in 30 seconds with no license and no blood tests. Technically, in Alabama, all marriages are common law as the minister or judge is only authorized to "solemnize" the marriage, that is, to make it formal. (There is no common law divorce in any state.)
Many states have modified this rule, such as by requiring 7 years of cohabitation. Some have eliminated it altogether.
Now, from the standpoint of God, marriage is a covenant. When my wife (then my fiancee) and I were standing in line to get a marriage license in Tennessee, the man in front of us told he and his wife had lived together for several years and he was at the courthouse "to make things right" for her and their children. You see, in the eyes of the state, they weren't married. But what would be our reaction if he'd left them to end a life of "fornication" and go marry another woman? I think we'd be repulsed, because they clearly were living in covenant relationship. Had he left her, he would have done the very same harm as if they were legally married and he'd divorced her. It would have been just as wrong.
Merely having sex with someone didn't make you married under the Law of Moses or under common law.
Now, a couple that is in a committed, monogamous, heterosexual relationship is not married at common law (or ancient Israelite practice) unless they intend to be married — that is, they've made a covenant to be presently married. Mere cohabitation does not make a marriage — but around here in West Alabama, it's pretty common in some circles for couples to marry at common law without the benefit of a judge or preacher — and they are just as married as if they'd had 20 bishops do the ceremony. But it can be hard for a surviving spouse to claim inheritance or Social Security benefits or to receive support after a divorce — because it's hard to prove a marriage with the most important witness dead. The problem with marriage at common law is the lack of proof — especially when one spouse is dead and the children don't want the second "wife" to inherit anything. But it's not sin per se.
Thanks Jay for the enlightenment on the law.
One thing we all agree on is that there are far too many marriages that end in divorce without regard to how they began. And it is especially true of church folks.
Two people who are walking in the Spirit are likely to find a way to forgive, compromise, submit, be more patient, and more loving to make their vows mean something.
I understand what God's ideal is, one man for one woman for life. I also understand, sadly from personal experience, it takes two people who are willing to try to make it work according to God's plan. I had to learn the hard way that I can't control another person, I can only account for myself.
We must insist that our young people are discipled followers of Christ and that they and their future mates have some solid biblical counsel before they marry. Those of us who claim Christ as Lord must have lives that reflect the love we claim. We must be holy so far as is possible.
Royce
If we don't then any misbehaviour could be allegorically interpreted as "adultery" and we'd end where the pharisees ended: With endless debates whether we can divorce our spouse for any reason (Mat 19:3).
I think it is fair to say that the Law of Moses concerning the reason for divorce is ambiguous (Deu 24:1), but it would be utterly unfair to our Lord Jesus if we say that the term he used is also ambiguous (Mat 5:32). The Greek ???????? is as clear as anyone could wish for: It derives from ????? = harlot.
If a husband is a drunkard and beats his wife, this is terrible – but no reason for divorce (BTW the Mosaic Law never allowed wifes to divorce their husbands!). If a wife is nagging and and a real terror to live with, we may move to the attic (Pro 21:9 and Pro 25:24 – common enough to be mentioned twice 😉 ), but not divorce.
That's true. Pornography is very accesible today, and that's a snare for all men. Teenagers are urged to make early sexual experiences by the media, music and class-mates. They suffer immens peer pressure.
But even in NT-times it was a dominant sin. It is always on the top of the list, when our Lord or His Apostles compiled lists of sins. Jesus called his generation an adulterous generation.
Pornographic frescoes have been discovered in Pompej, among the nations it was almost as common as today – in their conversations, poetry, dramas, banquets … and it was reflectzed by the high divorce rate among the nations.
I never saw the connection between child-care and selfish Christianity, but I was always a little sceptical about our practice of putting the kids away while we are "doing worship". This was unheard of for the first 1700 years of Christianity (if I am not misinformed) – so there would be even stronger historical reasons to object to child care than to IM … Yesterday in Bible Study I was again pretty distracted by the little ones, but on the other hand I was happy, that all mums and dads could participate in the study and the wee ones – while playing – experienced ordinary church life. Jesus did not push the children away.
Alexander
Alabama John,
i grew up in a conservative CoC and did full time ministry in three conservative CoC's. All four congregations each had several divorced members.
–guy
In January, I held a contest on my blog. I randomly paid the registration fees for two couples to attend FamilyLife's Weekend to Remember (www.weekendtoremember.com) marriage conferences which are held across the US and Canada. My wife and I attended a few years ago and loved it. By far, my post about the Weekend to Remember contest was the most popular post I have ever had on my blog. People really want to make their marriages better. If anyone has not attended one, I would highly recommend it.
Alexander, good stuff, thanks.
Terry, good for you, I applaud you effort to help marriages.
Our church has a marriage retreat bi-annually and it is fantastic. Many struggling couples have been helped and healed because of the love of Dr. Joneal Kirb yhttp://www.hearttohomeministry.org/ ) ( and her husband Randy (one of our elders) and other godly couples who are examples and leaders. Some of them are uniquely equipped to teach others because they have made the mistakes already themselves.
My wife and I paid for a young couple to attend a few years ago. What an investment in the kingdom of God!
Royce
Alexander.
Adulterous generation in my opinion doesn't mean sex only.If as is taught sex before marriage is fornication and sex after marriage is adultery then Matthew 6:32 doesn't make sense. REad it with that sex wordingexplanation instead of the words fornication and adultery.
Augustine taught fornication of the mind.
1 Cor 7:12 Reverse logic is she is not stay, then he is to leave her(divorce). No sex involved.
Ned,
When you want to become a member of a church of Christ around here and other places like when we lived in Arizona, you meet with the elders and are asked if you have been married before, either of you. Not if you have committed murder or any other bad thing which can be forgiven, only unforgiven marriage wrongs. If the answer is yes, then you are denied membership period!
One can be granted membership if divorced if their spouse left them and was guilty of sexual sin with another person, not sexual sin of witholding sex from their marriage partner which I imagine is another subject isn't it.
I'd be interested in how the congregations where you preached firstly had elders or not and how they handled it with divorced members especially if they had remarried. Were he or she given full privileges and able to serve in all capacities as others never divorced like teachers, wait on Lords Table, Asked to pray, etc.
i understand that fornication is any illicit sex. Adultery is specifically two people who are not married having sex when either or both of them are already married to someone else.
Since both in the OT–God & Israel–and in the NT–Christ and the Church–are often described metaphorically as a husband and wife, then so also can adultery be used of either one metaphorically. Those passages are not *definitional* of "fornication" or "adultery" anymore than is Israel a *literal* woman God found in a field, cleaned up, showered with gifts, and married (Ezek 16).
–guy
Alabama John,
Not sure who "Ned" is, but i assume you mean me. One of the congregations i worked for was in Phoenix, AZ. We had elders. We had divorced members. One of the divorced members was active in the children's ministry. And she was remarried. Her daughters were in my youth group and her ex-husband went to another conservative church across town–i can't speak to how active or involved he was in that congregation, but it was yet another conservative church in town with a divorced member.
–guy
Guy,
Did the churches where you preached have elders and/or did ya'll have a questionnaire to be filled out before accepting for membership? What would disallow acceptance? I bet my hat it was only divorce or remarriage.
In the same context as you state, a drop of red paint put in a gallon of white paint adulterates the paint so the one doing so committed adultery.
That is my point, adultery does not always mean sex so why do we have it to be so?
Alabama John,
No, we didn't have questionnaires. The real point, unless you're Jesus, or have actual data, it's really not appropriate to blanketly say all conservative CoC's are X any more than it is for someone else to say blanketly that all progressive CoC's are X. Rather than writing off entire classes of people, we should lovingly give the benefit of the doubt.
–Guy
John,
(A) Will you cite the particular passage?
(B) Even if adultery didn't always refer merely to sexual activity, that doesn't exclude the possibility that there are some cases where it does. Thus it could be so in the very cases we're talking about.
–guy
Guy,
Excuse the name misprint as I was working on a construction bid with Ned and his is titled Guy!
That is interesting. We had a man in Arizona that was divorced also that he and his wife were already long standing members where we attended when he became mentally incompetent and his wife left him and went to another church after the divorce.
Very difficuly situation as they always are. Don't think sex was a factor at all.
Could be same couple.
Guy,
Loving people and giving the benefit of the doubt in adultery/fornication is exactly what I'm proposing.
When a couple is divorced for any reason its a terrible thing to happen. They both need love from us and forgiveness. When we draw down sex and state the impossible to correct as a reason that person is lost forever because they cannot ever correct a mistake in their lives its wrong of us. We are not God.
That's the kind of error in my opinion this adultery/fornication sex only divorce leads to. How loving is that?
John,
i'm not claiming that divorced people should be mistreated. i am divorced. i don't think anyone should be mistreated. Not even our enemies. Not even people who do bad things against us. That includes church leaders who are mistaken in attitude and practice. If such a person judges all divorced people as being thoroughly immoral or not worth his kindness or whatever, i wouldn't be very much different from him if i, in turn, judged him and all people in a similar position to be tyrants or hateful or whatever. If i don't appreciate him saying "all divorced people are such and such," then i'd best not say "all conservative CoC elders are such and such."
–guy
John,
i don't see how a sex-only understanding of these terms necessarily leads to the practice and attitudes you're describing. Seems to me if you could demonstrate persuasively to someone you're describing that the terms included more things, that same person would likely just start mistreating a bigger class of people–everyone who fits into their newly defined category of "adulterers" or whatever. Perhaps not. My point is i think such problems reside in people hearts, not in their chosen definitions.
–guy
Where did these brilliant elders find a membership roster in the Bible? What a joke! Tell someone who has been divorced, thanks but not thanks, and then condone other sinners is just plain foolish. I wouldn't be a member of a church like that for 10 minutes.
I would get in my car and drive to some other place, even to some other town, to worship with people who are more than religious hall monitors.
Royce
Guy,
There are many. One I remember is something like a little leven leaveneth the whole loaf or close to that. Adulterated unleavened bread.
Judges 19;2
Malachii 2:16 Infidelity comes in many forms, not sex only.
God hates divorce. Another translations says If he hates her put her away.
Royce,
What you said is what we did!
I just cannot stand by and see what I have seen in the past hurt people so bad and the judgment against them cause them to leave the Church forever.
John,
Perhaps i'm misunderstanding. i'm looking for passages that particularly use the same term that is elsewhere translated "adultery" or "fornication."
–guy
I have no rights and she has no responsibilities. All the responsibilities are mine and all the rights are hers.
I will strongly disagree with that God hates divorce. The proper translation of Malachi 2:16 is clearly that God hates the abuse of women by the act of putting them away. Leaving them in a state where they were not being cared for but still married so no one else could care for them either. The verse continues that God hates men who hurt others. The Hebrew words there are for putting away not divorce.
An analogy I will offer up is to compare divorce to a death certificate.
It would sound silly for us to say "I hate death certificates." Rather we say "I hate death." It is death we grieve and I believe that God grieves not divorce itself but the sin(s) that causes the death of a marriage. As a death certificate is simply a legal statement that a person is dead; a divorce is simply the formal statement that a marriage is dead.
It is a gross misunderstanding to state that adultery is the ONLY reason a person can divorce. Under that rule a man can beat his wife daily to the point of near death and she cannot leave him. That is utter nonsense. There are other deeper more insidious reasons for divorce as well.
Divorce should never be taken lightly but it is a path that is available to the Christian when living with a spouse who is not faithful to their marriage vows and the word of God.
A spouse who very presence is like an gangrenous foot should be cut off to spare your soul and the souls of your children. God approves of this. It is better to live without that foot than to spend all of eternity in hell.
Dear Mike
I fully understand and sympathize with your post from a human standpoint. Our sinfulness is so manifold, brutal and violent that we readily would seek ways out of any interelational misery.
But the way you deal with these scriptures is not correct.
It is – to be sure – not about legal terms. It is the action of putting away, which was regulated by the Law of Moses by the certificate of divorce. But the Lord did not say: "Oh, you wicked ones, you did not follow the right predure! You did not take the time to writre a certificate!" No, He says that He actually hates putting away.
This was made clear by Christ, too, who refers to the Law of the letters of divorce and says there is only ONE valid reason to put away your wife/husband: Adultery.
When He explains why this Law is being overruled by a stricter standard in the New Covenant, He explains that Moses allowed divorce because of the hardened hearts. But as soon as we are born again, there is no excuse for us. The only ones who still "may" divorce as they please are the unbelievers – because a sin more or less does not make much difference, does it. The world does what the world wants to do anyway. But the church must not follow the ways of the world, or it will be judged with the world.
God hates divorce. He makes that pretty clear, because marriage is a covenant where He is the witness: He is the One who makes out of the two individuals One Flesh. He puts them together and man shall not separate them.
So, what about a spouse whose very presence is like an gangrenous foot? We should suffer him or her. There is no easy way out. As slaves are to submit even to wicked masters, so wives to their unbeliveing and wicked spouses – and men still shall love their wicked wives. As some persons have to suffer lifelong illnesses and pain or poverty, some have to endure unhappy marriages.
From a human point of view this sounds terrible, but from a Christian point of view it is part of taking up your cross. When the disciples were utterly shocked about Jesus' words they said, it was better not to marry. And Jesus agreed.
Alexander
Mike,
I considered these questions in detail at /books-by-jay-guin/but-if-y…
I agree that the "divorce" the scriptures speak of is the ending of the relationship that makes the marriage, not the recognition by the state. I'm not sure what you mean by a spouse who is like a gangrenous foot, but I agree that the spouse who violates the marriage covenant is the spouse who puts aways/divorces the other, not the one who files the divorce petition with the court.
@abasnar – I was not suggesting that the separation was not the issue rather that God felt this particular abuse of women (putting away) was more egregious than a divorce. Because with a legal divorce a woman was free to look for another means to take care of herself or another man to take care of her. It was also a correction of a widely misinterpreted scripture.
You would suggest that a woman MUST stay with a man who rents her body out to others? who molests her children? who commits all forms of wickedness against her and her children? surely this is not what you mean – but maybe it is.
@Jay – yes that is the point I was making in the death certificate reference. The "divorce" that we usually speak of is the legal paperwork. That is not the divorce that the Lord hates. The injuries, sickness and death of the marriage is what the Lord hates and mourns over.
Using the analogy of the body one spouse can be so nasty and infectious that one needs to separate from them to preserve the rest of themselves or those who they are responsible. For example – a spouse who ridicules and blasphemes the Lord openly; one who molests or abuses children; etc.
At some point many people are put in the position of staying married and losing their soul and the souls of their children or getting a divorce and being alienated from the church. This is not a pleasant position to be in.
This is a tough question, but shall we seek the answers in going to the extremes? Let's consider the "ordinary reasons" given for divorce, first! Let's bemoan our high divorce rate and repent first!
After that we may discuss individual situations, trying to give wise counsel and help.
If we start which such extreme cases, we would (most likely) agree on some mercy and allowance. But then comes the second worst scenario, and we again – because we allowed it here woluld allow it there. And the third worst scenario … and so on until we feel sympathy with a woman divorcing her husband because he did never wash the dishes. I object to this approach.
Each case – in real life – has to be dealt with individually. We have to evakuate the influence of friends and relations, of a church and be good friends in the first place. It is not a legal setting, where we can define the actions by the leter of a Law.
We can only try to understand God's will – which is One man and One woman for life; but the goal is not accomplished if they nmerely stay together, but they should stay together in love and harmony. So the question is not: May they now separate? But: How can they restore their first love?
Alexander