Divorce question...specifics...

The only doctrinal beliefs are that a man can marry only one woman; polygamy is forbidden in the early church. All other matters are interpretational, not doctrinal.

Abuse, be it physical abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, etc, are generally considered abandonment. Scripture allows divorce in cases of adultery and abandonment.

[ July 21, 2004, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: Johnv ]

 

John it is ALWAYS rape. Married or not a woman has a right to say NO. It's called marriage rape and it is AGAINST the law.

 

Pro 21:19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.

Pro 27:15 A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

Sorry folks! Just couldn't resist!

It is always interesting to see the dialogue concerning divorce. Invariably, someone tries to insinuate that marriage is anything more than an earthly institution.

Before anyone jumps the gun, let me be quick to say that it is an earthly institution established by God from the beginning as the manner we are to propagate the social order. Consequently, it should never be taken lightly and both men and women are equally responsible for doing everything to perserve the marriage institution. However, marriages are not made in heaven and once dissolved legally, the couple ceases to be husband and wife. They are no longer married in the eyes of the law.

Dealing with the effects of divorce after the fact do little to resolve the problem. The real issue is doing everything you can do to minimize the possibility of divorce, before you get married. A successful marriage always takes 3 !

Our laws, like the laws utilized to put away the wives in Moses' time, allow for men and women to dissolve the marital union, although admittedly our laws are significantly more liberal. Still, it is a legal proceeding now, just as it was then. I am not convinced that we should attempt to reconcile the Scriptures any closer than that or to continually point fingers at men and women who have been previously married, but according to Scripture are living in adultry. If this is the reality of it, how do you maintain these individuals in fellowship as members of your churches?

Divorce is wrong and it certainly is not what God envisioned for the human family in the beginning, but the real harm finds its foothold when couples do not ask God into their marriage in the first place. After marriages are dissolved, the perspective divorcees see all too often, is the "Christian" community pointing fingers and assuming a "holier than thou" posture.

So, 3John2, you are not living in sin. You and your wife have made mistakes in the past, but that was then and this is now. Paul said, Phi 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, Phi 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

That does not mean you forget past failures, but that you view them in the proper perspective contrasting them between your life then and now. So, my advice is that you pray that the Lord clear your conscience and grant you peace of mind, so you can go forward and serve Him.

 

But John...

Our doctrinal beliefs are built upon our interpretation of the Scripture.

 

I'm sorry if I offended you. That was not my intent. I was simply trying to expound the Scriptures regarding divorce/remarriage and cover most of the arguments and interpretations. You are correct that I have never lived through the type of experiences that you discribe. However, to be solidly biblical in our understanding of the Scripture we can never strain the Word through the mesh of our experiences. We must always strain our experiences through the mesh of the Word of God. As such I don't see where the Scripture provides us with a clear exception for a Christian to divorce their spouse because of booze or durgs etc.

Be that as it may I would never counsel a woman to remain for an instant in an abusive environment. I say run away as fast as you can to some place of safety, use the legal system to ensure your safety, even go underground if necessary. My wife and I helped to work out the details so that a friend of ours could escape (without a trace) if she ever needed to get away from her abusive husband. Fortunately, he has given his life to Christ and turned from his former ways. There is now peace in their home.

I find it interesting that you said that your former husband died about five years after you left him. Now, please forgive me, I'm just thinking out loud here. Could it have ever been possible for you to separate from him, leave him as far behind as possible, for the safety of yourself and your children and yet not have divorced him? Then after your leaving would he not have continued to kill himself with the bottle thereby freeing you from your marriage bond?

I don't know. It becomes very complicated when we try to sit back and figure out all the possible options and things involved when discussing divorce. I know one thing... I would never condemn you for any action that you took to protect yourself. And I know that God is faithful to forgive us of any sins on our part once we confess them and ask Him for forgiveness.

Yours in Christ,

Bible-Boy

P.S. Remember that a bullet will pass right through a divorce decree as well. A divorce decree really does no more than a restraining order to protect a woman form such a man if his mind is bent toward killing her.

[ July 22, 2004, 01:57 AM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]

 

1 Cor. 7:15. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. (NASB, 1995)

This verse does NOT say anything about a Christian divorcing anyone. Neither does it say anything about a divorced Christian marrying anyone. But what does it say? Whatever that answer is, it must be 100% in harmony with what Jesus taught regarding divorce and remarriage.

Mark 10:11. And He *said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her;
12. and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery." (NASB, 1995)

Mark 10:11 says that “whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.” Whosoever obviously includes All Christians. Mark 10:12 says that if a woman “divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.” Plain and simple.

If you want to include the exception clause found in Matt. 19, that allows divorce for only one cause, adultery. Paul could not have meant in 1 Cor. 7:15 that it was permissible to divorce and remarry because of abandonment because such a teaching would have contradicted the explicit teaching of Jesus.

As has been posted, some marriages are disaster cases. We have all heard such stories as have been posted in this thread, and so had the disciples of Jesus. When they heard what He taught about divorce and remarriage, they replied, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” They clearly saw that being married could be a disaster, but Jesus did not back down. Marriage is a divine institution that lasts for a lifetime. No amount of modernistic, licentious theology based on human reasoning and distortions of the word of God are going to changed that.

We all know that marriage is a risk, but it is a lifetime commitment. If the risk seems to be too great—don’t get married! If you are already married, and the marriage seems unbearable, place your faith in God rather than in divorce.


Prov. 16:25 There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (KJV)

 

Hello Craig,

The context of the entire passage of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 7 is dealing with marriage, divorce, and remarriage. The interpretation that I (and Pastor Larry in the other thread) have provided lines up in perfect harmony with the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, and Luke taken all together). However, it is a hermeneutical mistake to isolate a verse or two that support one's view and ignore what the rest of the Bible has to say that is contrary to one's presupposition on an issue.

If you say that 1 Cor. 7:15 is not talking about divorce, then what does it mean to say that the believing spouse is no longer bound to the disserting unbeliever? What is that talking about? What would the original audience of that letter have understood and done with that little bit of information? How does it apply to our lives today?

 

Matthew 19:9 Lego de humin hoti hos an apoluse ten gunaika autou (me epi porneia) kai gamese allen moichatai!

1 Corinthians 7:15 Ei de ho apistos chorizetai, chorizestho. Oudedoulotai ho adelfos e he adelfe en tois toioutois, ende eirene kekleken humas ho Theos.

In 1 Cor. 7:15, no one is getting a divorce. They are simply “splitting the scene,” “booking,” or whatever the contemporary expression is for packing the bags and leaving. Divorces were not recognized by the Church for 1500 years, and there is no suggestion in the passage that Paul is speaking prophetically about a situation that might occur 1500 years later. And Paul is not contradicting the absolutely clear and explicit teaching of Jesus!

Times have radically changed and theology has been systematized at least 740 different ways, and stigmatized even more ways by more fools than there are grains of sand on the seashore, but God and his word have not changed.

How many commentaries on 1 Corinthians have you studied that were written before 1960? Have you studied the history of the interpretation of that chapter? Do you have any idea how differently modernist preachers are preaching on divorce and remarriage from how earlier preachers preached in these subjects?

 

Bible Boy, if I had not divorced him, he would never have given up harassing me. He was one of those kind who felt that his wife and child were his posessions to do with as he pleased.

I could not even tell my mother where I lived as she would have told him because "she can't tell a lie even to protect her own daughter". She took care of him, fed him and did his laundry because she felt sorry for him. My sisters were floored by her behavior and told her so, but she saw nothing wrong with helping him because I wasn't there to do for him like a wife should. Needless to say, my mother and I haven't had a real relationsip since then. I don't hold any grudge against her, but, well, it's like she's not my mother anymore. That was the last thing he did to our family and she allowed it to happen because she would not defend or protect me.

My brothers and sisters knew where I lived and my phone number but my mother didn't because she would have given that to him as well. She finally did manage to get the number from one of my brothers who I had asked not to give it to her. He saw no reason for her not to have it. When I found out, I immediately changed the number and he did not get it.

My ex was quite a bit older than me. If he had been a younger man, he would never have stopped
trying to get me to come back. He was paranoid and insanely jealous. We had no friends and I was not allowed to see my family much. I resisted his efforts to control and isolate me and that brought about the violence that he used to control us. He would never admit to doing anything wrong and claimed it was all a bunch of lies on my part, even though all the family knew how he treated me and our son.

I had people tell me that I should never have left him, that he was "sick" with alcoholism and I should have stayed and helped him quit drinking. I informed them that if I hadn't helped in 22 years, there was no hope of me ever helping him. Besides, he was always quiting for several years and then starting again. He could have quit for good anytime, but he felt like that would have been giving in to what I wanted and "real" men don't give in to some woman's wants. They do what they want to do.

There was no hope for the marriage. I probably would have killed him if I had stayed. He was pushing things to a violent conclusion. I've never harmed anyone or anything in my life, but I had become so full of loathing for this man, I don't know how I would have reacted if he had put our son in jail.

All of this is why I divorced him and moved away and went into hiding until he finally accepted it. He lost his drivers' license and stay drunk to much to get our and look for me.
I didn't do all of this lightly. After I left, I immediately started to church and got counseling from the Pastor. He said he would never cousel me to get a divorce in normal circumstances, but since these were not normal circumstances, he could see no remedy to keeping the marriage together and I must do what I felt was best for me and my son. My son was suicidal and needed counseling and I was not much better. I could not fathom being married to this man for one more minute than I had to be and especially not for the rest of my life or his, whichever lasted the longest. I did what I felt was the only way I could save my life and my son's life.

When he died in 1996, I could not bring myself to go to the funeral. Guess who was the most upset about that; my mother.

 

True. However, the divorce issue is not a doctrinal issue.

 

Actually, everything the Scriptures touch on is doctrinal. We must all agree with the truth. Disagreement with the truth is sin. Some doctrines don't have the eternal weight as others, but all of Scripture is doctrinal.

 

That's the point!

 

How does that fit in with what scripture says about itself in 2 Tim. 3:16?

2 Tim. 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;"

 

Where do you see the contradiction?

 

3John2 asked:

I Corinthians 7 is a good place to read on this subject. Read it in several translations and paraphrases and then try some of the more popular, easier commentaries.

My prayers are with you as you seek God's face in this matter!

 

3John2, how exactly do you equate Craig's interpretation with phariseeism? If his view is correct, then just think about all the church sponsored adulterous affairs that go on. That isn't phariseeism. Get a clue.

 

Just to inject a lighter note, this thread (and others like it) have convinced me to avoid marriage altogther. It's just way too much trouble.