I have thought about this blog post many times since I first read it in August. Jackson, thank you for your thoughtful, biblically based teaching about divorce. This is not an easy subject. I had the shameful, alone feelings that my divorce brought me. I felt like a failure but I didn't share it with anyone other than my sister and brother-in-law, Believers in Christ who held me, cried with me and led me in God's word. God didn't make me feel that, I did, and it took time and God's word to help me through it. This blog, your words, brought me even more understanding and clarity, about divorce. Thank you for taking on the subject, being obedient to God and teaching!
Interesting. The view I grew being taught was that Jesus was not invalidating Moses, but teaching a moral truth that they simply didn't understand within the law of Moses. IE that divorce except in the case of sexual immorality is sinful.
This reading is much more logically simple. If I understand it correctly. Remarriage while your former spouse is alive is adultery and unless there was already adultery whoever divorces is causing it. If adultery already happened then the person that was already unfaithful has caused the adultery.
This view deals much cleaner with the issue of divorce due to other types of breaking the marriage covenant by demonstrating that the clause, except in the case of sexual immorality, is there not because of sexual immoralities rank in reasons for divorce (though it is of course quite high on any list reasonable justifications for divorce), but it was necessary because of the logical definition of adultery.
I'm heavily relying on William Loader's works here: I think it is interesting that Augustus' adultery decree was conceded by Jesus, namely that divorce is adultery except on account of porneia, which made divorce a requirement by law. But, then, given the fact that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, Jesus makes his own decree, that the true divine order of marriage is one-flesh—that which God (not Caesar) brought together, let no man separate. It's an interesting power move without ever mentioning Caesar. Yet, at the same time, there is a pastoral/cultural sensitivity at play. He knows what is preferential and divinely ordered but still concedes that there was a time for divorce, that is when required by Caesar. When taken on the whole in the light of the previous section, it's even more interesting to me. You want to lust after someone else's wife? That's adultery of the heart. You look at your own wife and don't want her anymore, so you divorce her? You cause her to commit adultery. Since the divine order is to stay together, the two sections hit home via Proverbs, to enjoy the wife of your youth—neither someone else's wife nor separating from your own (presumably to pursue greener pastures elsewhere).
I have thought about this blog post many times since I first read it in August. Jackson, thank you for your thoughtful, biblically based teaching about divorce. This is not an easy subject. I had the shameful, alone feelings that my divorce brought me. I felt like a failure but I didn't share it with anyone other than my sister and brother-in-law, Believers in Christ who held me, cried with me and led me in God's word. God didn't make me feel that, I did, and it took time and God's word to help me through it. This blog, your words, brought me even more understanding and clarity, about divorce. Thank you for taking on the subject, being obedient to God and teaching!
Interesting. The view I grew being taught was that Jesus was not invalidating Moses, but teaching a moral truth that they simply didn't understand within the law of Moses. IE that divorce except in the case of sexual immorality is sinful.
This reading is much more logically simple. If I understand it correctly. Remarriage while your former spouse is alive is adultery and unless there was already adultery whoever divorces is causing it. If adultery already happened then the person that was already unfaithful has caused the adultery.
This view deals much cleaner with the issue of divorce due to other types of breaking the marriage covenant by demonstrating that the clause, except in the case of sexual immorality, is there not because of sexual immoralities rank in reasons for divorce (though it is of course quite high on any list reasonable justifications for divorce), but it was necessary because of the logical definition of adultery.
You got it. Thanks for the comment.
I'm heavily relying on William Loader's works here: I think it is interesting that Augustus' adultery decree was conceded by Jesus, namely that divorce is adultery except on account of porneia, which made divorce a requirement by law. But, then, given the fact that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, Jesus makes his own decree, that the true divine order of marriage is one-flesh—that which God (not Caesar) brought together, let no man separate. It's an interesting power move without ever mentioning Caesar. Yet, at the same time, there is a pastoral/cultural sensitivity at play. He knows what is preferential and divinely ordered but still concedes that there was a time for divorce, that is when required by Caesar. When taken on the whole in the light of the previous section, it's even more interesting to me. You want to lust after someone else's wife? That's adultery of the heart. You look at your own wife and don't want her anymore, so you divorce her? You cause her to commit adultery. Since the divine order is to stay together, the two sections hit home via Proverbs, to enjoy the wife of your youth—neither someone else's wife nor separating from your own (presumably to pursue greener pastures elsewhere).
Thank you, James. You take my post to a new level with the connection to desire for someone else's wife, then wanting to dispense with your own.