I misled us on the issue of divorce - wrong interpretation

[reba]

What about divorce and remarriage of the same partners

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I never said it can't be forgiven. I

But surely you agree the offense ends in God's eyes when the remarried person gets forgiven by God, even though they continue to be married to who they are married to. David did not continue in his sin with Bathsheba after he was forgiven, but he certainly did continue in that relationship with her.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

What about divorce and remarriage of the same partners

I say, "God bless 'em".......if they haven't remarried outside of each other already. If they did remarry they are bound to the new marriage they landed in. The first one ended on the basis of adultery when they got remarried, not when they got divorced. To go back to that previous marriage would require them to now sin against who they are presently married to. We humans sure know how to mess things up.

 

[GodsGrace]

But how did God change his mind about polygamy?
Because of the whole Judah/Tamar thing then we have the book of Ruth with the kinsman Redeemer. And it was the law that if your brother died you had to marry his wife. Then we have all the many Patriarchs who had plural marriages. Including the lawgiver Moses. (Who almost died for not circumcising his son)

Surely if God had such an issue with polygamy it wouldn't be a promise of blessings in Zechariah.

(I'm fully aware of the English translation and how its been warped to fit a particular viewpoint but I know the original language and have seen firsthand what Jesus really said and meant....just in case you want to get off the limb you are out on. It's not that it seems to you that what you believe is wrong when so many have been led astray by the translating... But the history and traditions in this instance are what is creating the rift)

It's nice that you know Hebrew. I wish I did.
But isn't it interesting how we pick what we want to?
i mean, how far back are you willing to go JohnDB?
What's wrong with the regulations in Ruth? Women had no way of earning a living back then. She used to glean the floor just to get some grain to eat. And Boaz married her lawfully - so I don't understand why you even mention her.

Could we come on up to Jesus? It's a bit closer to our times!!

W

 

[GodsGrace]

But surely you agree the offense ends in God's eyes when the remarried person gets forgiven by God, even though they continue to be married to who they are married to. David did not continue in his sin with Bathsheba after he was forgiven, but he certainly did continue in that relationship with her.

Of course. If you remarry and ask forgiveness and put it under the blood of Jesus - God will forgive and forget. I do repeat that it's different from a "normal" sin.

W

 

[reba]

What about divorce and remarriage of the same partners

What does the scripture say

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Of course. If you remarry and ask forgiveness and put it under the blood of Jesus - God will forgive and forget. I do repeat that it's different from a "normal" sin.

W

Only in that sexual sin is a sin against the body. All other sins being outside the body (1 Corinthians 6:18 NASB).

 

[Jethro Bodine]

What does the scripture say

The law says, if I remember correctly, that the divorced woman who has remarried can not come back to a previous husband.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Of course. If you remarry and ask forgiveness and put it under the blood of Jesus - God will forgive and forget.

I'm confident that's what OzSpen was saying. In that sense the sin surely does end.

 

[reba]

The law says, if I'm remember correctly, that the divorced woman who has remarried can not come back to a previous husband.

I cant find those scriptures

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I cant find those scriptures

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 NASB

 

[reba]

 

[Jethro Bodine]

You're mixing up quotes.
I feared you and OzSpen would continue to talk past each other, not you and John DB.

Okay, maybe I'm the one mixing up quotes, lol.
Sorry.

 

[JohnDB]

OK...got the puter fired up so I can type and think clearly.

Now you have to place yourself in the area and time that this was all said and done.
In the Ancient Near East women were not considered equal to men...not at all. They were considered one step above property(like a slave was)
They didn't have the right to access the courts. They didn't have the right to vote. They couldn't do a lot of things. Their "word" was highly suspect always.

Now the men in these situations had the upper hand. They could access the courts, they could seek a divorce. They could do almost anything within the Law and get away with it.

Now in Chapter 19 of Matthew the Pharisees had come to Jesus to question him again on this subject and find out his take on the subject. There were two opposing camps. One was that if your wife burned your pot of beans you could divorce her(school of Hillel). One was that only if she was caught in the act of infidelity could you divorce her(school of Shammai). Mind you the Pharisees were the "good guys" the model of what was thought to be living a God-pleasing lifestyle. They followed the Law perfectly. They weren't self appointed but were appointed as Pharisees by their respective communities as to what to strive for in living your lifestyle that would be pleasing to God.

Now polygamy was an accepted practice in the Ancient Near East. Having more than one wife was expensive. Righteous Job in the Old Testament (who was innocent of all the accusations) even got a bunch of new wives as a reward for being faithful. (God doesn't change his mind...only man's perception of what God's opinion is)
Now in the Greek/Roman world (from which all us English Speaking people are influenced by) polygamy was abhorrent...completely gross. (why is still a mystery to me) Especially in light of the fact that your average good guy and successful good guy at that time often had a mistress on the side that he loved. Often she lived in his house right along side of his wife. Sometimes they even were friends. Wives often despised their husbands and held no respect for them because of the lack of affection shown to them by the husbands. But they felt trapped (truly they were) because they also had no access to the courts. Consorts often bragged of their status and used their status as "so and so's" consort to get things done that they wanted. A husband would love his consort but a wife was for children and business relationships. Paul, who was ever the smart alek, spoke in the Pastoral letters in a rather sharp fashion referring to the men with consorts as having more than one wife. And wives, who often wanted to be loved and had boyfriends on the side, as having not a good reputation.


Back to the Ancient Near East.

Now what was going on in the Pharisee world was a bit of a scandal. Wives had become so much like property they were being treated as such...valuable property but property still. They would change wives and exchange wives...with a wink and a nod. I'll divorce my wife this week and you can marry her next month...yeah...it was that bad.

Then you have the other guys. The ones who couldn't afford more than one wife but wanted a different one.
Now if you felt you had to divorce your wife you would have to pay the Dowry back to the wife you were divorcing. If you couldn't afford to do so then you couldn't get divorced.
BUT
Leave it to some schmucks in the Old Testament to figure out a loophole. There was a thing you could do.. You could "put away" your wife. (the part left unsaid in many translations except for King James)

A man who couldn't afford to divorce his wife due to marital unfaithfulness had one other option (as seen by those in authority). He could just "apostasia" or Apostate or Put Away his wife. Meaning that he could just send her away and give her very very little in the means of support in food or clothing. A woman would starve to death under such conditions. She would have no home, food, clothing and living in a very hostile world to those without family protections. She couldn't go home to her parents...often they were deceased, mothers living on savings from her deceased father...bad shape. She could be captured and sold as a prostitute slave to the Roman world. Any number of things could happen to her. And that famous passage in Malachi where God is often quoted as saying, "I hate divorce" the fuller context of that passage reads about how God hates Abuse more and how He hates this practice of Putting Away a wife....and that if she has to commit adultery to stay alive by marrying another man the sin of adultery is going to be on the first husband's account...not hers.

An adulterous woman was also not in a comfortable position...if she ever got caught she was going to be executed by stoning.(its not like she could get a divorce) so often they moved far away from the original town they had a husband in...often to a large city where no one exactly knew everyone else and their business. Or a Samaritan town...where they really didn't care as much. She could at least get a new husband there.

So...

Now the Pharisees had another "one up" on women...unless there was verifiable proof that this strange woman (whom no one really knew) was really married they could marry her and divorce her for really inexpensively. And stay within the Law. So much so that it was a scandal creating "marriage parlors" which was for all intent and purposes were really whore houses.

So marrying a "put away" wife was really adultery....(which is what Jesus really was saying)
Putting away a wife just because you couldn't afford more than one will cause her to commit adultery and you will be considered to be an adulterer in God's eyes.
God really hates divorce because of the damage it does to a person...one of HIS persons.
And the "adultery thing" which so many use as a license to get a divorce.
Since the 13th chapter of Matthew Jesus said that he wasn't going to not speak in prose, poem, and allegory. Meaning that this section is also prose (in Aramaic which he was speaking) and that "pornea" is actually a reference to not acting in faith...meaning you weren't acting like a Child of God's. Which includes a whole list of sinful lifestyles including abuse, gambling away household resources, drug addiction, and of course infidelity.

any questions?

OH yeah...one other point.

Remember HenryVIII?
Wanted a new wife so he could get an heir? Broke away from the Catholic church and created a new Church....and several small wars resulted...including freedom for Ireland from Great Britian....yeah....I think that covers it.

 

[Deborah13]

I get that. But why does divorce have to be the answer to a dangerous marriage and not just separation? I'm suggesting it's because we humans simply can't accept not being happily married. We seek divorce in such circumstances in order to be remarried, not just to get away from unfair abuse. I say that because if it was just about not being abused anymore separation would be a sufficient answer to the problem, and would preserver God's counsel to not divorce.

This is where you don't understand the mind of some abusers. Some, one I know, believed that as long as he was the husband he had conjugal rights even though they were separated. He broken into the house and forced himself on her. He told her if she made a sound he would do it in front of the children. There was a legal restraining order against him at the time.
The most dangerous time for a victim of abuse is when they take the final steps to make it permanent, so that things like the above cannot be used against them and those rights are permanently taken away.

You don't understand abusers. You can't because it isn't something in your heart or mind, it's just too foreign for most people to understand the way many of them think. They don't just roll over and say, oh well I lost that one. They think force and fear will get them back what they want because it has always worked in the past, if tears and begging didn't work. In their twisted minds they conjure up all kinds of things to justify their behaviors, including that their victims must have liked their abuse otherwise they wouldn't have stayed before. They don't understand that they had been forgiven in the past, but now they had gone too far or had taken the victim to the point that they had to escape or die. Some of them are so devoid of empathy or compassion for anyone other than themselves that they are psychologically very much like a murderer who first keeps their victim and slowly tortures them over and over, literally sucking the will to live out of them.

Why can't this be done IN a marriage?
Until such a time as the other one decides to leave, if they do that.

Scripture says that to deny one's spouse is sin.
1 Corinth. 7:2-5. If one does this with the intent of forcing the other out it is even worse. That one is trying to cause them to sin, placing a stumbling block before them. This would be a form of abuse and is sneaky and dishonest.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

"pornea" is actually a reference to not acting in faith...meaning you weren't acting like a Child of God's. Which includes a whole list of sinful lifestyles including abuse, gambling away household resources, drug addiction, and of course infidelity.

Problem: When you define 'pornea' this way you have Jesus telling us we can divorce on the grounds of unbelief, while Paul tells us we can't divorce a spouse simply because they are an unbeliever.

 

[JohnDB]

Problem: When you define 'pornea' this way you have Jesus telling us we can divorce on the grounds of unbelief, while Paul tells us we can't divorce a spouse simply because they are an unbeliever.

Two different groups.

Israel was Jewish... They believed in God since birth.

Greek/Roman world was unbeliever from birth. They were using their new found beliefs as an excuse...and looking to the church to support them when they divorced. Again a major difference between following a whim and someone lying about who they really were before you married them.

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Okay, maybe I'm the one mixing up quotes, lol.
Sorry.

Never.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

This is where you don't understand the mind of some abusers. Some, one I know, believed that as long as he was the husband he had conjugal rights even though they were separated. He broken into the house and forced himself on her. He told her if she made a sound he would do it in front of the children. There was a legal restraining order against him at the time.

His violence doesn't make a separation not a viable option to divorce. Anyone who would do this would also kill her after a divorce.

You don't understand abusers. You can't because it isn't something in your heart or mind, it's just too foreign for most people to understand the way many of them think. They don't just roll over and say, oh well I lost that one.

Right. I wasn't suggesting they do that. I tried to rectify that misunderstanding with OzSpen. I was being polite in our discussion. Abusers who can't control their victims anymore, and know they can't, will seek to destroy their victim. They will do that in accordance with whatever kind of person they are. I'm not at all naive about these things.

They think force and fear will get them back what they want because it has always worked in the past. In their twisted minds they conjure up all kinds of things to justify their behaviors, including that their victims must have liked their abuse otherwise they wouldn't have stayed before. They don't understand that they had been forgiven in the past, but now they had gone too far or had taken the victim to the point that they had to escape or die. Some of them are so devoid of empathy or compassion for anyone other than themselves that they are psychologically very much like a murderer who first keeps their victim and slowly tortures them over and over, literally sucking the will to live out of them.

I see no reason why moving out without actually getting a divorce is not a reasonable, godly answer to these situations. The same laws and justice system that protects the victim in an actual divorce are there to protect them in a legal separation.

Scripture says that to deny one's spouse is sin.
1 Corinth. 7:2-5. If one does this with the intent of forcing the other out it is even worse. That one is trying to cause them to sin, placing a stumbling block before them. This would be a form of abuse and is sneaky and dishonest.

No, no, don't misunderstand. The celibacy within marriage I was talking about is when your spouse is the one who doesn't want the marriage and it leaves you living in celibacy by their choice and it tempts you to initiate the divorce. I see no reason why the church has decided an uncooperative spouse who has neither left, nor committed adultery is grounds for divorce. That's why I've been bringing up this issue of how the church has decided that our unfulfilled romantic/emotional/marital/sexual desires are grounds for divorce. That flies directly in the face of scripture that says we are not controlled by the flesh such that we have to sin to satisfy those fleshly desires. Someone's been leading the church astray on this issue of victory over the desires of the flesh and a divorce rate in the church equal to or slightly higher than the world is the result.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Two different groups.

Israel was Jewish... They believed in God since birth.

Greek/Roman world was unbeliever from birth. They were using their new found beliefs as an excuse...and looking to the church to support them when they divorced. Again a major difference between following a whim and someone lying about who they really were before you married them.

All I get out of your explanation is 'it's okay to divorce, and have multiple wives'. You do that by redefining 'pornea' to include a wide variety of non-sexual offenses against our personal desires as the grounds for Biblical divorce.