DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

How many times can a person be unfaithful - divorced - and then remarried in your church?

Sounds like your man made system rewards sexual sinners with a brand new spouse.

Tired of that old wife of your youth? No problem, just have an affair, get a divorce, and pastor will happily remarry you to a hot new babe.

Exactly who looks upon any of the Kennedy family as "great Catholics"? Besides an anti-Catholic bigot that is.

 

Trying,

You are amazing, absolutely amazing! I have rarely seen a person so enveloped within a cloud of mistrust and hatred that they cannot approach a situation rationally.

Within this very thread people have given verses in the bible showing there are situations when JESUS (you remember him, right?) said divorce was acceptable. You could have taken the approach of defending the catholic position, that would have been the adult thing to do.

Instead you mock the very notion that is in the bible. Why don't you try to reconcile the bible passages to the church's teachings instead.

Also, you stop one step short of accusing someone of false witness because what they state about your beloved church doesn't jive with your notion of what your church is. How dare you! You have no idea what every member of your church believes. It is well documented that the catholic church is a cradle for "church-goers-who-don't-believe", and many on this board have that same experience with the CC. For you to assert that we are bigotted is 1. idiotic 2. moronic and 3. utterly unfathomable.

I suggest you either take some time off from the board or you rethink your posts before you post them.

In Christ,
jason

 

I Beg To Differ, hrhema !!

You said Baptist men cheat and talk about it??

Baptists are like cats. You know they do it... they just never get caught.

Okay... just kidding but you guys are getting angry and I thought a little humor might help.

Diane, non cheating, no divorce, born and raised SBC wife and mom

 

Your supposed examples here don't speak to beliefs as much as they do to a language barrier.

When you say "Christian" or "born again" or "saved" or "baptized", you have a very narrow specific definition of the word in mind. Without knowing the definition of the speaker and the hearer, your example questions are meaningless.

If you were to ask me those same questions, I would have to answer, "Not like you think of it." </font>[/QUOTE]He was asked "are you born again" and he said "no, and I don't need to be". Make the term "born again" as wide or as narrow as you want, it will not change the fact that Jesus said that a person must be born again.

Apparently in Latin America, because Catholics are forbidden birth control, they turn to anal sex. To the best of my knowledge Rome forbids that too. I'm not saying all Catholics are like this, but many of the members of the Catholic church are rather un-Catholic in their beliefs and practices.

 

This joker appears to be a classic example of psychological displacement. He is a bigot against non-Catholics, so he sees every statement that does not support this position as "anti-catholic bigot."

 

Just to clarify, the Catholic position is most certainly not that you can keep doing sin X and "confessing it away." The absolution given by the priest ("I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit") is contingent upon, among other things, firm resolve not to sin again. So you can see that your statement misunderstands the teaching of the Church regarding this Sacrament.

 

I find these statistics interesting from Barna Research Study.

http://www.divorcereform.org/mel/rbaptisthigh.html

God Bless

 

(Mat 19:9 NKJV) "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality [fornication], and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."

If a man divorces his wife for any reason other than fornication and remarries, then he is committing adultery. If, however, a man divorces his wife because SHE committed fornication and then he marries another, he is not committing adultery. Anyone who marries her, however, is committing adultery and so is she if she remarries. That's so simple to understand.

 

If, however, a man divorces his wife because SHE committed fornication and then he marries another, he is not committing adultery. Anyone who marries her, however, is committing adultery and so is she if she remarries. That's so simple to understand.

I find your "simple" explanation extremely untenable.

Adultery means that one party of a marital covenant has sexual relations with a third party outside of that covenant.

With your explanation, the covenant remains for the fornicating wife whereas the covenant does not remain for the holy husband. This position is fundamentally nonsensical.

A more tenable explanation would be that if one party commits adultery, then the other party has the right to a civil divorce. However, remarriage for both parties is never an option because the covenant remains. Hence, Jesus says, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh ... So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mt 19:5-6).

The marital covenant bond creates an indissoluble bond between husband and wife; this is evoked by the imagery of "one flesh".

Even though divorce is necessary in particular instances (e.g. domestic abuse; adultery; etc.), remarriage is never permissible because then, adultery will be the result, for the marital bond is indissoluble. The two may receive a divorce according to the dictates of the positive law in the eyes of the State, but the ontological bond created through the marital covenant remains.

[ May 02, 2003, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

Carson,

"...whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery..."

Interpret it honestly. Forget your Catholic bias and look at the wording.

As I said already, if the husband divorces his wife for committing adultery he is free to remarry, but she is not. Why is he free and she isn't? Is it because the marriage bond is dissolved for him and not for her? Or is it that the marriage bond is dissolved for both, but God is punishing her? No matter how you look at what God says about the woman, the wording of the verse is undeniable - if the divorce was because the woman committed fornication, the man can remarry but she can't.

 

Jason, interesting that you would include yourself when it comes to a reference to bigots. I didn't say that about you. Perhaps you are sensitive for a reason.

Bigot - a prejudiced person

Prejudice - unfavorable opinion formed beforehand with no basis other than personal feelings

I stand by my characterizations of those posts.

 

Hrhema:

I presented the statistics and gave the source of the statistics and let people decide on the credibility of the source. Barna Research, to me, is a credible Christian (non-Catholic) research group.

God Bless

 

Hi,

I have long held the view that not every marriage has been "joined together" by God; any thoughts?

Jimmy

 

Interpret it honestly. Forget your Catholic bias and look at the wording.

Sola, for the sake of charity, I would suggest that you refrain from derogatory innuendos.

I believe that I am interpreting the passage honestly and fairly apart from any partial bias. I'm considering the text as well as the nature of a covenant in my interpretation, which fits hand-in-gove, in my estimation. I've studied these passages pertaining to marriage and divorce extensively in my Biblical studies classes.

As I said already, if the husband divorces his wife for committing adultery he is free to remarry, but she is not.

And as I said, he is not free either because the marital covenant is indissoluble.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the nature of a covenant, which cannot be revoked for one party while remaining in force for the other. It also cannot be dissolved like that of a contract.

I encourage you to take up your own advice and to look at the wording. Where does the author of the Scripture place the exception clause pertaining to porneia?

Answer: After "divorces" and before "marries another".

This grammatical structure indicates that divorce is permitted in such a case, whereas remarriage is not. If the porneia clause followed "marries another", then we would be led to your conclusion (which would still present considerable problems because of the nature of a covenant).

Divorce does not mean "the one flesh has now become two again". It means that the couple is no longer considered married in the eyes of the State and its positive law. Divorce cannot rent assunder what God has joined together, as Jesus has said: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh ... So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mt 19:5-6).

And it is for this reason that Paul writes:

"To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) - and that the husband should not divorce his wife."

And

"A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord."

 

Hi hrhema,

When you learn to read scripture and understand it based on itself and not on the creeds of the Roman Catholic Church then I will accept what you have to say.

Perhaps you've already made up your mind that I'm not fairly exegeting Scripture even though that's exactly what I'm doing in my posts above. I don't expect for you to agree with me, but I would appreciate the benefit of the doubt.

Since you have made up your mind concerning my exegetical standards, perhaps you would be content with sending a private message to a particular Baptist pastor from Atlanta who posts on BaptistBoard.com and emphatically agrees with my interpretation (which is the unanimous historical interpretation throughout all of Christianity for the first 16 centuries of its existence).

His alias on this board is Rev. Joshua, and you can find his profile here:

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile;u=00001457

That divorce and remarriage was permissable in cases of Adultery.

The first Christian to take this lax/loose interpretation of Scripture was a Protestant Reformer in the 16th century.

Not all Catholics believe that remarriage is forbidden

With regards to the Catholic Faith, the Faith is not determined by a public poll or private opinion. It has been given once and for all to the saints (cf. Jude 3), and it is expounded by the teaching office instituted by Jesus Christ through his 12 Apostles who are not above, but under the Word of God as its servant.

The Church has never taught that a valid marriage is dissoluble. Never. And, she never will change this teaching, which is clearly taught in Sacred Scripture. What constitutes a valid marriage is the next step in the consideration of whether remarriage is permissible, and I believe it is this to which you are referring to.

 

Reading through this thread with interest, since I am a Christian and was at the time my husband divorced me, twelve years ago, and am also now remarried.

First of all, about the Roman Catholics: doctrine and practice are often separated by a gulf of varying wideness and depth! Divorce is not OK, but annulments they are famous for. As was already mentioned about men and mistresses etc., the Catholic church is extraordinarily accomodating to the world, to the extent of allowing pagan rituals on the steps of its churches in South America. And while the doctrine says you cannot sin over and over again and then go just confess it and get absolution, that is exactly what a good many Catholics do, because they have been taught that if they play the game they are saved. Because Catholicism is not the only game in town for a number of them, they are more than willing to play two games...

OK, now about divorce and remarriage. I was married for 20 years to a man who had a series of affairs for the vast majority of those years. Because he was a contractor and had to have evening meetings with clients and prospective clients, I was pretty clueless. All I knew was that, as a wife, as mother of his children, as his business partner -- I could never please him, no matter how hard I tried. For about the first 12 or 13 years I tried desperately to do everything and be perfect. The last years I had given up the perfection part and was busy raising our children, who could never please him either. And I remember them trying so hard...

July of 1991 he left with one of his other women. He walked out on all of us. He told me, at first, that he was going to get a room for himself so he could have time alone with the Lord. In other words, this man who was head usher in the church was trying to get me to approve of his leaving right up to the very last minute! But he never looked back and, a year later when the divorce he filed for was final, he was remarried to his new woman in just a few weeks.

Me? I cried for a year and then the kids and I came together as a team and somehow made it. He never visited, never cared how the kids were doing.

I swore I would never marry again. I was quite sure that no matter if he broke his promise about marriage to me, I would keep mine to him. And that is the way it was for at least seven years. I would not even talk to a man if the situation was such that I might cause even a shadow of doubt in his wife or lady friend, because I never wanted anyone to go anywhere near the hell I had been through.

During those years, after almost 30 years of teaching, I resigned. Within a year I had sort of fallen into science editing, which I still enjoy on a freelance basis. One of the men who asked me to review a paper for him was in a field I had no knowledge of: physics. So I refused him. He kept after me, as he wanted to know if someone who was basically scientifically literate but not in physics could understand it. We ended up working on that paper together and became friends. We both had talked about the belief that neither one of us was marriage material: him because he was caretaker for his autistic sister and me because I was divorced.

But gradually the friendship deepened. I totally resisted what was happening, but that couldn't go on forever. And so we both started digging into the situation of a woman divorced by an unfaithful husband. Was she or was she not free to remarry? We knew God's ideal was one marriage for life. Man, however, rarely lives by God's ideal.

We talked to a number of pastors, individually (we had to, since he was Australian and I was American and the Pacific was usually between us!). My brother is an elder in his church and he spent time talking with me, too. At first I was simply determined that remarriage was wrong. There were no if's, and's, or but's for me.

But among the different pastors and my brother, the following emerged:

1. In ancient Israel, if a spouse was unfaithful, that person would be stoned to death, thus leaving the innocent party a widow or widower and totally free to remarry. We don't stone adulterers today. Does that then mean the innocent party is not free to remarry if the unfaithful person leaves?

A week or so after my husband had left, the Lord had directed my Bible study to Proverbs. At that time I read something which had caused me to almost scream at God, "NO! He's my HUSBAND!" But God meant what He had had Solomon write. Here is what I had read:

It [wisdom] will save you also from the adulteress,
from the wayward wife with her seductive words,
who has left the partner of her youth [which was the case with my husband's other woman]
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.
Prov. 2:16-19

It was God's Word to me that my husband was lost to me forever. And I cried out in agony. I really did. I had loved that man and commited to him entirely.

But God's Word was and is right. He had gone and that was that. But it also told me something else in that last phrase: in God's eyes, he was dead. Permanently. It did not occur to me until years later that this meant I was in the same position as a widow in God's eyes.

2. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus is talking about divorce and remarriage, and He says, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and married another woman, commits adultery."

Here Jesus is presuming the man will remarry, and it is the circumstances around that He is referring to. Is it to be considered different for a woman? Do Jesus' words differentiate between a man who is married to an unfaithful woman and a woman who may be married to an unfaithful man? No, they don't. Because He treated men and women equally. The lesson was given in terms of a man because that is the way the custom was. It had nothing to do with a separation of the situations between men and women. And if that were even to be considered, then Proverbs 2 evened it out.

3. In 1 Cor. 7 -- the treatise on marriage -- verse 15 reads: But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.

"Is not bound." To what? To the marriage. To be not bound is to be free. Free for what? Free for all the options any single person has, including remarriage.

I had the clear option to remain single or to be remarried.

Barry Setterfield and I were married on October 21, 2000. We have been married now for 2 1/2 years. I never knew marriage could be like this. I never knew what it was to be loved like this. To have a godly husband who prays for me and with me consistently, who leads family Bible studies, who always has time for me no matter how busy he is, who loves to help around the house, who has served the Lord his entire adult life, who is causing our adult children to blossom, even this late, in the light of a father's love and acceptance....

I have been blessed over and above anything I ever expected to happen in this life.

One of the pictures taken at our wedding is at the bottom of his net bio here:
http://www.setterfield.org/bio.html

That is also the day my picture here was taken.

I know we are in God's will. I know that as surely as I have ever known anything in my life, and the joy and peace that has come with it are indescribable.

 

Helen,

As a Christian committed to Biblical truth, I am not able to interpret the teaching of the apostles according to my state of life, personal experiences, or emotional responses.

You wrote, "We don't stone adulterers today. Does that then mean the innocent party is not free to remarry if the unfaithful person leaves?"

That is exactly the case. Why? Because a covenant has been made, and the marital covenant is indissoluble.

The verse from Proverbs, which you quoted, "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" is, in your case, self-condemning.

You have ignored the covenant you made before God with your husband, and your path leads to death. In Proverbs, the author is speaking of wordly blessing and cursing, which is a type of the real blessing and curse: eternal life or eternal death.

It was God's Word to me that my husband was lost to me forever ... But it also told me something else in that last phrase: in God's eyes, he was dead. Permanently.

Your conclusion that the covenant with your husband has been dissolved due to his "death in God's eyes" is a non sequitur, and I am lost as to how you came to this conclusion from this particular proverb.

I see your case as a prime example of how, unchecked by a higher authority, we allow our subjective desires, emotions, and personal experiences to skew truth. We will see what we want to see in the Biblical text (i.e., eisegesis) in order to mold the text around our desires. This is a danger, and it is one that requires us to submit to the timeless, authoritative deposit (Gk. paratheke) of faith entrusted to the Apostles (cf. 1 Tim 6:20 - "O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you"). This teaching can never be altered. It has been given to the saints once for all (cf. Jude 3), and it is inviolable as God's Word.

Here Jesus is presuming the man will remarry

Nowhere in the text does Matthew write this presumption of yours. This is your assumption, which you clearly project upon the text in order to allow for remarriage, which violates the covenant you made with your husband (who, btw, is still your husband if your marriage was valid - and it may never have been; I'm not judging that matter, but it is better to presume a valid marriage when one was intended).

In 1 Cor. 7 -- the treatise on marriage -- verse 15 reads: But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace ... Free for what? Free for all the options any single person has, including remarriage.

This allows for what we call the Pauline Privilege, which means that a natural marriage (when one of the parties is an unbeliever; for Paul, this is to be equated with "unbaptized") may be dissolved in particular circumstances but never a sacramental marriage between two baptized persons, which shares in the love that Christ has for his Church (cf. Ephesians 5) - and is indissoluble because it has the nature of a covenant, bonded by an oath under God.

 

In the meantime, you folks just go on annuling marriages -- which makes the children illegitimate, right?

The points we saw which I referred to were given to us by ministers who were not just Christian, but also Bible scholars. I respected their opinions.

Is the marriage covenant more indissoluble than a covenant the Lord Himself makes?

But those can be broken:

Lev. 26:23-45 (which also includes its re-establishment)

Deut. 31:15-18

Joshua 7 -- the one who violates the covenant is killed.

1 Kings 19 -- God tells Elijah that all except the 7000 who have stayed faithful to the Lord are to be killed due to the violation of the covenant.

The list goes on. The entire idea of a covenant is that it is a promise of death to the one who breaks it. You spoke of 'the marriage covenant.' That is no different. In ancient Israel it was physical death. Prov. 2 shows the transition to spiritual death.

And I can look at what has happened to the man I used to be married to since he divorced me and I can see exactly what Proverbs is talking about. It is a sad, sad thing.

When he didn't just 'break' but smashed the marriage covenant into a thousand pieces, I was free.