I was just preaching through 1 Corinthians 7 yesterday. I made the comment that God hates divorce and God hates it when Christians develop a judgmental attitude towards those who have suffered through a divorce. I don’t think we need to become judgmental, but shouldn’t leaders be held to a higher standard!?! If my marriage fell apart, I do not think I could continue to serve as the pastor of my church. I just don’t know…

The majority of the above mentioned divorced people are loosely connected to the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition, where I have spent most of my adult life. I spent some time researching the connectedness between spiritual transformation and leadership growth in a P/C context in a recent Dmin dissertation and I found that the alarming trend in P/C movements is an emphasis on POWER over PURITY and CHARISMA over CHARACTER.

It is the classic Corinthian error of FRUITS over GIFTS in relation to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. While there are many factors that have led to this crisis, there is certainly a theological/praxis problem here.

One of the above listed minsters was asked if his recent divorce had anything to do with his ministry. His response: “I am called to preach...my marriage has nothing to do with my ministry.”

Houston we have a problem…

Derek

I thought Robert Tilton was always in the entertainment business, not the ministry business…

Actually, I think a number of those folks are…

When there is little (none!) contrition over breaking a covenant, How does a pastor effectively communicate the nature of a covenant-keeping God? Yes, all pastors are flawed. But quick remarriages seem to communicate a lack of seriousness about covenant relationships.

The problem with much of this divorce trend is that people divorce due to a lack of choosing to surrender to God and one another. When life and marriage become all about me and my focus is always on whether my spouse is fulfilling some kind of “contract” I have in mind, then I choose to leave and feel justified if she/he breaches the contract. That is not the relationship seen in scripture. If Paul compares Christs relationship to the church to marriage then I think our marriages were designed on some level to say something about the gospel. How will the world listen to these ministers who say the gospel has power to save your life but not your marriage?  It is sad really when we are supposed to be known as Christ’s followers by our love and we show in the most intimate of our relationships that our love has limits. (of course there are things like affairs and abuse that are exceptions).

There are, of course, different kinds of divorce.  When one spouse seeks reconciliation but the other gives up, it’s not the same kind of divorce as when both parties fail to let their vows mean anything to their behavior.
Several have seen the irony in congregations who talk about faithfulness to a pastor, and forgiveness, when those two things were clearly absent from the pastor’s marriage…
To say that things “just didn’t work out” is a load of hogwash which Christians aren’t called to put up with.  Our God is the faithful God, and so our marriages must be faithful marriages.
Increased community support (and its converse, community accountability) would go a long way towards remedying this sin which has infected Christ’s Body.
My two cents.
-Daniel-

OK… I’ll batten down my hatches, but I’ve been vexxed over this thing since it broke.  Not so much because of the divorce issue (I do believe that God hates, divorce, and I also believe that there is never a biblical “permission” for divorce, but I also believe that God is a God who forgives).

Instead what troubles me is what the whites themselves had to say.

“The Whites, who’ve been married nearly 18 years, said in interviews that the split is amicable and comes after visits to counselors over several years.

THEY BLAME TWO LIVES GOING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS. [emphasis mine]”
- Quoted from the Tampa Tribune

If I am not mistaken the Bible clearly says that what “God has brought together let no man put asunder.” The Bynum’s divorce I can understand - you just don’t hit your wife period - but this… “Our lives are just going in different directions so we are going to ignore to covenant we made before God while we tell all of our faithful followers that they should never break covenant with God.”

HYPOCRITES!

One or both should have left the ministry, if only for a time, to work this out.  You don’t leave your spouse for your ministry.  YOU do a disservice to God and the church; nevermind the fact that you disgrace the One who brought you together in the first place.

People, the divorce rate among Christians is 70%!!!  Divorce will never stop being an option until we determine that it is simply not an option.  Put it out of your vocabulary!!!!

Hmmm I wonder what she said to anger him so much.  I’m always amazed at the women/people who think they should be able to behave in any way they choose in a friendship, business relationship, marriage, or dating relationship.......and not anger someone....not receive repercussions from the awful things they say or do.  I’m not saying it’s right to assault a person, but I am also not saying a person should provoke.

Quick note on the Matthew passage: many scholars (and I’m talking about smart men as far apart as John Howard Yoder--a mennonite--and John Piper--a conservative baptist--along with many others) have convincingly argued that translating Matthew’s use of the world ‘porneia’ as ‘adultery’ is a bad idea (especially since there’s a different word for adultery which would be more fitting if that’s what he had in mind).  Rather, ‘porneia’ should be understood as those ‘taboo’ sexual activities such as bestiality or (especially) incest (in which case ‘divorce’ is allowed because there wasn’t a legitimate marriage to begin with).  This fits with the pattern of Matthean strictness (Matthew tends to take the hardest possible line on Jesus’ commandments).

All that to say, God abhors divorce.  And nothing Jesus said mitigates that.  (God loves divorcees, of course.)

Hope this helps.
-Daniel-

Daniel writes [Rather, ‘porneia’ should be understood as those ‘taboo’ sexual activities ...]

I have to disagree with the soundness of that exegesis, Daniel. I would think that if you consider the expanded semantic range of porneia (a potentially dangerous exegetical fallacy in most cases btw), that you would actually BROADEN what Jesus is saying here, rather than narrow it to something different from what quite a lot of very intelligent Bible Translation Committees have concluded.

After consulting BDAG and a commentary or two and looking at the greek text a little (I can only look a little… I am NOT a Greek scholar) I have to disagree with the conclusions of Yoder and Piper, intelligent and godly men though they be.

A word can mean many thinigs in many different cases, but it is rare the word that means many things at once in one particular context, and it is, in my experience, rare that our Contermporary Bible translators are this wrong (The more I learn Greek the more I am impressed by these modern translations). I have to go with the translation committees of NLT, NIV, ESV, NET, even KJV… I don’t think this is merely “deviant sexual activity” as you describe it. To me, it seems to be the broader “sexual immorality”, which may INCLUDE such activity, but certainly includes adultery as well.

That said, if a spouse is adulterous, I still think Jesus would want us to reconcile if possible… Sorry, we got off point, and I helped…

I am loving your thoughts guys. I am learning a ton from your discussion.

Peter, I agree that even when there is adutery, that reconciliation is God’s top priority.

Thanks for the comments and thoughts!

-E

Yep...we must always proclaim marriage as a lifetime covenant. And if there is problems reconciliation is the answer.

Divorce is always the last resort.

Is fantasizing about a member of the opposite sex sin? Jesus said it was. Is it a part of pornia? Yeah, I think it is. Is it a reason to get divorced? Probably not. If people are looking for a reason to get divorced, they have a problem already. I don’t think we should be looking for a way out.

As I side note, I think Hosea had it tough because his wife was a prostitute and her name was Gomer! I don’t think I could get pass the name…

Derek

Sorry for the switcheroo on the naming, I’m just the plain old Daniel from every other thread using a different computer from the one I used to (the longer name is only fair to DanielR--the ‘different Daniel’...).

Briefly, the Piper/Yoder argument is that porneia for Matthew in this context is most likely intended in a restricted sense, much narrower than ‘adultery’.  The argument (I don’t know Greek, so I’m just trusting their judgment) is that Matthew has in mind something like Herod’s incestuous marriage (recall John the Baptizer calling him out on the same thing). 
And so I totally disagree with you Derek, when you say “I think it is a sin to tell a woman that she has to stay in a marriage with an abusive husband.”
The better, more faithful solution (pending pastorally sensitive discernment) would be to get out of the house, but to pray for the husband’s repentance.  Have the wife go live with her parents until the husband has gone through a rehab program.  Or better, have the wife’s brother move in with them so that he can protect her if necessary.
See how fast our minds move to divorce?  Jesus’ point is to directly contradict all our ‘common sense’ intuitions about this issue.  Which is why his disciples freak out and say “better then not to be married!!”

I’ve abstracted out concrete pastoral implications (which might, perhaps, in rare circumstances barely allow for something like remarriage) from these posts because our primary task is to hear Jesus’ words.  Notice also that none of the other gospel’s have anything like an ‘exception clause’ (and Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7 are equally strict)…

Stuff to think about…
Cheers,
-Daniel-

Danny D --

I agree that the first step for a woman who is being abused is to get her out of the house and pray/seek for the repentance of her husband, but if he will not repent then what? I always encourage couples to fight for their marriage, live separate if they have to...even get legally separated, but what if the abusive husband will not repent?

I guess my issue is that I would say that divorce is still on the table. Some pastor would still tell a woman getting smacked around by her husband that she cannot every divorce him. I would disagree. Jesus issue with healing on the sabbath is that you cannot use the word of God to oppress people, or conversely, you cannot use the word of God to withhold goodness from someone.

It is certainly a case-by-case issue that requires patience and discernment.

Derek