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For the month of June, we have been talking about what to do when relationships don’t work and today we are discussing one of the most difficult experiences that, unfortunately, is even happening within the body of Christ; divorce.
This is clearly not an area to callously throw out generalizations or blanket statements and yet, it seems like that is what happens in most discussions about this topic. For those who feel they are on the brink of divorce, they are obviously hurting and think there’s no other way forward. For those who have already been through divorce, they could be carrying the weight of shame, failure, regret, unworthiness and might feel condemned by their past. For some, the fear of divorce down the line is so heavy that it prevents them from ever getting married in the first place. A small glimmer of hope offered by the most recent data showing that the divorce rate seems to be declining each year is quickly snuffed out when we see the data that the marriage rate is decreasing on almost the exact same trend. Instead of giving you quick, pat responses for this weighty subject, we’re instead going to share with you 16 biblical principals about divorce from someone who has spent a lot of time digging into the nuance of this topic; the Bible Thinker, Pastor Mike Winger.
Allie - That short clip is from the final section of Mike’s over 3 hour video. In preparation for this video, he spent over 200 hours studying. We highly recommend that you go back and watch the full video from Mike, which we we link below. With that being said, one of the important takeaways that we want to tackle first is that, according to scripture, divorce is most of the time sinful BUT there are some important exceptions to that rule. We have to start from this understanding where we are basically saying, “unless you have a really good, biblically justified reason, then divorce just isn’t an option.” The obvious exception that most people would accept pretty easily is adultery. In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus is pulled into a cultural debate going on between two factions of Jewish teachers. One side taught that divorce was allowable for any reason, similar to what we would call a “no fault” divorce, today. The other side argued that divorce was only allowable for sexual immorality, or what’s also translated as adultery.
Starting in verse 3:
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast 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 separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
So, was Jesus explicitly endorsing the more conservative belief of the two that the only reason for a justifiable divorce is adultery? Yes-ish, but we have to go deeper than that. Jesus was definitely emphasizing that adultery was a legitimate cause for divorce, but even moreso, was emphasizing the gravity and weight of the institution of marriage, itself. We have to remember; marriage was not created by man but was gifted to man and instituted by God. Marriage is a sacred covenant. Our modern culture frequently mocks and profanes what is sacred and even within the Church, what is meant to be set apart and holy is often treated as common. If we start from the position that this is a holy and God-ordained covenant, it should cause us to tread much more lightly in the conversation around divorce. If we start from the understanding that it would most likely be sinning for me to divorce my spouse, it would probably stop the vast majority of divorces today from ever taking place. In fact, according to recent data, the most commonly cited cause for divorce was lack of commitment. Infidelity is ranked 2nd and 7th down the list is when abuse becomes a factor.
1. National Library of Medicine. List of Major Reasons for Divorce by Individuals and Couples Who Participated in PREP
2. Institute for Divorce Financial Analysis. Survey: Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® (CDFA®) professionals Reveal the Leading Causes of Divorce
o, what about abuse? Is Jesus telling us in Matthew that an battered spouse needs to stay married to their abuser? According to Mike, no. Right about the 2 hour mark in his video, Mike gives a strong biblical case for why human life and safety being at stake is a legitimate reason for breaking the rule of “no divorce” while still remaining guiltless. We’ll, again, encourage you to go back and watch Mike’s full video on this topic, but he goes on to give multiple examples in scripture of times when laws and commandments were broken for the sake of saving someone’s life, and the lawbreaker was considered faultless by God. As we stated before, the vast majority of divorces happening today are not the result of violent abuse, but there are far too many real situations of extreme mental, emotional and even physical abuse happening even within professing Christian homes where the abused spouse is instructed by their spiritual leadership to stay in that situation or, worse yet, that their spouses abuse is their fault. At best, this is an immature and overgeneralized view of scripture which causes shepherds to put their flocks in real danger. At worst, this is willful spiritual abuse on top of the abuse already being experienced at home. This is not what God has called any of us into. If you or your children are under the real threat of harm or danger, in the very least you have the obligation to yourself and them to separate yourselves from that threat, but you also have the freedom to divorce without guilt. Can this freedom be taken out of its context and stretched to accommodate a situation that doesn’t really fit? Yes. God knows the difference and so do you. For the hundreds that might hear this and try to force it to allow them to pursue their sinful desires, there are many others who desperately need to hear the truth; God does not expect or want you to stay in an abusive marriage. You can be free and divorce might actually be necessary.
Mike has so much important insight to share that we just don’t have the time to go into on this video so, once again, we encourage you to watch his full teaching. We do want to leave you with the last principal that he gives; Christians should unilaterally fulfill our calling to serve Christ through fully obeying god’s commands to husbands and/or wives. While divorce may be permissible is some cases and even necessary in others, both spouses should be focusing first on what God has called them to do in their marriage. Again, most marriages today are ending due to a lack of commitment. That’s not a good excuse. Marriage is an institution which, when lived out with the proper honor and care, should be one of the greatest examples of Christ and the Church to the world around us. Personally, I have seen how God can take a marriage seemingly from the edge of divorce, papers in hand, and redeem them to become a living, breathing miraculous display of what God can do. That is a long and difficult path to walk out of the darkness, but it is one that you and your spouse could take by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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