The Sunday gospel lectionary reading for Trinity 18 in Year B is Mark 10.2–16. I think it is impossible to preach on this passage without dealing with the question of the consequences of Jesus’ teaching for our own attitude to and the Church’s practice in relation to divorce and remarriage, and this will make it an unusual Sunday. That reflects the place of this passage in Mark: it is the only time where Mark portrays Jesus as giving specifically ethical teaching, so preaching on this might feel closer to preaching on Paul than preaching on the gospels usually does.
We should note from the outset that, in the ancient world, ‘divorce’ always meant ‘…with the freedom to remarry while the previous partner is still living’, so I will not repeat that assumption at every point.
The passage raises specific questions for us, both in relation to Jesus, the gospels, and contemporary pastoral practice:
- Why did Jesus’ teaching here seem so shocking?
- How do we reconcile the clear difference between the unqualified prohibition on divorce here and the qualified prohibition in the parallel passage in Matthew 19?
- How does Jesus’ draw on Old Testament teaching, and what does that model for us?
- Does the practice of our churches (for me, the Church of England) fit with Jesus’ teaching here, or have we set it aside?
- How does the apparent harshness of Jesus’ demands shape our pastoral practice—in particular, those who have experienced the pain of divorce?
- More generally, can we read this passage and hear Jesus’ teaching faithfully, without allowing our own prior decision to skew our reading? If we either end up with Jesus as a 1950s moralist, or fitting with contemporary culture, that would suggest we have not read well.
None of these questions can be answered without carefully locating Jesus’ teaching within the debates of his day—and, as we shall see, the text itself points us to doing this.
The lectionary selection omits the opening comment of chapter 10 (I know not why) which signals Jesus’ departure from Galilee and his journey southward, though with the crowds still following. It might seem odd to make this detour to the east, but for those wishing to avoid contact with (despised) Samaritans, it would be common to cross the Jordan and head down the Jordan valley, before crossing near Jericho and climbing the Judean hills to reach Jerusalem. Hence, in Mark 10.32, we read that Jesus led the way ‘up to Jerusalem’.
Some early manuscripts omit the opening ‘Some Pharisees came…’ so that those asking the question are unspecified. But the parallel in Matt 19.3 does include a similar phrase, though not in exactly the same wording, so it is unlikely that those manuscripts which do include it simply did so to harmonise the two. The Pharisees have previously challenged Jesus about Jesus’ eating habits (Mark 2.16), his disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2.23–24), and, in a passage with several parallels to this one, on their (non-) habit of hand washing. What is striking here is that, in all these previous examples, Jesus has been more ‘liberal’ than the Pharisees; he rebukes their harshness and fastidiousness, and puts human reality at the centre of his responses. Does he do the opposite here?
The NT has no distinct word for ‘divorce’; as elsewhere, the verb here is ἀπολῦσαι, to release, leave, or send away. It can have a mundane sense, as in Acts 28.25, ‘they began to leave…’ but it can also have a technical, legal sense, to release a prisoner (Mark 15.6), to release from a painful condition (Luke 13.12) or to dissolve a marriage relationship, as here. Paul uses the related verb luo in 1 Cor 7.27, and appears to assume that divorce is perfectly possible, as well as the verb aphiemi early in 1 Cor 7.13.
David Instone-Brewer has written extensively on this, including his Grove booklet on divorce and remarriage. He also has a chapter on this passage in Reading Mark in Context, in which he explores the parallel issues in Second Temple Judaism. He makes a number of vital points.
First, the debate around divorce was particularly intense. David explains in summary the Rabbinic literature from the period: the Mishnah and Tosephta record the oral traditions, many of which go back to the first century, and the Talmuds record these traditions and the debate around them.
The debate about divorce occurs in the largest single part of the oral traditions in the Mishnah—a series of more than six hundred disputes between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, who lived in the first century BC, and whose disciples were amongst the ‘Pharisees’ that we read about in the NT. The School of Hillel was in general the more ‘liberal’ on most matters, and Shammai the stricter. In the first century, the School of Shammai outnumbered that of Hillel, but their uncompromising attitude meant that they were allied with Zealots during the First Jewish War with Rome, and were wiped out with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Thus the opinion of the School of Hillel prevailed, and thus came to define the position of Rabbinical Judaism.
The debate about divorce turns on the interpretation of Deut 24.1:
The School of Shammai say, A man should not divorce his wife except that he found in her a thing of indecency, as it is said: For he finds in her an indecent thing [Deut 24.1]. And the School of Hillel say, Even if he spoiled her dish, since it says: For he finds in her an indecent thing [Deut 24.1] (m Git 9.10) (Reading Mark in Context p 152).
The reason for the difference in view arises from the odd wording of Deut 24.1 in Hebrew מָ֤צָא בָהּ֙ עֶרְוַ֣ת דָּבָ֔ר, which says literally ‘he finds in her indecency of a thing’. The Shammaites took this in the sense of both our English translations, and the Greek LXX (εὗρεν ἐν αὐτῇ ἄσχημον πρᾶγμα), to mean she has committed adultery or some other act of sexual impropriety, but the Hillelites decided that the addition of the word davar introduced a separate category, so the text should be understood as ‘adultery, or any other displeasing thing’.
This is particularly significant, since the Hillelites were arguing for a change in divorce practice. Prior to this dispute, both men and women could divorce, but only on specific grounds. One was that of adultery, following Deut 24.1, and the other (for women) was a husband’s failure to provide her with food, clothing, and marital love, based on Exod 21.10–11. Thus we find reference to this in marriage contracts of the time:
According to the law of Moses and the Judeans and I will feed you and clothe you and I will bring you (into my house) by means of your ketuvah and I owe you the sum of 400 denarii…together with the due amount of your food and your clothes and your bed (P Ladin 10, AD 126) (p 153).
Notice that the payment by the husband to his bride was a deposit of guarantee; if he failed to provide for her, and she divorced him, then she retained the ketuvah in compensation. We should also note that the ‘certificate of divorce’ specified in Deut 24 was in the interests of the woman; it required a witness, so the man could not simply abandon her, and allowed her to marry again.
But the Hillelites introduced two changes, firstly making divorce something only men could do, and secondly introducing what we might now call ‘no fault divorce’, in which the marriage could be ended without proof of a serious break-down of relationship. In fact, both men and women in the first century appeared to welcome this—for women, it meant that, in the case of divorce, there did not need to be an intrusive investigation to see whether the grounds for divorce had been met.
Both the Jewish writers Philo (Spec 3.30) and Josephus (Ant 4.253) refer to this practice—and Josephus himself made use of it, divorcing and remarrying twice. And when we read in Matt 1.19 that Joseph intended to divorce Mary ‘quietly’, he was intending to make use of this Hillelite provision.
What does this all mean for our reading of the lectionary passage?
First, given the importance of this debate, and the evidence for it, then we cannot ignore this as background for reading this text.
Secondly, we can see that the Pharisees are not asking ‘Are there any grounds for divorce?’ in a neutral or disinterested way; they are specifically asking Jesus ‘Do you agree with Hillel or Shammai? Do you take the stricter or more lenient view?’ In the parallel in Matt 19.3, they are not asking ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’ but ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife “for any cause”?’
Thus we see that Jesus’ answer is ‘I agree with the School of Shammai against the School of Hillel’. Where, quite often, Jesus appears to take a more ‘liberal’ approach to the interpretation of Torah, here he appears to take a more ‘strict’ approach, when it comes to matters of marriage and divorce. But he is being quite consistent in his approach to the interpretation of OT texts. Where the Pharisaic debate is on the details of the grammar of a particular verse, Jesus is interpreting OT law details in the light of more fundamental principles—as he does elsewhere. And it turns out that God’s intention of lifelong, faithful, male-female marriage as the basic unit of human society is, in his reading, a pretty fundamental principle. It is this which forms the background to the regulations in Deuteronomy, so they must be read in the light of this.
Jesus’ ruling here is (we see from Matt 19.10) felt to be shocking—and we can see why. Hillelite practice was widespread, since it was so attractive, and so Jesus was, in his declaration, effectively making many existing divorces and remarriages illegitimate. This might even have affected some of the Twelve themselves! And it shows us that Jesus was perfectly capable of challenging the dominant views of the Judaism of his day, so we should not suppose that he was in any sense trapped in his own culture.
But why does Jesus’ teaching here in Mark appear to be more harsh and absolute than Jesus’ teaching in the parallel in Matt 19? Reading the passages side by side, we can see that Matthew’s account fills in details at every point, and Mark’s is highly abbreviated. Both the wording of the question in Matthew, and Jesus’ response including the exception ‘in the case of adultery’, make the connections with the Hillel-Shammai debate even clearer. Perhaps Matthew, writing in a more predominantly Jewish register, is wanting to make the connections clear.
But if Mark was written to a mixed Jewish-Gentile audience in the 60s, before the destruction of the Temple, then the debate was still lively, and the details would not need to be spelled out. If we were to have a discussion ‘Should children under the age of 16 be allowed to drink?’ then we would assume that ‘drink’ meant ‘alcoholic drink’ without the need to specify it. But if someone was reading this from another time or culture, they would think it rather odd that we were debating whether children could drink water! Context matters.
For Matthew, if he is writing after 70, then he would need to make the context more obvious; the dispute was over, since the Shammaites did not survive the destruction of Jerusalem—and ignorance of this debate explains why the Fathers, commenting on this text, are not aware of the context which we now know well.
(We might also note, in passing, that Jesus also prohibits polygamy, which most of those in the land of Israel permitted, but the community at Qumran, and Diaspora Jews did not, not least because Roman law prohibited it. At Qumran, they read Gen 7.9 ‘two by two’ as a reference back to Gen 1.27, so that male and female must be strictly in pairs; in the Diaspora, the LXX includes the word ‘two’ in Gen 2.24 to make this clear in another way. By going ‘back to the beginning’ in talking about male-female marriage, Jesus is agreeing with these readings.)
What are the practical consequences of reading this text in its first-century context in this way?
First, we need to recognise that Jesus is not speaking de novo on divorce and remarriage, or using the creation account to rule out all divorce: he is siding with Shammai in taking the stricter, more demanding position. Shammaites did think divorce was permissible, but only on limited grounds—and initiated by both men and women. I think that the current formal position of the Church of England—that people might remarry after divorce under certain strict conditions, matches this reading, even if actual practice doesn’t.
(We should note that the language of ‘two become one’ does not itself imply the indissolubility of marriage. The idea that there is some kind of ontological fusion, where partners in a marriage lose their individual identity, and become one entity, is unwarranted and pastorally very unhelpful. Jesus does not say that a couple cannot be separated; he says they should not.)
Secondly, if we take the integrity of Jesus’ teaching seriously, then we need to understand this as the best thing for human flourishing, both for individuals and society. It is hard to see how we could then interpret this teaching as justifying, for example, forcing a wife to stay married to an abusive husband, or the social shaming of those who experience divorce. Both of those things are contradicted by the actual regulations in the OT.
Thirdly, if Jesus is telling us that marriage is so important, then we need to recognise the pain and distress when it goes wrong for any reason. Our response should match that of Jesus in John 8.10–11: ‘Does no-one condemn you? Neither do I. Go your way and sin no more.’
Fourthly, if marriage really does matter, then we need to organise our priorities around it, for ourselves and others, not merely penalise those for whom it has gone wrong. If it really does matter, how can we prioritise marriage relationships? One of the greatest forces putting pressure on committed, covenant relationships in Western culture is the move to dual-income couples driven by the consumerist agenda. In our marriage, we have never both worked full time, and for much of our married life we have both worked part time; our marriage and family has been more important than our ‘careers’.
And how can we help people grow in the dispositions, habits and skills that enable life-long relationships to endure?
These kinds of questions surely emerge from Jesus’ teaching here—when we take it in the context of the whole of the gospel.
Come and join Ian and James as they discuss all these issues together:
Well, I’m not at all sure that this hits the mark. As ever, Jesus responds to a question that is brought to him – and a good understanding of the question and its background is (of course) very interesting. But Jesus, as is often the case, takes the question he is asked (which is basically about how to interpret the Mosaic law as it applies to day-to-day living) and uses it as an excuse for addressing something quite different – he is expressing eschatological truths – the ‘ideal’ – the heavenly aspiration.
One doesn’t really need theories of when the gospels were written, what events took place at that time between the writing of Mark and the writing of Matthew to explain a discrepancy between Matthew and Mark – the Matthew passage chimes in with Mark if one understands that in both cases Jesus is speaking eschatologically – and that (taking Matthew and Mark together) he is simply pointing out in the Matthew text that when one of the parties has committed adultery the marriage is already over because God has already severed the bond.
Those of us in happy functioning marriages should count ourselves blessed – and I think that everybody understands that there are situations where it really would be an act of cruelty to force a marriage to stay together. Jesus isn’t addressing this – he states general principles which are eschatological in nature – and I think that this should be a warning to those who see fit to try and turn His words into canon law. The person who thinks that the sermon on the mount is too high and too hard has understood it much better than the person who thinks it can be turned into a set of rules for day to day living. Jesus never turns the general principles into a list of do’s and don’ts – his kingdom is not of this world and he is expressing the principles that govern the heavenly life.
I really dont understand how you understand it that way, Jock. Jesus seems to be saying – this is what I expect of my followers now, not this is an ideal you’ll never fulfil.
PC1 – well, your comment below would suggest that you’re not entirely satisfied with a set-of-rules understanding of the passage.
But it can’t be a set-of-rules; if we could hearken to all the rules and obey them (e.g. Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5 – 7, teaching on divorce Mark 10, Matthew 19, etc ….) then we wouldn’t need a redeemer – at least that’s how I understand Ezekiel 18:21-23. Also, Romans 7:14-25 – the reflections of a mature Christian (written by Paul, in the present tense) indicates that – well – we don’t obey all the rules (even if we don’t want a divorce – and therefore we don’t have a problem with the rules pertaining to divorce – we will fall short somewhere).
Im not sure being merciful, for example, is a rule or regulation. The Sermon on the Mount reflects the new heart Christians are supposed to have.
PC1 – so, if I follow your argument, he goes (earlier in his ministry – Matthew 5 – 7) from statements which indicate the fruit of the new merciful heart that a Christian is supposed to have – to laying down a regulation that is far from merciful. Take, for example, a woman who marries a man and has children with him – and then discovers that the man is an ax wielding maniac who is in danger of taking his work home with him.
There is nothing in Scripture about ‘legal separation’ which is different from divorce, or annulment. These concepts are introduced by people who try to turn the general statements of Jesus into some sort of ‘canon law’.
A woman in such a situation should get a divorce and clear out – if not for her own sake, for the sake of her children – even if the man hasn’t committed adultery.
So I maintain that Jesus sets down principles, but his pronouncements are eschatological in nature. He takes a dispute between two sects about implementation of the Mosaic law in the here-and-now as an excuse for what he says, but he isn’t responding to this at all – as usual, he is setting out eschatological principles.
Sometimes it is necessary (hypothetical example above) to commit one sin in order to prevent an even greater sin. It doesn’t look good if people in happy marriages are censoriously telling those in unhappy marriages what to do with their lives.
‘I think that the current formal position of the Church of England—that people might remarry after divorce under certain strict conditions, matches this reading, even if actual practice doesn’t.’ – and there lies the problem, no consistency and hypocrisy, including amongst clergy themselves.
‘..we need to understand this as the best thing for human flourishing, both for individuals and society. It is hard to see how we could then interpret this teaching as justifying, for example, forcing a wife to stay married to an abusive husband, or the social shaming of those who experience divorce.’ – perhaps, but then the same ’emotional’ argument could be used to justify gay relationships as they often end the often terrible loneliness of individuals. This is particularly noted given your subsequent emphasis on marriage for the flourishing of humanity, thus apparently making marriage supremely important.
‘Thirdly, if Jesus is telling us that marriage is so important, then we need to recognise the pain and distress when it goes wrong for any reason. Our response should match that of Jesus in John 8.10–11: ‘Does no-one condemn you? Neither do I. Go your way and sin no more.’’ – I wonder if Jesus says the same to the lonely gay man or woman, who is suffering pain and distress. Or is that same compassion reserved only for straight people committing adultery?
‘In our marriage, we have never both worked full time, and for much of our married life we have both worked part time; our marriage and family has been more important than our ‘careers’.’ – I suspect many would say “nice for some”. The reality for many is that a single income is insufficient for their families, given the cost of mortgage or rent (something clergy dont have to concern themselves with) and living costs. And others would simply not be given the opportunity to work part-time by their employers. I wonder what your response would have been if the church or other employer had said, it’s either full time or no time?
I strongly ‘second’ your last paragraph. The author and his wife are very fortunate and both clearly have expectations of their own assured and adequate pensions. The whole challenge of earning enough to afford a family home and to cover not working for 30-40 years in old age is a mountain to climb. Dual income families are not a choice now, but a necessity: so too is maternity leave and finding affordable childcare to help women get back into the workplace. The only scenario I can think would work is if the author is married to a well paid, part-time GP. I think the Church actually (unofficially) advises clergy to get themselves into such a partnership. But these days, one has to even think about relying on a partner’s pension.
Yes, I am very fortunate indeed—and well aware of that. But I also know of many Christian friends who are not as fortunate, but have made the decision to prioritise family and relationships over career and income all the same. It isn’t impossible.
But we need to reflect on what is happening in our culture. On the one hand, many experience really hardship, and need two incomes to buy a home. Yet the housing market is just that—a market. If, as a society, we moved away from the two-income assumption, then there would be less supply in the housing market, and so prices would drop, and homes become more affordable. There are forces other than financial which are driving this.
On the other hand, the demand for what a generation ago would have been considered ‘luxuries’ continues to grow. So we are in an odd situation as a culture, where many people can find the money for all sorts of things—and decide they need a second income to do so.
For me, the bottom line is that as Christians we need to speak into a culture which values money, and the things it can buy, more than relationships—and which is (ironically) paying the price.
It has been said that feminism is a government scam
: they get twice the tax revenue and as a bonus can raise our children by their values.
Once you have double earning even when children are young, then not only is it family life (the no.1 priority) that feels the squeeze, but it’s worse – it can unbelievably become more economic for man and woman to live in 2 separate houses.
Great lengths are gone to to ensure that children can obtain care from one adult, which they already had without any expense or travelling and the adult was by far a more appropriate one to care for them.
As in academic science one sometimes feels that explanations that involve GOd are ruled out before being examined, so in social matters an incredibly tangled web is woven to prevent common sense family life. And there is a reason why people will go to any lengths to avoid it. But that is a spiritual and irrational ‘reason’.
Though some are beginning to fight back against feminism eg Vance and his ‘cat ladies’ statement in the US and Meloni and her funding for stay at home mothers in Italy.
On topic I think it is clear in scripture Jesus does not allow divorce for any reason except adultery
” I think the Church actually (unofficially) advises clergy to get themselves into such a partnership.”
I suggest, politely, that this is nonsense. I’m not saying it’s never been said by an individual but the “Church… advises”. No. The idea that people would marry for money is a broad slur.
I think it’s correct that most ordinands are older these days and married already.
‘and there lies the problem, no consistency and hypocrisy, including amongst clergy themselves’
Yes, I would entirely agree with you there.
Mark 10:11-12 make it clear that Jesus envisaged a woman “sending away” her husband.
I wonder if the language in these verses implies that the sending away in these case was in order to marry the new person. In particular the “putting away” in the phrase where the woman is the subject is a participle, presumably of “antendant circumstance.”
It’s all Greek to me.
PC1,
Remember the blog a while back on bread and eating Jesus ? The disciples were confused because Jesus never pointed beyond Himself to something abstract, like truth, because He is The Truth. He is real bread. It seems obvious to me that whatever Jesus is saying about divorce , it is primarily about Himself. He is pointing out that He is a reliable spouse. A groom we can be confident is going to come and whisk us off on honeymoon. It’s a shame that clergy turn His words on divorce into rules they can embellish their denominational clubs with.
That’s not how I see it. Jesus was quite down-to-earth practical in much of his teaching. This is no different.
Yes. In the ancient world ‘divorce’ only meant anything when it implied permission to remarry. Hence the use of a certificate by Moses.
Divorce meant a separation that was acknowledged to be permanent, rather than one in which reconciliation might be sought. Its meaning is all about the couple. Whether it involves freedom to remarry is all about society. Jesus has views on the couple and on society.
The Jewish certificate of divorce that a man wrote his wife (Deut 24) did indeed say in Jesus’ time, “You are now permitted to any man”. But that was more than a thousand years after Deuteronomy.
Separately, may I enquire of you – and readers – WHY God considers reconciliation between man and ex-wife to be disgraceful after she hashad a second husband and become free again (Deut 24)? No reason is stated and several have been proposed, often mutually exclusive. This legislation is presumably why Jesus did not give any more specific advice to the woman at the well than “sin no more” (John 4). Should the man have divorced her originally? What are their attitudes in considering remarrying each other? If the answer why it is disgusting to God is not obvious today, it should be something obvious in the Ancient Near East. But what?
We know that divorce is not what God wants, thus to me the ban on remarriage is best explained as getting rid of a prostitution loophole and ensuring that marital Dravidian’s are kept as serious covenant discussions.
*Decisions
I am aware of temporary marriage as a mode of prostitution in some cultures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikah_mut%27ah
but Deuteronomy 24:1-4 says that God finds it disgusting if the woman remarries her first husband after the second husband dies. That doesn’t fit.
Re: Deuteronomy 24
My reflection would be that you have to consider what would really be going on if a woman remarried her first husband after a divorce and another marriage to someone else.
Either something horrendous happened, the marriage broke down irretrievably, but for some reason is now back on the cards; or her family is pushing her back into a marriage she left because something horrendous happened. Both scenarios trivialise the married life and the reality of divorce. If she’s freely remarrying her first husband, that raises a question of how irretrievable the first marriage was, and therefore divorce was really the best idea. It’s toying with people’s lives and emotions arguably in an unacceptable way. If she’s not freely remarrying him (say, the family thought it was a good business/political match and were annoyed by the first divorce) then her family is not paying due attention to her and the seriousness of what happened that required a divorce, or other aspects like the humiliation of making her crawl back to a man who rejected her before.
Although it’s not illegal, I suspect most people today would seriously question the wisdom of remarrying your ex-husband.
I agree – but suppose that both parties had become Christian and repented, and her second husband had died? The New Testament and the Old would then seem to be at odds over God’s attitude to it. It’s a conundrum.
How does the New Testament tell divorcees to return to their first marriages?
AJ Bell – it doesn’t.
AJB: It tells people who repent to put their sins right if they are able to.
Jesus gave no specific information to the woman at the well to sin no more.
He doesn’t mention her sinning at all.
I think you are conflating two different narratives.
Penelope – you are, or course, quite right here. In fact, Jesus was commending her for having had the good sense to have a bit of fun.
Jock
Jesus was neither condemning nor condoning her. The narrative gives no details about why she was divorced – her husbands may simply have cast her off. Nor do we know why she wasn’t married to the man she was now living with. It is probable that, as a woman alone, she had no other option. Or, shall we say, only less salubrious options.
If we regard her as a ‘sinner’, we are reading that into the text.
Penelope – you are (of course) correct. It could be that the 5 husbands died (either physically, or died to her by committing adultery with other people) so that all the marriages were legitimate; it could be that she hadn’t had sexual relations with the man she was now with – and she was simply under his protection (in some sense). This is certainly a valid reading of the passage – you are correct that there is no statement confirming that there was any impropriety.
I think that many take it differently, because Jesus has come to save sinners – and the events related would be even more remarkable if this were the case (the blacker the picture before Jesus breaks into her life, the more remarkable is her salvation).
A couple of quick points.
This reads to me like an example of Jesus telling us to go back to the point. As in Mark 2 where he tells us that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath, here he returns to the point of marriage (and then divorce). What’s not there is anything like “stay together for the children” or “stay married to keep having children”. Jesus avoids any reference to be fruitful and multiply. Instead we get the male and female reference of Genesis 1 and the one flesh of Genesis 2. He’s pointing to sexual desire, and to the companionship and unity of a family bond with your spouse. There’s also little sense of cosmic significance and symbolism, rather it’s a bit more earthy than that. Sexual desire is real and deep rooted, and marriage is a serious emotional business not simply a transactional contract to discarded on a whim.
One really striking part of the text in Mark, is that Jesus appears to waive away the Mosaic law on divorce – “Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment”. What’s going on there is a really important part of the text. People who argue there’s an arc of moral progress (that we can continue on) probably work with that, as do those who want to argue Mosaic law was a thing of its time. I think there’s a more striking point though: God’s commands are practical and can concede to where people are. The Mosaic laws on divorce were put in place because of the condition of the people.
Finally, Jesus has a curious condemnation of inappropriate divorce and remarriage. He doesn’t simply say it’s forbidden or a sin. He says it constitutes adultery. And that adultery is on both parties – the man or the woman on exactly the same terms. That’s quite egalitarian, and is a way of talking about spousal responsibilities and rights that Paul picks up in 1 Corinthians where he’s equally clear that husband has authority over the wife’s body, and the wife has authority over the husband’s body in exactly the same way. This also suggests that getting divorce wrong is part of sexual ethics. That poses an important question for the Church: if, as we are told by some, that sexual ethics is something we cannot disagree about or have a range of views on, what are the grounds for allowing people to simply follow their conscience on this question?
Thanks. Interesting reflections. A couple of observations.
Yes, it is striking that he ‘gets back to the point’, which is that marriage between a man and a woman is rooted in God’s creation of humanity as male and female. But in doing so, Jesus makes two oblique but important points.
First, he is quoted as citing the LXX ‘the *two* shall become one’ as opposed to the Hebrew ‘they shall become one’. This supports diaspora rejection of polygamy, which I understand was more acceptable in Judea. Secondly, given this, it is not credible to image that this passage is read in isolation from Jewish rejection of pagan acceptance (in one form or another) of same-sex sexual relationships. It is striking that Jesus goes not just to Gen 2 but right back to Gen 1, which of course is the basis of Jewish rejection as we can see in Philo and in Paul (Rom 1).
Jesus does not ‘avoid’ reference to being fruitful and multiplying. That was not in dispute, so there is no need for him to mention it. I cannot see in Jesus’ comments any reference to ‘desire’ or ‘companionship’—can you point out where you see that? He is simply rooted it in the authoritative account in scripture of God’s creation of humanity.
I agree with you that his terminology is strikingly egalitarian, and James Edwards highlights that in his commentary, as James mentions in the video.
I have not heard anyone say ‘sexual ethics is something we cannot disagree about or have a range of views on.’ It is a very broad heading. What I have heard people say is: whether marriage is between one man and one woman is something we cannot agree to disagree on. Jesus’ teaching here explains why that is so.
To the post I made on the preceding thread about this issue, I’d add that David Instone-Brewer reaches a very liberal conclusion about remarriage after divorce (during the lifetime of an ex).
The early church, including those who heard Jesus and Paul, for several centuries forbade marrying again while a former spouse lived; see the study by Henri Crouzel, L’église primitive face au divorce du premier au cinquième siècle (Paris, 1971).
Yes. I agree with David on his reading of the background to Jesus’ teaching here. I am not sure that I agree on his pastoral conclusion—and I strongly disagree on other claims that he has made, which have been tackled on this blog.
Could you briefly outline what pastoral conclusions you disagree with D I-B Ian ?
I would need to check back. But my recollection is that he would be more liberal in his practice of remarriage.
On another issue, I think he is completely wrong. Assessment here: https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/are-there-two-types-of-men-in-leviticus-2013/
When as Hospice Chaplain, I had been requested to conduct and emergency marriage for a couple of many years and the patient was dying. He had been divorced over 40 years and the Bishop (granted authority to decide by ABC) expected me to determine from his long uncontacted ex-wife (no children to connect them) that the fault of the separation wasn’t his. He had hours to live and it was impossible to get that affirmation in time. In my own separation my ex-wife and I mutually agreed after 25 years marriage to divorce. By the time the next morning she had concluded to the children it was my fault and that has caused estrangement from them all to this day. Though saddened by that, I have now been happily remarried for fours years today. To avoid the same judgement by the ABC/Bishop, who would have suspended me had I not committed to reconciliation, I left church leadership (and the church) and remarried in a registry office followed by a church blessing.
Thanks for sharing your very painful story. This illustrates well the real pastoral consequences of getting our thinking and practice wrong on this. I also think both these situations illustrate the complexity around the issue of ‘no fault’ divorce.
It’s a desparately sad account.
One of the complexities in this can be that the uninvolved commentator does not always have clue about the actual situation that “vicars” are trying to understand. It’s easy to judge in ignorance.
I’ve done some and turned down others. Have I always been right in my decision? Certainty is a valuable commodity we don’t always have.
And blame culture
“Who is to blame?”
Rather than
“Whats the best option here?”
Those who propose removing blame propose exonerating those who are to blame and saying that the innocent are just as bad as the guilty.
You, Peter Jermey, are doing exactly that.
THe innocent is already suffering a fate worse than death by being ripped from all that is dearest to them – and without deserving that. They then suffer further by all the authorities and laws being against them. They then suffer even further by those authorities and laws being even more against then after the no-fault idea comes in. And you want to say that the fault which is there in reality dies not exist. That means that people can do as bad things as they want and there will still be no fault.
Which means you are supportive of the people who did the bad things and could not care less about the innocent.
The above applies in the proportion of cases where there is clearly one innocent and one guilty in essentials.
Christopher
No, not all, but the focus on ensuring the guilty are punished often means worse outcomes for their children
“Those who propose removing blame propose exonerating those who are to blame and saying that the innocent are just as bad as the guilty.”
Those who are keen on blame very rarely want to consider the immense complexities of human relationships – witness Mac’s comment above. I totally understand his wish to leave authorised ministry and the church. Shaming people is the cheapest and most unchristian approach, yet the Church seems to delight in it.
Peter – so in order to avoid those child outcomes, why do you not want to have the sort of society, which has often been had, where divorce is rare because sex is for marriage?
It does not add up.
I am indelicate enough to ask if the ability to consummate is regarded as an issue in such situations. I ask sincerely, because marriage is a serious thing.
I’m intrigued by both the situations here. (a) the two people who wanted an emergency marriage – what was it all about? They had been a couple for many years and during all that time they didn’t feel the need for a formal marriage – so why was it suddenly a big issue when one of them only had a few hours to live? I understand that the author Iain Banks did something like this – a few weeks before he died he asked the woman he had been living with to ‘do me the honour of becoming my widow’. As I understand it, in English law there is the concept of ‘common law marriage’ – I don’t understand it exactly, but I thought that if a man and woman had been living together for a period of something like 5 years, then to all legal purposes they were considered to be married.
On the ‘mutually agreeing to a no-fault divorce’ – I think that Andrew Godsall (below) may be right about this one – although we really don’t have any information here. But both parties must have found the situation truly awful before the possibility of divorce ever got mentioned.
I think the big struggle for modern Christians is that Jesus does not explicitly say that domestic abuse is a valid reason for divorce.
So then we only have two options- 1 that this is not a tight legalistic teaching and is open to situational flexibility or 2 Jesus wants women to stay with men who abuse them even to the point of death.
It’s really tricky to justify using this passage to oppose same sex marriage when you’re not adhering to what it explicitly says about opposite sex marriage.
I’d argue that, as with all scripture, we should apply the “love your neighbor” interpretation that says divorce is OK if it’s not being used as an excuse for adultery or in some other abusive fashion. This of course doesn’t sit well with church leaders who want to stay in with powerful men who go through wives at a rate of knots and is another reason why the church is often failing to follow Christ.
And a huge part of the problem with this whole conversation is making the assumption that marriage at the time Jesus said whatever he said was like marriage in 21st Century Britain. And of course marriage was nothing like it is now, and neither was divorce.
Marriage then was a lifelong union between one man and one woman. It remains so in the doctrine of the Church of England, whatever social administration might have changed around that.
If that’s true then why is there now a governor of the Church of England who is married to a person who was his mistress during his first marriage? Why was his son allowed to marry someone who had divorced her previous husband? Why can’t the current Archbishop of Canterbury explain why precisely same sex marriage is wrong? Why is there no explanation why God opposes it (beyond some wierd appeal to symbolism)?
‘Why is there no explanation why God opposes it (beyond some wierd appeal to symbolism)?’
Er, so you’ve not read *any* of the books on this from an orthodox perspective…??
If marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman remains the doctrine of the Church of England, Ian, why does it recognise the further marriages of divorceees during the lifetime of the ex?
Remember, Peter, that divorce in the Bible is decided by the parties, not the authorities. That has consequences both for biblical interpretation and pastoral advice.
I agree with your implicit critique of serial monogamy among church leaders, although it is perhaps a bigger problem in the USA where I believe you now reside.
It is not ‘liberal’ to rip a faithful spouse from that which is most precious to them. Instead it is as cruel and tyrannical as anything can be. But said scenario is often ignored.
Despite the fact that three quarters of ds are against the will of one.
If the splitters are mainly female, should we not consider that hormones and cycles are partly responsible? So do we exalt the irrational, never mind who suffers?
Or is not feminism and the sexual revolution, which tires both parents out at work in an age of labour saving devices so that the govt can coup more taxes, partly to blame? The sexual revolution produces products that are ripe for such tragedy because they cannot bond so tightly if they have already bonded; and also if they have already bonded they become more complex and sometimes messed up, which does not bode well when it comes to marital experiment.
Instead of the desertion model, the abusive husband model is used as default.
It is highly suspicious that it has suddenly come to be seen as default in precisely the same age as there have been movements where it is guaranteed that 100% of the villains are male (#metoo, #everyone’s invited [invited to what? a delicious gossip session?]).
But no-one can ever say whether the default is accurate because the term is not defined, and indeed is in common parlance now far too broad ever to be (though we can agree on things like physical violence, swearing etc.). Is disagreeing with someone abuse? Is reacting to previous bad treatment abuse? Is acting like one’s own gender when the other person understands only their own gender abuse?
What is highly unlikely is that many people really have anything other than positive feelings for the person they selected from among all others to marry. And with whom their history is centrally bound up. Particuarly when they are among those mature enough to marry and be married in the first place.
Christian conversations about the NT and Jesus on this I find strange, and blinkered by the use of cultural spectacles.
1. Jesus says divorce-and-remarriage is a prime sin (adultery).
2. In this he coheres with his mentor the Baptist who rebuked Antipas.
3. He does not mean divorce-and-remarriage is a sin as opposed to divorce by itself not being – see 1 Cor 7. Divorce is a sin with or without remarriage, though it is the remarriage that brings the adultery.
4. Why would it not be, since it brings such unparalleled suffering?
5. And such unnecessary suffering, since many societies have had vastly lower levels, largely because of norms and because sex is treated as being for marriage.
6. Jesus stands against that suffering. To oppose him on that is liberal? Is liberal? Of all things?
7. He is big enough not to be bound by contemporary conversations (Hillel/Shammai). But it would also be uncharacteristic of him to be so bound, as he generally in conversation turns the tables or employs lateral thinking to expose the real issue. And broadens horizons to highlight the large scale picture.
8. No NT passage says or implies Christians can divorce, nor indeed willingly separate (and naturally the words involved in saying that are so unpleasant that it is unsurprising that people of conscience will not be able to utter them) until we get to Matthew (c90 AD by my intertextual whole-NT dating). By this time the words of Jesus and the letters of Paul have been around for 60 and 35 years respectively. Matthew sensibly takes up Jesus’s own idea that adultery is a deal breaker. And of course, Jesus’s words, stating as they do the basic principle only, are ripe for rabbinic-style discussion of particular cases.
9. One such particular case is a mixed marriage between new Christian and non Christian, and Paul took this up long before in 1 Cor 7. In so doing he never said Christians could divorce or willingly separate. He says that if the non Christian spouse deserts them they ought not to pursue them – hence his words ‘How do you know whether you will save your husband/wife?’. To say a spouse is not bound in that context means they are not bound actively to seek and reconcile, which is the possibility in view. Marriage itself, after all, is not a form of bondage, however much it is a form of being knit or tied together.
These NT passages are incredible for the amount of exegesis they require. I have Cornes, G Wenham, R Collins, Ted Williams and so on, and the 1 Cor and Mark commentaries – great books and still one feels there are always other angles.
Christopher, I think many would disagree with some of what you have written. For my part, I would raise the following:
“It is not ‘liberal’ to rip a faithful spouse from that which is most precious to them. Instead it is as cruel and tyrannical as anything can be.”
– sometimes divorces happen precisely because of the cruel and tyrannical behaviour of one of the couple. Ive heard some horror stories. Does God really expect the one being harmed to just continue in the marriage, despite the miserable life they are leading because of their partner? Where is the peace in that to which Paul refers?
“If the splitters are mainly female, ”
– is there data on that? If it’s true, is it because of the often bad behaviour or lack of love on the part of the man, though you seem to think that idea just comes from feminism? Clearly women can behave just as badly as men, but Im not sure your apparent presumption is correct.
“Is acting like one’s own gender when the other person understands only their own gender abuse?”
– Im not sure what you mean by that. I think the cause of divorce is typically bad or unloving behaviour by one (or sometimes both) partners. But such behaviour should never be thought of as ‘acting like one’s own gender’.
“1. Jesus says divorce-and-remarriage is a prime sin (adultery).”
– does he? Where does he say it is a ‘prime’ sin? If the divorce happened because one partner committed adultery, is the divorce itself, as you say later, sin? If the innocent party later remarries, are they sinning?
“4. Why would it not be, since it brings such unparalleled suffering?”
– that really depends on individual circumstances. For some there is a real sense of freedom and peace after a divorce, including in the children. Why? Because continued stress and strife at home is often the cause of much suffering, both in adult and child. Divorce ends that suffering as the relevant parties no longer are forced to live together. Again, if God is a God of peace, as Paul says, is that not welcome?
“6. Jesus stands against that suffering.”
– presumably he also stands against suffering-causing marriages? Would he force them to lead a miserable, suffering life?
“Matthew sensibly takes up Jesus’s own idea that adultery is a deal breaker”
– well yes. Grounds for divorce. Christian or not. Yet you said earlier Christians had no grounds for divorce as divorce itself is sinful. What does ‘deal breaker’ then mean?
“To say a spouse is not bound in that context means they are not bound actively to seek and reconcile, which is the possibility in view. Marriage itself, after all, is not a form of bondage, however much it is a form of being knit or tied together.”
– isnt hat an assumption on your part, that ‘bound’ does not mean they should not feel they have to remain married to someone who has left them? I thought the language of ‘not bound’ was often used in the context of being free after a divorce to remarry another?
And some marriages can be a form of bondage, causing suffering to all those involved.
Peter
Dear Peter – Several points arising, and several misunderstandings:
It is not liberal to rip a faithful: You say this is not the only scenario that ever exists. Two questions therefore arise. (1) Can you find anyone who ever thought it was? (2) How is that relevant, given that it is the scenario that we are talking about now? It is a bit like you are wanting to change the subject (ironically, to ground that has oft been covered anyway and also away from ground that has not!) – but debate is about answering the question that is before one.
I think bad behaviour or lack of love by men is an idea planted by feminism? I do?? I thought both men and women had done plenty of bad behaviour since the dawn of time.
Acting like one’s own gender when the other person understands only their own gender: This means what it says – acting according to the way you as your gender typically see the world and according to the gendered brain you have. The comments you appended are again not relevant to that, and again steer towards the cliched standard discourse on this topic, as though that had not already been done to death and jammed on everyone. Which is not to say it is all inaccurate – far from it. But not relevant to the point.
Jesus says adultery is a prime sin – it is the second sin he quotes to the rich young man. It could scarcely be other if it is in the 10 commandments, surely?
The other point you make is not relevant. The topic is remarriage being adultery, not spousal adultery. So again you seem to be trying to shift the ground before ever dealing with the question. However, the first of these two topics is dealt with by Jesus as Paul acknowledges. The second is thought by Matt to have been implied by Jesus, but neither Mark nor Paul says he says it, and Paul pretty much contradicts it (a husband should not divorce his wife, a wife should not separate from her husband); Mark is understood to be a basic summary, but also contradicts it so far as it goes.
You are keen here to talk about what Jesus did not talk about (or is less likely to have talked about), all the while never talking about what he DID talk about.
If the innocent remarries, are they sinning?
Typically, innocent people would treat this as bigamy and therefore with revulsion, which would be in line with Jesus’s strong classification of it. But it is not me that you should be asking but Jesus. Jesus does not touch on this, and the reason for that is probably to be found in Paul’s ‘a husband should not divorce his wife etc etc’ – Jesus doubtless sees this kind of compromise as exactly the problem – marriage is something so utter and ultimate that tarnishing it is quite an unpleasant thought even before you start thinking of the idea that one would have committed to life to an ongoing adulteration and also to a permanent unhealed state. Committed, as though that were the sort of thing one approved of.
Suffering? You are addressing Suffering type A by saying suffering type B also exists. Exactly the same charges apply. (1) This is irrelevant; (2) you are sidestepping, and what are the typical reasons people do that? (3) Whoever thought otherwise?
However, to treat individual X (the fall guy/girl) as someone whose *absence* equates to healing and joy (I wonder whether they themselves would agree with you in that damning judgment, or would they tearfully assert their own spousehood and parenthood in the Christian manner?) is utter abuse and 180 degrees different to the gospel of acceptance and welcome. But all the more so when that is your own one flesh with whom your central life experience has been intimately shared.
If the splitters are mainly female: Googling will give females as approx three quarters of the cases where it is one or the other. This is a quite staggering disparity, and therefore something that needs to be spoken about. It amounts to a hundreds of percent difference.
Your para beginning ‘Matthew’ once again focuses on spousal adultery (either unmentioned by Jesus or taken as implied by him) and ignores remarriage adultery – which is the clearest thing to have been said by him. A very clear moving of the goalposts.
Dealbreaker is a saying and the word ‘break’ within it is an unfortunate coincidence in this context.
Forgiveness and reconciliation is the central Christian message. It appears, by contrast, nowhere in your presentation.
However, your presentation has much in common with 21st century secularism.
The language of ‘not bound’ is indeed used in that way often. Accurately? Or from baser human nature?
For ‘committed to life’, read ‘committed for life’.
Christopher – I’m not sure (from reading your post) what the argument is about. People involved in a happy marriage don’t (of course) need the words of Jesus in Mark; they’re not going to divorce anyway. For those who are in a marriage that turns out to be horrible (which does happen), I don’t think that Jesus is giving any information here on whether or not the married couple should consider living in separate dwellings and see as little of each other as possible – he certainly isn’t saying that this is not allowed. ‘Divorce’ (as has been discussed quite fully on this thread) has the specific meaning of severing the bond in such a way that the person is free to marry again – and it is to this that Jesus says ‘no’.
So if you find yourself married to an axe wielding maniac who is in danger of taking his work home with him, you are not only entitled to, but you are probably obliged to take yourself and your children to safety (i.e. live elsewhere), but you are not allowed to consider this grounds for divorce; you are not allowed to remarry if he hasn’t committed adultery.
Furthermore, as you rightly point out, adultery (I have no idea what ‘spousal adultery’ is different from ‘adultery’) severs the marriage bond – in the sense that if one person commits adultery then the bond has been severed and the other is free to marry again. (So if said axe-wielding maniac finds another woman, you are then free to marry again).
Adultery in Christian circles is (of course) an absolute no-no; when it happens, the marriage is well and truly over and the other party is free to marry again.
This (of course) is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 7:39. The passage says ‘if her husband dies’; it does not say ‘if the man dies’. The husband dies to her (in the sense of leaving her free to marry again) either if he dies physically or else if he commits adultery.
Lol, the term ‘spousal adultery’ was used by me only to differentiate it from Jesus’s coined remarriage-adultery.
Your 1 Cor 7.39 idea sounds far fetched.
I have never worked out why adultery is a nono and divorce is not (supposedly). It is a bit like you can somehow d your spouse but not your children, but nopone has ever explained why. And don’t (anyone) give a level-down scenario , lewhere one can do this thing to both of them.
What you said about adultery severing the bond so that the innocent is free to remarry has as many holes as a leerdammer. (1) Innocent people are the least likely of all to regard such a thing (an unhealed wound that is likely to remain so) as positive, so how much less will they regard it as liberating. (2) The idea that it is likely to remain so is prevalent but utterly devilish, since it means that the negative side must always win. Where on earth do people get that brainwashed idea from? I can guess. (3) The whole thing has the agenda set by the bad guy not the good guy. That is Christian? What the bad guy does is decisive; the good guy has to passively live with it. That is a Christian attitude? (4) It is not contained in what Jesus says. Jesus does say some very interesting things here. Not least as it is his best attested saying. But such conversations as this are notable for how much they savour of the modern west and a lack of mention of the things that Jesus actually does say. To your credit, however, you mentioned a fair bit of the latter, among the other things you said, so you are bucking the trend here.
Your
Christopher – the understanding that if your spouse commits adultery then the spouse is dead to you as a spouse is the understanding of the Westminster confession. You are (of course) at liberty to consider those who wrote and approved of the Westminster Confession of 1647 to be a bunch of head bangers if you want, but most would consider them to be respectable sensible people who were fine Christians. The understanding of 1 Cor 7:39 (which follows from this) comes straight from Alan Redpath’s book ‘The Royal Route to Heaven’ which I am currently reading.
If you start with the principle ‘the two become one flesh’ – then it’s difficult to see how this applies when one party has actually committed adultery – so I agree with the Westminster divines and their understanding of the relevant passages in Matthew – and also with Alan Redpath on this point.
I get the impression (looking at the real world) that a person who has an adulterous spouse often suffers from ‘Stockholm syndrome’ and still (somehow) thinks that the marriage can be kept together. The problem is to communicate to such a person in a firm way that God has severed the marriage bond, so that to continue living together as married is, in fact, living in sin – so the problem is the opposite of the one that you suggest.
But here we are considering situations that really should never happen when two Christians get married. If we really are dealing with two people, both who have come to believe – and are therefore indwelled by the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come – then the situation where either of them actually want to commit adultery or actually want to divorce really should never happen.
Of course, legislators in parliament, who are deciding on the law of the land, have to legislate for the ‘real world’, but the amazing thing here is that all this business of ‘divorce’, people who find that they simply can’t live together and want to separate, adultery, etc ….. seems to be very important in the Church of England and their Synod seems to put quite a lot of energy into deciding on Canon Law – for situations that, while important for the ‘real world’, really shouldn’t affect believers.
The Westminster Confession presumably took it from Luther, who pointed out that the Mosaic penalty for a married woman who committed adultery was death, freeing the man to remarry. There are problems with this argument: first, the adulterous woman’s husband is not under obligation to report the adultery to the authorities – he might choose to forgive; second, since two witnesses to adultery are unlikely, God provides Israel with a supernatural way of determining whether a woman has committed adultery (Numbers 5), which He does not extend to gentile nations; third, there is no Mosaic penalty on a married *man* who commits adultery, such as with a prostitute while travelling.
The logic of your position would mean that a man who forgave his wife’s adultery would be obliged to go through a further wedding ceremony with her.
Anton – suppose a burglar breaks into your house and steals everything. You can forgive the burglar as much as you like, but I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t subsequently entrust him with the house keys. It isn’t exactly the same principle here – since when someone commits adultery, it is God who has dissolved the marriage.
In this case, forgiveness really has nothing to do with it. Somebody commits adultery, then the marriage bond is broken and the person who committed adultery is dead to the other party – you aren’t really allowed to marry a dead person. You can forgive the adulterous spouse as much as you like; but even if you do, then you are not allowed to continue ‘as married’ – and remarriage (or a further wedding ceremony) is not an option.
Looking at the ‘way of the world’ (which one gets from the gossip articles in newspapers), it’s probably quite common for non-Christians to engage in a bit of adultery, then forgive each other and proceed as a married couple. It would probably be quite hard for a Christian who finds him- or her-self with an adulterous spouse to have the psychological steel to understand that the marriage is well and truly over and to act accordingly.
Continuing the relationship is conditional on repentance of the adulterer, but it is quite remarkable to find a Christian preaching against forgiveness.
If you want analogies, the nation of Israel committed what God called adultery with other gods, yet He continued the covenant to Jesus’ time at least.
Anton – I’m not preaching against forgiveness – I’m just indicating the practical outworking of forgiveness if you have an adulterous spouse doesn’t include continuing with the marriage.
The ‘nation of Israel’ is a sore point – and this is thread is probably the wrong place for me to get into arguments with Zionists such as you, James and Colin Cormack about the very great evils that have been perpetrated against the Palestinians – mostly as a result of the Zionist Christian lobby in the USA, because they believe there is some sort of covenant whereby the physical descendants of Israel should have that piece of territory (and they overlook the occasional atrocity or two necessary to make it happen).
Jock & Christopher,
If you watch a play in a theatre the convention is not to take it too seriously, it’s a play, totally self-contained and all that happens in it. If suddenly you notice the hero is talking about a Christopher and a Jock you shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that he is addressing you in the audience.
Jesus said everything in Scripture is about me. When he mentions prophets he is referencing himself as The Prophet. When he mentions bread we find He is talking about real Bread.. etc.
So, when he mentions divorce we should first ask ourselves what He is saying about Himself…and stop there.
Leave divorce legislation to lawyers.
Leave Christianised civic discourse to civic authorities.
I believe Christians should be salt in society only. We are not asked to make society conform to ancient Israelite law. Although when it does it is praiseworthy.
Those ancient laws were set up as a plumb-line so that when Jesus came there was in place something to measure Him by.
If it were a competition Jesus is the winner! He fulfilled the law. He will not divorce us. He will come as a groom to take us home.
steve – I draw your attention to the comic opera Iolanthe. In it, Captain Shaw (leader of the London Metropolitan Fire Brigade) is mentioned in one of the songs and the wiki entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolanthe
says,
‘On the first night Alice Barnett, as the Queen of the Fairies, sang the verses directly to Captain Shaw, who was sitting in the centre of the stalls.’
In this case, the libretto mentioned a Captain Shaw – and both the singer and the librettist were indeed addressing that Captain Shaw, who was sitting in the audience.
Jock,
You say: “the practical outworking of forgiveness if you have an adulterous spouse doesn’t include continuing with the marriage.” If you believe that to be the case even when the adulterous party has repented and the other party has forgiveness in his or her heart, I am appalled.
I was talking specifically about the nation of Israel BC – as I made clear – so my Christion Zionism is irrelevant to the analogy I drew.
I think you are right that this would be notably less likely to arise among Christians than among the general public.
We have no business putting the Westminster Confession above either Jesus or internal logic. Note that the internal logic says that it is the baddie that is given the power to call all the shots, and not only is the goodie powerless to call any, s/he is subjected to a fate worse than death, i.e. not being with the one they love, their very flesh.
Well, that can’t be right, can it? Since it is only the Westminster Confession and not Holy Writ, that need not trouble us.
Basically, the scenario that includes repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation is the Christian one.
But half the problem is with negative mindedness. How about enjoy the marriage adventures to the uttermost and don’t let anything ugly, including ugly thoughts which are seeds, anywhere near. Why on earth would you?
That is why I always say that although faith and positive thinking are not the same, they overlap hugely. And despair has always been thought a prime sin, and an affront to God, and it is pretty similar to negative thinking.
Now – look at all the negative thinking above. What is that all about?
And then rethink, even repent.
Christopher – of course, if you’re a Christian married to another Christian (by Christian I don’t mean intellectual assent to some creed – I mean someone who has been born again in the sense of John 3:16 and is indwelled by the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come) then the married life will bring joy and fulfillment – and that indeed is what Christian should concentrate on. Neither of you will want a divorce; the teaching of Jesus in Mark 10 will be irrelevant to your lives.
As I indicated right at the beginning of this thread, I believe that passages such as those in Mark 10 (also Matthew 19) are ‘eschatological’ in the sense that, for those who find themselves in an unhappy marriage, the teachings of Jesus present something that is unworkable if you want to create some sort of canon law or some sort of law-of-the-land based on these principles.
I believe that Matthew 19 taken together with Mark 10 is quite clear; when adultery takes place, God has severed the marriage bond. But we see that there are many people who do not accept this and prefer to remain with an adulterous spouse – it would be impossible to legislate against this.
In Mark 10, Jesus takes a dispute between two different factions concerning divorce in the here-and-now (thanks to Ian Paul for pointing this out and elucidating what the two factions were) and (as usual for Jesus) doesn’t answer the technical question of what the divorce laws should look like in the here-and-now, but instead makes an eternal statement of the Divine Imperative on this matter (you do not have to understand the background about the dispute between two factions to understand fully what Jesus is saying about divorce here).
You keep coming up with all sorts of statistics and I believe that these statistics probably do substantiate the points you are making, about the consequences of sin. If you change the law that won’t help very much at all; your unrepentant sinner will still keep living in sin – and will simply look for ways so that he or she can get away with it, without the police finding out. The only thing that will help is when people confess their sins and come to trust in Jesus as their Saviour.
Your general perspective is good. This topic is utterly foul, and therefore anyone with a half decent heart would be revulsed by it in the first place. Obviously if you are Christians married to one another, you will be thrilled at that (after all, you have selected this one above all others, so they must be a top selection), plus steadfast (at least in that you approve steadfastness). Speaking of foul things gives them a false reality; even to utter some things is a bad seed because it brings them, more not less, into the public space from which we, quite the contrary, want them extirpated. If it’s foul, why would it enter your head when all the fair things have not yet been given their due, and when the foul are not a lower level of fair but the very opposite of fair?
But -crucially – in the case of those who are not Christians, why are they not? They should be, because when it is a choice we always should have the option that does most good.
Your perspective sounds more like – some are Christians and some are not; the latter can be left to stew. But I am sure that the latter is not what you really think, and the former is not true either, since being a Christian is not innate.
Christopher – I don’t think that the latter (i.e. those who have not come to believe in Him) should not be left to stew – it’s just that I don’t see what we can do about it. Those of us ‘in Him’ should be trying our God-given best to set an example and to proclaim the central gospel message of repentance unto forgiveness of sins.
But we’ve all seen how this has worked out in the past – Jesus was crucified. Also, when you post statistics on these threads indicating the consequences of sin (e.g. children who are maladjusted as a direct result of their parents getting divorced, you’ve also posted statistics connected with the hugely damaging consequences of the sexual revolution, etc ….), you’ve seen the visceral reaction against the statistics and their obvious conclusions – by people who ought to know better.
I would like everybody to come to believe in Him – and I’d do anything to make that happen. But you can’t force someone to believe – something has to happen within the heart and mind of a person before he or she comes to faith. When that hasn’t happened, you get the visceral reaction that you have seen. We’ve also seen clearly that passing laws to enforce good behaviour doesn’t work.
I do take John 3:16 seriously and I think that being a Christian does become an essential characteristic that cannot be lost when one comes to believe in Him.
I suppose visceral reactions come from those who have been reminded of an unwelcome truth (unwelcome to the old Adam, that is) that they were hoping no-one would mention. But it is always better that more truth rather than less is out there, indeed that the max amount of truth is out there. Hence what we do is not in vain, because it changes the amount and proportion of truth, just as sowing good seeds in our life and speech increases the amount and proportion of good seeds.