Divorce and Remarriage

Here's an applicable verse:

 

Yes. If they divorce for biblical reasons, the marriage is over and there is no adultery if they choose to remarry.

 

Unfortunately, BB, such a thing doesn't exist. Therefore, she is an adulterer.

 

PTW,
Do you preach this at your church?

HCL

 

Then you are calling me an adulteress, Preach. I was married for 20 years to a man who was unfaithful with various women for most of them. In 1991, July 4, 10 p.m., as we were going to bed after a long day hosting a number of deaf and hearing families at the same pool party, he told me he was getting a room and moving out 'to have more time with God'. He moved in, after a week or so in that 'room' with his latest love.

It took me seven years to even be willing to be friends with a single guy again. But two years ago after much questioning about this very issue, Barry and I were married.

In the Old Testament, an adulterer was stoned to death. This left the widow or widower free to remarry.

We don't do that today. Because man's laws have changed, you want people like me to be branded adulterers? God's laws have not changed. Proverbs 2:16-19 read

[Wisdom] will save you also from the adulteress,
from the wayward wife with her seductive words,
who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.
For her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.

That was the exact situation with my ex-husband and the woman he took off with. She had left her husband, the partner of her youth.

I did not file for divorce. I wanted reconciliation and tried desperately for it. He wanted nothing to do with me or with our children and would not even pay child support until ordered to.

I was never unfaithful to him and Barry and I stayed clean until marriage.

I'm glad God is God. When my ex left, and refused to return, and refused counselling, and refused to support us at all for a year, and then when he divorced me, regardless of my contesting it, I was freed from that marriage. I didn't want to be at the time, but it was gone and, according to Proverbs, he is dead in God's eyes.

It took me a long time to realize I was free to remarry, and a number of pastors were consulted because I would never want to do anything to bring God's name into disrepute.

I guess I can't stop you from calling me an adulteress, but that is not God's judgment; it is yours.

[ December 04, 2002, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

Headcoveredlady, yes I do.

Helen, I would recommend you do a little more study on the issue.

According to the words of Christ and Paul and Peter, a divorced person is to be reconciled or remain single. To remarry with your spouse still alive is adultery.

 

What a diplomatic way of reaffirming that you consider me an adulteress.

You think we didn't study on the issue? Both of us? Intensely? We were prepared NOT to ever be married. It was the Bible that showed us differently.

I suggest you study a little more on the issue, Preach.

 

Btw, I only give the words of Christ, Paul, and Peter as my defense.

"Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?"

 

I don't see anyone's words above here but yours in your posts. Could you please give me the sections you are referring to? Thank you.

 

Btw, I only give the words of Christ, Paul, and Peter as my defense. </font>[/QUOTE]I understand. I suppose you know that people who believe like I do also rely on the words of Christ, Paul and Peter to respond to the tragedy of divorce.

An excellent book on the subject of divorce and remarriage is “…And Marries Another” by Craig S. Keener. It is very biblically conservative (the author is a Baptist) and scholarly with an enormous section of endnotes and references for further study. It analyzes a number of views and draws together the best work of faithful Bible expositors. You probably won’t agree with everything in the book (I don’t think that’s the point of the book), but it is an excellence resource for broadening your understanding of this issue.

Keep on telling what you are convinced is true! Just remember that we are all sometimes wrong in our understanding.

 

Paul said many things in 1 Corinthians about marriage. The main theme was that he suggested that we give ourselves to Christ and not be married if that were possible for us without sinning. He spoke to people in all situations.

Here he is talking to the unmarried and widows. Remember, the virgins were mentioned later, so the unmarried would include those who had been married but are no longer married. The widows mentioned next lets us know that the unmarried referred to are not unmarried because their spouse died. That leaves divorced individuals or those who had sex outside of marriage as the only unmarried people left to be referred to.

As an unmarried divorced woman, I had the right to marry if I didn't want to stay unmarried. After all, if he was only speaking to unmarried people who had never been married he wouldn't have told the virgins something different.

Yes, in verse 10 we are reminded about what God's law is on marriage. Not to divorce. However, in conclusion Paul stated this:

So those who were unmarried for any reason and virgins who marry have not sinned, you just may face troubles, and Paul warns of this.

If we are free from the law, why do you try to keep burdening innocent women with it? There is no reason why I have to be denied the happiness I now have in this mariage because my first husband was an abusive drunk. You want me to pay for my mistake in marrying this man because of the law we were freed from in Christ. Paul said we are not sinning, why is that so difficult to understand?

~Lorelei

[ December 04, 2002, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: Lorelei ]

 

How many people that are pro-remarriage after divorce realize that the view was absent from Christian writing for the first 4 centuries when it was a perfectly acceptable practice in both the Roman and Jewish communities?

How many people that are pro-remarriage after divorce realize that Erasmus (yes, the humanist catholic teacher) pushed this view because of the sacramental view of marriage that catholics hold too?

Those points don't definitively prove anything other than I have done alot of study on the issue.

Bro. Adam, have you done the countless hours of study that I have done on this issue?

Felluz and Lasses, this is not an era that embraces what I do on this issue. Do any of you really think I take this position out of ignorance (realizing that it is such a difficult issue) when it would be so easy to teach the other view?

 

FYI, my two best friends are "remarried".

One of them married a girl who initiated a divorce.

One of them divorced his wife and married another.

I am pretty sure I don't take this position lightly. They do know my stand and respect me for it. If you think I came to this position lightly, you are seriously misguided at best.

BB, I would also recommend: Divorce and Remarriage - 4 Christian Views by Intervarsity Press. Each view is presented and then interacted with the proponents of the other views.

 

If and I say if, divorce is a sin, then when we ask forgiveness, God forgives us of our sins.

I have not been divorced, but widowed twice and married three times.

As I have said many times, these matters are between the individuals and God.

Preach the Word, it seems that it would be good if you would preface your statements of truth with "in my opinion". Maybe even "in my humble opinion". How can you be so sure that you are correct and your way the only truth?

[ December 04, 2002, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: Thankful ]

 

Thankful, I do understand what you are saying and am sorry to hear about you being widowed twice.

I realize the sensitivity of the issue. I am closely related to alot of it. I myself have not been divorced (I have been married 3 years).

I do not believe it is merely "my opinion". I realize other people do and that is up to them. I believe that when you arrive at a position in Scripture, you should really believe it and not merely have some vague allegiance to it.

To put bluntly, I will never perform the wedding of a person who is divorced (unless their spouse has since died).

 

THank you for explaining your stand, Preach the Word.

[q]To put bluntly, I will never perform the wedding of a person who is divorced (unless their spouse has since died). [/q]

No exceptions?

 

Never.

 

Where the confusion I see comes in for PTW is that Jesus said the woman would be an Adultress.
Jesus was making it very clear that whoever commits the act of unfaithfulness is the guilty party. God does not punish the innocent.

Under the law a man was allowed to divorce his wife if she could not have children or if she had some uncleanness such as a running issue etc. If a woman refused to cook or clean a man could divorce her. This was given to us by Moses and yes Jesus said this was not God's intention but what PTW is saying is that suddenly under Grace everything became stricter and Jesus removed any rights for remarriage.

This teaching came out of the Catholic church hundreds of years ago because the priests and the Bishops etc who were supposed to be celibate could care less about marriage. They were forbidden to marriage so if they could twist scriptures to punish others they would do so.

Jesus, nor Peter nor Paul taught what PTW claims they did. Jesus made it very clear that a person could remarry if the divorce was caused by sexual
unfaithfulness. I have heard the argument because the translators of the Bible called sexual unfaithfulness Fornication but when the Bible was translated they believed Adultery, pre-marital sex and Homosexuality was fornication. Any sex outside the concepts of acceptable marriages was fornication.

Paul having to deal with gentiles turning Christians while their spouses remained pagan addressed the situation of what a Christian was to do if their spouse left them and divorced them because of their Christianity. He said the Christian is no longer bound to that marriage.

Jesus is the final say and he said a person who divorces because of sexual unfaithfulness has a right to remarry but he or she that marrys the unfaithful partner also commits adultery. Jesus did not say the person who filed for divorce because their partner cheated on them commits adultery if they remarry he said the unfaithful person is considered an adultress and that would make the person who married her an adulterer.

 

PTW,
Can you post all of the Scriptures that deal with this? Thank you so much.

HCL