The divorce and remarriage question

[JCISGD]

If remarriage was never an option in our society, if it were illegal would people get divorced less often?

What are some reasons that we have so many more divorces today than 50 years ago in the Church?

IMO the shift has come with the shift of the position of the Church, and this as you say only in the last 50 yrs or so. Im not talking about the RC church but from the earliest Christians till 100 yrs ago it was not so.

The Church is called to be the head and not the tail, and IMO sin only runs rampant when Christians backslide into error.

[Believer1997]

Please advise me on how to kindly state that remarriage is wrong without hurting anyone's feelings here.

Blessings - I do not know that you can do that. You have your opinion and feelings and others have theirs. Yours are not any more correct than anothers. You have an interpretation and other people believe in forgiveness and moving on. I think the best you can hope for here is to 'agree to disagree' with grace.

[Fez]

Please advise me on how to kindly state that remarriage is wrong without hurting anyone's feelings here.

Blessings - I do not know that you can do that. You have your opinion and feelings and others have theirs. Yours are not any more correct than anothers. You have an interpretation and other people believe in forgiveness and moving on. I think the best you can hope for here is to 'agree to disagree' with grace.

Amen Believer, amen.

[Miss Elly]

Hi Miss Elly, IMO you make two grave errors based on assumptions.

Firstly you think all those against remmarriage wish to be legalistic towards their brothers and sisters in Christ and that they are just defending a pet doctrine.

I say this because you say you are glad they are not God, but what if they are right and God does hold that standard. Would you then stop loving God?

I myself could wish that remmarriage were permitted as it affects nearly all around me of my friends and half my family. I have only recently come to the position that i truly believe Jesus gives no grounds to any follower of His to divorce or remain in a second marriage if it is adultery. i.e " whoever marries her that is divorced commits adultery" and this is backed up by " While her husband lives she is called an adulteress"

Secondly you claim God would not rip apart these marriages.

The problem is also with your language "rip apart", this implies that if God did require it He was also uncaring of the effects and simply wanting to enforce laws.

The testimony of J Humpries on the Spirit of Hosea website shows Gods clear but compassionate dealings with him over a 2 yr period, allowing him to come around to his convictions in due time and not compound his sin by doing anything doubtful. But he did see that he had to break off his adulterous marriage.

I urge you and others to atleast check these claims out, if we are being offered proof or evidence we are morally obligated to investigate it untill we are satisfied that it has no claims or bearing on us.

God through Ezra required the Jews to send away their unlawful wives, some of them with children. God has expressly told them they were not to inter marry and this then made their marriages unlawful and not valid in His sight. They were obligated to divorce as the marriages were not holy. Had they not done this the whole world we know now may have been vastly different, as God was using Israel to be a light to the nations and the vehicle to usher in the Messiah.

I realise those remmarried are heavily invested in this, but it is not wisdom to sweep anything under the carpet to save time or work.

I have researched God myself on these issues and as I said, I do not feel any condemnation in my heart on these issues. How can you people know what is going on with a servant of God and their Lord? Yes, you are defending a pet doctrine. The Holy Ghost will not dwell in an unclean vessel, why then do I have the Holy Ghost? And don't you dare say I don't, because you DON'T know. And besides, you had best be careful who you are calling unclean. You people can believe what you want to, so will I. As for me, my belief is a person should have obedience in marrying in the first place and keep that marriage alive. God will help people in their marriage if they ask him too. We do bring a lot of what we go through on ourselves. You are trying to put bondage on God's people who have made mistakes. I am out of this discussion.....I'm sorry I divorced in the first place and sorry if I did wrong about remarriage. But God knows that and I do not feel any condemnation about my present. God loves me and I have fellowship with him. He answers my prayers. I love him.

[Smalcald]

If remarriage was never an option in our society, if it were illegal would people get divorced less often?

What are some reasons that we have so many more divorces today than 50 years ago in the Church?

IMO the shift has come with the shift of the position of the Church, and this as you say only in the last 50 yrs or so. Im not talking about the RC church but from the earliest Christians till 100 yrs ago it was not so.

The Church is called to be the head and not the tail, and IMO sin only runs rampant when Christians backslide into error.

Yes I kind of agree. I honestly don't know the answer to the "what do I do know I am divorced and remarried" question? Except to understand; God is merciful and of course these really are case by case situations and we would have to know the cases to see how they relate to scripture.

But the question to me that is more important is the future and is how the Church helps or hurts this issue surrounding divorce. Here is I think a pretty balanced approach. http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/...Remarriage1.pdf

[BigBert]

Hi Miss Elly, IMO you make two grave errors based on assumptions.

Firstly you think all those against remmarriage wish to be legalistic towards their brothers and sisters in Christ and that they are just defending a pet doctrine.

I say this because you say you are glad they are not God, but what if they are right and God does hold that standard. Would you then stop loving God?

I myself could wish that remmarriage were permitted as it affects nearly all around me of my friends and half my family. I have only recently come to the position that i truly believe Jesus gives no grounds to any follower of His to divorce or remain in a second marriage if it is adultery. i.e " whoever marries her that is divorced commits adultery" and this is backed up by " While her husband lives she is called an adulteress"

Secondly you claim God would not rip apart these marriages.

The problem is also with your language "rip apart", this implies that if God did require it He was also uncaring of the effects and simply wanting to enforce laws.

The testimony of J Humpries on the Spirit of Hosea website shows Gods clear but compassionate dealings with him over a 2 yr period, allowing him to come around to his convictions in due time and not compound his sin by doing anything doubtful. But he did see that he had to break off his adulterous marriage.

I urge you and others to atleast check these claims out, if we are being offered proof or evidence we are morally obligated to investigate it untill we are satisfied that it has no claims or bearing on us.

God through Ezra required the Jews to send away their unlawful wives, some of them with children. God has expressly told them they were not to inter marry and this then made their marriages unlawful and not valid in His sight. They were obligated to divorce as the marriages were not holy. Had they not done this the whole world we know now may have been vastly different, as God was using Israel to be a light to the nations and the vehicle to usher in the Messiah.

I realise those remmarried are heavily invested in this, but it is not wisdom to sweep anything under the carpet to save time or work.

I have researched God myself on these issues and as I said, I do not feel any condemnation in my heart on these issues. How can you people know what is going on with a servant of God and their Lord? Yes, you are defending a pet doctrine. The Holy Ghost will not dwell in an unclean vessel, why then do I have the Holy Ghost? And don't you dare say I don't, because you DON'T know. And besides, you had best be careful who you are calling unclean. You people can believe what you want to, so will I. As for me, my belief is a person should have obedience in marrying in the first place and keep that marriage alive. God will help people in their marriage if they ask him too. We do bring a lot of what we go through on ourselves. You are trying to put bondage on God's people who have made mistakes. I am out of this discussion.....I'm sorry I divorced in the first place and sorry if I did wrong about remarriage. But God knows that and I do not feel any condemnation about my present. God loves me and I have fellowship with him. He answers my prayers. I love him.

Miss Ely, I hope you don't feel too aggravated with JCISGD and the whole subject. This is his opinion based on his interpretations, which I respect. However, as you may have read on the marriage-divorce thread, such opinions can be held both ways. There is surely enough substance from the other side of the coin on this to feel every bit as sure.

Though I know his experiences leading to his convictions to be fully genuine, I know others who have experienced life lessons that may well result in different convictions. In the end, we each must simply go with what we absolutely know to be best. I also believe there's a spiritual component that can shed light when scripture is not really nearly as plain as some prefer to believe.

[BigBert]

Briefly, Jesus reveals more than anything God's grace and love. Just one example is His request to turn the other cheek, rather than take an eye for an eye. Everything He did seemed to be about displaying love to the fullest. Does the same Savior who repeatedly sets the standard of grace then take a contrary position on divorce? Some seem to believe that.

I think the point is missed when we try and blanket cover something He said without really considering who He was talking to and the situation right then and there. He tended to consistently defend the defenseless or the wronged, which seems exactly what He was doing in His passages on marriage and divorce.

As has been noted before, Jesus was dealing with unbelievably consistently hard hearted men who dominated women and often treated them worse than slaves. With woman's position being so inferior in that society and being thrown out for cooking a bad meal, who do you think Jesus is going to strongly defend here?

Notice the verses; He doesn't say a word about what grounds the woman had for divorce. We're making assumptions if we carry His statements to exclude all the allowances in the Old Testament for the woman leaving. Further, many of the men were just putting away their wives without an actual certificate of divorce, vastly compounding the problem because the women could not legally remarry, being literally guilty of adultery in a legal sense--though their husbands had ruthlessly dismissed them. [Many, in fact, believe this is primarily what Jesus was referring to in using the term for putting away and not divorce, just as God through the prophet Malachi (2:16) stated He "hated the putting away."]

Again, of course Jesus is going to come down hard on these hypocritical Pharisees, who on top of everything else were trying to trick Jesus in their questioning so they could further accuse Him. Instead, He cut through their garbage and ridiculed their hearts, telling them clearly the only thing they could put away (He didn't actually say divorce) their wives would be for legitimate, very limited grounds of adultery/fornication (these words are not always super clear in meaning, but they relate to unfaithfulness for sure).

Interestingly, it's the same reasons God Himself gave for giving Israel a certificate of divorce in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 3:8, with the same exact Hebrew word for divorce as was used in the laws Moses granted for divorce). Israel was acting as the adulterer, the whore. One's physical-spiritual (the human marriage), the other relationship solely spiritual, but the same meaning--severe unfaithfulness.

Today's world and our society is wholly different, with the women actually often filing for the divorce and sometimes abusing the men in some manner, etc. I think it's somewhat apples and oranges, as our society, for instance, sure doesn't possess such a male dominated culture of bullies.

What's not apples and oranges is the motivation behind His teachings and expectations. And that motivation is love and mercy, "for which there is no law," as Paul would say.

The Bible covers a lot of ground, obviously, but most would agree many situations in life come up that it does not cover, whether that be content or context. It does, however, give us godly principles to pursue. It's when our motivation is wholly selfish that we know we're doing wrong in His eyes.

But I believe many bad marriages reach a point where we fail to consider the context and fall short in showing love to the victim by holding him or her to standards we ourselves may not endure (or at least shouldn't). Even if we do, it's quite conceivable God Himself would not want us to in some cases.

Edited September 2, 2009 by BigBert

[~Shalhevet~]

Please advise me on how to kindly state that remarriage is wrong without hurting anyone's feelings here.

Blessings - I do not know that you can do that. You have your opinion and feelings and others have theirs. Yours are not any more correct than anothers. You have an interpretation and other people believe in forgiveness and moving on. I think the best you can hope for here is to 'agree to disagree' with grace.

Agreed.

[~Shalhevet~]

That is incorrect. I am not the only one who has noticed. I am also not the only one who has commented to you about it. Now would be the time to simply attempt to modify the behavior.

I sincerely apologize to anyone and everyone offended or otherwise felt judged by what I have said. That was not my intention. That is not my purpose. I'm just here, like you, expressing my interpretation. Again, I apologize if it came off as sounding self-righteous. Believe me, I am far from that.

[Smalcald]

The Church has the ability of course to have a huge impact on this whole mess.

It may be easier to turn this around a little.

A Church could fist really look at remarriages before performing them for the sake of the souls of those being re-married. Is remarriage ALWAYS to be permitted? If not what cases would a Church not perform them and how would the Church then counsel the individuals in their path?

I am hearing the case I think; from some on this board that divorce and re-marriage is essentially not the business of the Body of Christ, that it is a private matter that can be done for any reason whatsoever and as long as you plan to repent when you are done with the re-marriage you are fine?

I don't think most people really believe that, but if they do not I would like those people who support re-marriage to give me the cases that they would NOT support re-marriage after divorce.