The Feed Mill

Today’s Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 24-27

Today’s Devotional: Deuteronomy 24-1-5

Protecting the marriage

Divorce, like any topic or subject in the Bible we can not pick out one use of it and be quick to assume we know anything about the matter at all. We have to look deep into the heart of the Lord about the matter and divorce is no exception. We can not merely say go and ask someone’s opinion on the matter and accept it at face value because it fits our purposes and seems right in our own eyes. Therefore we must look at all of scripture for what God’s heart is on divorce and the best commentary on the Old Testament is the New Testament and the best commentary on the New Testament is the Old Testament.

Malachi 2:16, Matthew 5:31-32, 19:1-12, Mark 10:1-11, Luke 16:18, 1 Corinthians 7:10-16

and we’ll get to shortly Ephesians 5:22-32, 1 Timothy 3:2, and Titus 1:6.

In Malachi we see that divorce is the absolute opposite of God’s Character, the Christian is called to have a new character and value system no longer from the world or the worlds Love but God’s character and His Agape Love. In the Gospels, Jesus never said that the husband is correct before God for divorcing, but only that it can be allowed in God’s permissive will and not His perfect will for any situation in a marriage, but God’s perfect will is that no man separate the husband and wife, including the husband and the wife. In the culture of the day only the husband had the legal standing to file for divorce at the time and so the Lord provides protection for the wife and gives only 2 permissive reasons for divorce, God wanted the children of Israel to understand Relationships aren’t disposable. Once you loose her you’ll never get her back, your wife isn’t disposable. This was permissive for one reason only, Jesus says that divorce was only permitted when there was a hardness of the heart so that abuse would not happen or a hardness towards God wouldn’t increase, and what do we know of what a hardness of hearts towards God’s will does, well look at Pharaoh or any others who did so in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says a husband shouldn’t divorce his wife, and in Ephesians 6:22-32 Paul says what marriage is a picture of; and any believer divorcing makes the Lord to be short on His heart towards us. With this notice what Jesus said in the Gospels, those who divorced committed a sin, but they did not live in a perpetual sin as some denominations like to misrepresent the text.

Many pastors and those in denominations have over stepped their authority in this area. It’s not Biblical to give a blessing where the Bible doesn’t give it, that’s called un-Biblical. Often times it’s because the pastor is afraid of the truth of God’s word and is afraid of being the bad guy and not flattering Christians ears. And later on as time goes by they enjoy using  1st Timothy and Titus as they please with those in Christian leadership, many pastors are just repeating what they have been indoctrinated with by a seminary or another and have no personal understanding of or with God’s Word in the matter. The price of this has been many damaged and left feeling unusable by the Lord, but this is opposite of the Truth of God’s Word.

Christian, if your pastor will twist this scripture then they’ll twist others, and if they are too lazy to understand this scripture their too lazy to understand others. Growing in knowledge and understanding takes time and desire, it’s like digging for Gold, you have to keep digging. And if this scripture has been twisted or is too lazy to dig deeper then how can you trust them with your spiritual growth and development? Paul said in Ephesians 4:11 that certain individuals have been given to the Church for the equipping and edifying of the saints, twisting scripture and being lazy with Scripture is not equipping or edify. The correct context of 1st Timothy and Titus is that the Biblical leader is not a playboy, an adulterer, a flirt, and does not show romantic or sexual interest in anyone other than his wife, including the depictions or images of pornography or sexual immorality.

If we take 1st Timothy and Titus the way many denominations have become legalistic about it, the end result is that all Biblical leaders must be married (both Jesus and Paul would be unqualified), and a Biblical leader can never remarry if they are widowed or divorce. The context and meaning is that the Biblical leader be focused on only one woman, that being his wife, because it was common in many cultures to have two wives. Pastors are called to protect and serve the marriages not give easy excuses for messy situations to be swept under the rug.