Divorce and its relationship to Godly living!

Was Paul a murderer after his conversion?
Wasn't Peter vigilant when he said this?
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Pet 5:

You are accusing him of hypocrisy.

Noah was not sober, because he was drunk? You don't know how to interpret that passage! Why did the prophesy of Noah come true, as for all the nations of Japhet, Ham, Shem? Do you know Noah was enjoying the blessings of God when he was drunk with the wine, symbol of the blood of Christ, as naked as he was in front of God?

You forgot to mention Moses, who was a murderer, while Paul was a spectator and supporter for the murderers.

The problems of today's pastors are that they are HIRED after they graduate from the college or seminary of theology, regardless they are qualified according to the teachings of 1 Timothy 3:1-7 or Titus 1:5-9.
On the other hand, if anyone is truly qualified according to 1 Tim 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 but have not graduated from the college of theology, such person cannot be the overseer to lead the church.
Those so-called Pastors or Clergies occupy the pulpit as a monopoly system.
Even if Jesus Christ comes today's church, he will have to sit on the pews for 10 years without having the chance of preaching.
If you look at the church, there are some good believers who are really qualified according to the Bible teachings, but they have not been given the chances to preach, therefore their gifts and talents are not developped.
So-called Plymouth Brethren ( we call so-called because we deny any name of denomination) reject such clergy system, refuse mono-occupation by a certain titled people, the pulpits are open so that any person guided by Holy Spirit can have a chance to preach.

The leaders of the church, either they are called Pastors or Elders, they must have the proven testimony of their salvation and of their godly life in Jesus Christ, and the credential from the colleges of theology means nothing!

Moreover, Title, Reverend, is absolutely Unbiblical title, rebellious to God. Who else than God can be Reverend? Read Psalm 111:9
All the believers in the Lord are the priests according to 1 Pet 2:5-9, and " All ye are brethren" ( Mt 23:8). The Lord who said " don't be called Rabbi, doesn't tell you " Don't be called Reverend" ? Then you are spiritually deaf!
You must humble down yourself from the lofty and arrogant, hypocrite position, then you will start to see everything in a vigilant way.

 

I noticed much misunderstanding on some of the Bible verses by you and therefore it was inevitable to point out your arguments, then your ID name couldn't compromise with my belief. As I believe only God is Reverend according to the Bible, calling someone else than God is very much against my belief. This applies to any other posters with Reverend, and I have noticed such people often showed the arrogant views. But I have no enmity against you, and I shouldn't.

Again, as I explained before, you must recognize that the disciples comitted sins before the salvation, before the calling, but not the grievous sins according to the civil law after the salvation, even though we notice the mistakes by Peter in Galatians 2:14. If they committed such sins even after becoming the disciples, they would have been deprived of the discipleship.

I don't think so many people disqualify the believers just because of the sins during the Pre-salvation era. I would clearly differentiate the sins between Presalvation period and Postsalvation period.

I am calm, Don't worrio! On the contrary, I hope you understand much difference could result from the difference in experience, I was born already twice before you were born once. I was born again in 1973, Sept 2, which changed my whole life.

Very good!

Yes, there are such believers among the congregation. There are some people who are checking their own lives every day whether there is anything wrong with each one of the conditions, and many of those are qualified as Episkope ( Overseer) or Elder, and they work for the Lord in the church. In our assembly, when people recommend the candidates for Overseers, they review their own lives one by one, then their children's obedience to the Words of God, hearing the testimony on their lives, let alone the testimony on the salvation, theie word study because such reveals how much the person is devoted to the Lord not only by knowledge but spiritually.
Also, in our church, not only the Elders( Overseers) but also the deacons are discerned according to their lives, by the people. Therefore the absolute obedience to 1 Timothy 3:1-13 is quite possible, and this is common to most of the so-called Plymouth Brethren Gospel Halls and many Gospel chapels in US, Canada, and rest of the world. So, we should not downsize the commandments on this matter.

Paul or any other person must have beeen very much prodigal or violent or wicked. But after Salvation they had changed.

Yes, God can call the most vile person to be a pastor or shepard after salvation, and I think Newton of Amazing Grace was like that. If a vile person comes to a church, he must be saved, be baptized, then must live the life to prove his faith, and should live the godly life for a certain period before he can be selected as a leader there as we read this:
1 Tim 3:6,
Not a Novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
So, the person should pass thru a certain period of godly life, and with such proven record of good testimony, one can be commended to be one of the leaders ( PB always have multiple, plural leaders as we read Acts 20:17 and 20:28, Philipp 1:1, etc where Elders or Bishops are always mentioned, except the cases of definitions)

In any case, we should not downsize the Bible commandment or modify or improve it in a human way. Even though we obey it, we can still rejoice and enjoy the blessed life.

 

Mr. Lowery,

bmerr here. You touched on the issue a few posts back, but you didn't follow it out. Let's go back to Matt 19:9.

And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, commiteth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

First, "Whosoever" includes both the saved and the lost, since God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).

Second, anyone who does this committeth adultery, or is in a continuing state of being an adulterer.

We need to take into account that repentance from sin is required for one to be saved. As one of our elders put it, "If a horse thief becomes a Christian, he can't keep the horse."

Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change in actions. The only way an adulterer can repent of his adultery is to stop committing it.

You made mention of Paul's being guilty of murder before he obeyed the gospel. I think it can be safely said that Paul repented of the sin of murder, since he stopped committing murder.

But when a person (man or woman) divorces their spouse for a reason other than fornication, and then marries another, they commit adultery against their first spouse.

1 Cor 7:39 says, "The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord."

The law she is bound by is not the Mosaic law, but God's laws of marriage, which is laid out by Jesus in Matt 19:4-6:

4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

If a person is unscriputally divorced and remarried before they become a Christian, the repentance required of them to become a Christian will require them to get out of the unscriptural marriage. Otherwise, they will continue in an adulterous relationship, and never really repent, or become a Christian.

Sounds pretty harsh, I know. Even Jesus' disciples recognized this as a strict doctrine.

Matt 19:10 -12:
10 His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
11 But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born form their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

Mr. Lowery,

bmerr here. Correct. The innocent party is eligible to remarry, but "only in the Lord" (1 Cor 7:39). Two views I am aware of concerning this phrase are:

- only another Christian, or

- only one who is eligible for marriage (never married, innocent party, widow[er])

Actually, if an innocent party (IP) marries someone who has been unscripturally divorced (ie "irreconcilable differences"), then they commit adultery as well.

If one is to repent of a sin, he must stop committing it. Would you agree? I think you would.

If one is in an unscriptural marriage, they are in a continuous state of adultery (committeth). To repent of this, they would have to end the adulterous relationship, would they not?

The thing to remember is that marriage is God's institution, not man's, and therefore it is subject to God's laws of marriage, man's laws notwithstanding.

It may suprise you to learn that "pastor" is another word for "elder", "overseer", or "bishop". The same qualifications apply no matter which word one chooses to use. I commend you for requesting the removal of the title "Reverend". Eliyahu made a good point about that.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

Suppose they've been divorced on biblical grounds and then later marry another. Would such a one be considered the husband of one wife?

 

We can focus on the divorce before Salvation.
In reality, if anyone divorced, then he or she need to repent for the salvation. In the process of repent, the person must be convicted of the sin of divorce. It is the power of Holy Spirit that reminds anyone of the sins, and therefore no one can escape the condemnation by the conscience until he find the rest by following the Holy Spirit for the remedy, the person may have to reunite with the former spouse or do a certain compensation for that or whatever is possible and commanded by HS.
Therefore if a person divorced before the salvation, he or she must have been forgiven before he or she was saved. Otherwise HS would not go into the person. So, being born again after divorce means that someone was divorced by the spouse unjustly, or there was a due and good reason for the divorce, or compensated enough for the divorce even though it is not right.
Holy Spirit may have some reasons other than what the human beings know about the family.
Once anyone is hurt by divorce, she or he cannot stop it.

 

Let me illustrate an actual case here, because this case happens around me these days. I met a Scottish man at a jobsite, who married twice and divorced once, then is now in legal separation now. Then I started to preach the gospel to him, he was quite interested to hear me, then he is attending the Gospel Hall( Plymouth Brethren) near his house. I hope he accept Jesus as his Lord and becomes obedient to the Lord soon. In the meantime his estranged wife who was separated from him wants to return to him. I asked him why he divorced the first wife. He told me he lived together with her for 8 years, but had no child despite the wishes of both couple. Both agreed to divorce amicably each other. His wife was a friend of his sister. Thereafter his former wife married another man before this man married the second time, then she gave birth to a baby! Right after that, he married this second wife as well. Then this man had a daughter from her too!
He hears thru his own sister that the first wife is very happy with the second marriage with the current husband since his sister and the former wife were the friends each other.

For various complicated reasons, they quarreled and separated each other since some time ago and he brings his 2yr old daughter from her every weekend, and asked me about the nursery. So we organized it for him. the second wife was the second marriage as well and she has 2 teenagers from the first marriage, she works for a property management company owned by her parents.

Now,
1) if Holy Spirit comes into his heart and saves him, then will He guide him to divorce the second wife and return to the first wife?

2)Will the Holy Spirit refuse to save him because he is in the complicated triangle of adultery?

3) Will this be a wrong idea if I recommended him to join together with the second wife and to invite her to the church fellowship as well? She was affirmative to the invitation.

4) Though the second wife showed the interest in attending the church, but is not determined to join him yet. She flirts around some men and is not loyal to him because of the jobs etc. If she refuse to be re-united with him eventually, but the man is saved, then should he still be waiting for her or what shall he do ?

Tell me your opinion.

There are somethings which can be recovered, but somethings are past forever and we have to look forward the future ahead since the past is past.

 

Eliyahu,

bmerr here. Wow. Pretty complicated scenario. Was the man married to the first woman, or did they just live together for eight years? Living together is sinful, too, but it's not marriage, and that could make a difference here.

Where in the Bible do you find that the Holy Spirit "comes into [someone's] heart and saves him"?

If this man is an adulterer due to being unscripturally married, then he will have to repent of this adultery by getting out of the relationship, whatever that may take.

If someone is in an adulterous relationship, the adultery is not in the past, it is in the present.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

I can't make heads nor tails of your story.

Anyhow... We are not saved by done deeds or by deeds undone. We are saved through faith in the accomplished work of Jesus, His death, burial and resurrection. Nothing else. Once you believe, you are saved. I don't see anywhere in the Bible that says salvation is conditioned upon us first cleaning up our lives. God does the cleaning, my friend.

 

The man is the graduate from University of Toronto, Architect, they married at the official wedding ceremony with the blessings by their relatives and families, a typical elites marriage.

Read John 20:22 and 2 Cor 13:5

You are making a complicated prescription

You sound like that all the unholy marriages during the Roman Empire and Greek era should be rescinded and overturned.

 

Eliyahu,

bmerr here. I'm not among what most wouold consider "the elite", so I'm not sure of what you mean by "a typical elites marriage". Assuming that each made a vow to be true to the other till death, I believe he has a problem.

The issue is this: there is an eternal principle laid out in Ecc 5:5, which says, "Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou souldest vow and not pay."

This plays into the marriage issue, eternal security, and lots of other things.

That's why people who divorce unscripturally and remarry commit adultery.

These verses say nothing about how a person is to be saved.

All I'm saying is that God's law concerning marriage/divorce/and remarriage applies to all men. It's simple, but it's not easy.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

We cannot find fault with his marriage before Salvation, before knowing Christ, they just married by civil customs, they were so-called elites in their society. So-called Elites don't mean anything to me either. That's the term in the secualr world. They thought they would do their best at that time. I cannot argue about it as it was just common practices of the non-Christian people.

You cannot expect anything holy or great from the non-Christian people, do you?

You asked me where is the background for " Holy Spirit comes in", then I referred to John 20;22 and 2 Acts 13:5

John 20:22 - REceive Holy Spirit
2 Cor 13: 5 - Test whether Holyb spirit is in you or not.

Can you not understand yet? Do you think the sentence " Holy Spirit comes into his heart" is still wrong?

I think your complicated theology is not ready to discuss the marriage/divorce yet.

 

Eliyahu,

bmerr here. A person's unscriptural divorce and remarriage is unscriptural whether he's obeyed the gospel or not. Matt 19:9 says, "...Whosoever..." This means anyone, saved or lost, rich or poor, from anywhere at any time.

In John 20:21-22, Jesus is telling His apostles that He is going to send them and that they are to receive the Holy Spirit, which they did in Acts 2. This has nothing to do with salvation under the New Testament.

2 Cor 13:5 is Paul's admonition to examine one's self, whether he is in the faith, or the doctrine of Christ, or not. We are to check ourselves out by the word of God, which is how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in us, once we become Christians by obeying the gospel.

The only way the Holy Spirit comes into anyone's heart is through the word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17).

In Christ,

bmerr

 

Some portions of the church admin, as far as the church administration is concerned for the acceptance of the believers or the discipline matters on the divorce, are left to the local churches.

Actually, there are only 2 titles in the NT churches, one is Elder and the other is Deacon. Both of them are well expained for the qualifications and for the elections, in 1 Tim 3:1-13, and in Titus 1:5-9.

Elders are called Overseers as well because we can read it in Acts 20:17-30. Paul called Elders of Ephesian church ( singular) and told them that Holy Spirit made you be the Overseers( Episkope) of the church, and the same Episkope is used in 1 Tim 3:1-7. So we can believe that Elders were also called as Overseers when the church describe the title in terms of the function of the office. This is why we find only 2 office names in Phillippians 1:1

The Episkope must have the qualification as mentioned in 1 Tim 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. If the church cannot find anyone qualified according to such requirement, then they should pray God to give them such right persons. All the time, when Bible mentioned the Elders or Episkope, they are in plural except the cases of definition or qualification. In the church they selected plural elders.
Then when we read Ephesians 4:11 we read Pastors, which is the wrong translation from Poimenas. Poimenas appear 28 times in NT and mostly translated as Sheperd or verb sheperd. When Jesus was born, the sheperd heard the angels saying, and visited Jesus, Jesus called Himself the Shepherd, Peter mentioned to sheperd the sheep ( 1 Pet 5)
So, the whole idea in Ephesians 4:11 is about the gifts given by Lord Jesus ( Eph 4:7-12) If we read 1 Cor 12:27-28, we find the same gifts mentioned:

27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. 28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

Do we have the titles called " Miracles" " Healers" " Helps" " different Tongues" ? These are the types of gifts or talents. Therefore Paul didn't mention the qualification for the Pastors or Sheperd.
When KJV was translated, the title Pastor was already firmly established though the bible doesn't teach so.
So, we must distinguish between Office and Gift in the Bible. Offices are only 2, Elders( also called Overseers) and Deacons, while there are many gifts like Pastors, Teachers, Healers, Administrators, etc.

Today, the colleges or seminaries of theology produce thousands of pastors every year as the bakery mold out the thousands of loaves of bread every day, regardless of the qualification requirements in the Bible, then they do so-called " ordain" regardless of the testimony of their actual lives, as long as they took the courses of 4 years or 6 years, passing the examination, which practice can hardly be found in the Bible.
By doing so, the current system is preventing the really qualified believers who are qualified according to 1 Tim 3:1-7 cannot find the opportunity to preach the Gospel in the church. I don't think this custom can be corrected until the Lord comes. However, in some church groups like our Plymouth Brethren, they have no title called Pastor who can dominate all the preachings, and rituals and ceremonies. I personally baptize the believers or preach the gospel at the pulpit though I am not a pastor at all. The teachings of the Bible doesn't distinguish between Laypeople and Ordained people. Only the previous speaker must come down if another man has the prophesy ( 1 Cor 14:29-31). So, the Mono-Pastoral system can be found nowhere in the Bible, which may find the similitude in Roman Catholic, or in the paganism.
A 24 year old Ordained Pastor told my son " Your church is a cult because they are not taught by the ordained, graduate from the college of Theology" In fact he doesn't know about the NT church nor about the Bible. I am sure that he was not ordained after the thorough testing according to the Bible, passing thru the testimony of his own life with the proven record of his belief or testimonies, which PB's often do.
He is just a wage hireling and doesn't know about the church history. But he was reading the commentary on the Pentateuch by CH McINtosh who was PB, and it is not rare that many churches condemning PB's use the tracts prepared by PB's for their church advertizement.

So, the so-called clergies can continue to cheat the people until the Lord comes. Therefore there are so many adulterous pastors among the Protestants, and there are many pastors involved in the money embezzlement etc. which they excuse in many ways.
If they don't want to follow the Bible teachings, why do they remain in the church? They can commit whatever they want, by leaving the churches. What they want to enjoy is the Hypocrisy in the eyes of the people, which Jesus condemned severely when He was on earth, and will punish severely in the future.

They are not satisfied with the title Pastor and so created the word REVEREND. I just wonder why they don't attach the title of POPE or the Emperor of the Church.
Clergy system is found nowhere in the bible, Elders are supposed to serve the flocks in the humble attitude ( 1 Pet 5:1-) as they are all holy priests in the presence of God ( 1 Pet 2:5-9)

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