God hates divorce. Jesus allows for divorce in situations of marital unfaithfulness (and that only because of the hardness of our hearts). This seems pretty simple doesn't it? Don't do it. Don't get divorced. This is one command that we are clearly given in Scripture. The Bible is full of things that we should not do - not in order to earn salvation or God's favor but in order to live the life that we were designed to live - but this is one.
During a recent discussion with some peeps I was told that while the Bible says that God hates divorce sometimes it is more complicated than that. Sometimes people stay married but hate each other and their kids grow up to resent the fact that the parents stayed together. (Of course, I would argue that the kids resent the fact that the parents didn't live their marriage according to the biblical commands that Paul gives numerous times - Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church...etc.) Sometimes people fall out of love (whatever this means). Sometimes...(insert excuse here).
The argument was that human affairs are too complicated to follow biblical commands strictly. The Bible can't be the standard bearer in my life because life is complicated. Have human affairs over the past 2000 years have made the Bible less relevant? Have human affairs become so complicated that God's clear commands can't apply in the same way anymore?
This is a symptom of a much deeper problem. Self proclaimed Christians; people who claim to be followers of Christ; people who claim to believe the Scripture refuse to follow Him and refuse to believe what it says.
As a christian society we have made God fit into what or who we want Him to be. We read about God predestining (a word used more than once) the elect (another word used) and say a God who chooses some can't be fair so we don't want to believe that. We read about the eternal damnation for those who aren't covered by Christ's blood and we think that that is inherently unfair so we, at best, ignore the doctrine of hell and, at worst, we claim that all get to heaven apart from Christ.
It's time that the elect, the true followers of Christ stand up for what the Bible says. We don't need to apologize for saying that divorce is wrong, that filthy talk is wrong, that homosexuality is wrong, etc. Why? Because the Bible says so and the Bible is the inherent Word of God. God made the rules - we need to live by them and allow Him to deal with the fall-out. Something tells me that He can handle it.
3 comments:
I was just involved in a similar conversation with a bunch of "single" (never married, divorced, separated) individuals who used the age-old argument that God wants for us to be happy, and therefore if you aren't happy in your marriage, divorce is acceptable. I agree that God wants us to be happy; I just believe that the only way to achieve that is conforming our hearts to His, not presupposing that His views/plan will change to match ours. Great post!
I'm not sure that the seeing the complicatedness of situations in this world was meant to imply that we can ignore God's word. I think the point was that we need to look with compassion and forgiveness on those who have not been able to lead perfect lives. No one said divorce is acceptable. It is clearly not. But in practical terms, what do we do about it? Pointing out the truth of God's admonishments against sin is proper. Counseling before and during marriage, encouragement for living well (especially in difficult situations) -- these things would seem to be practical approaches. But finally, we need to show mercy on those who fail. It's often way too easy for us to rail against the sins of those who struggle with things that aren't a problem for us. That can be a legalistic, judgmental trap.
Kh - I agree with your assessment if the conversation was not to justify divorce. The initial statements in the conversation seemed to attempt to justify divorce - what if they fall out of love; children are upset because it would be better if the parents got divorced but they stayed together "for the kids"; etc. These are the statements that were concerning to me. I agree that as fellow believers when we see people repent of their sin we should and must accept them back into the body. That being said, we cannot continue to ignore the problems in fear of offending people. Jesus told the woman to go and sin no more - that's what we must do.
God wants us to be happy...sounds like a great topic for my next post :)
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