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None of them - not even this site. The only reliable source for Christian teaching on any subject is the Bible - so "search the Scriptures" to see if what people are telling you is true. This doesn't just mean you should see that the verses they quote say what they claim, but also that you should check how that relates to other scriptures that they don't quote. The Bible's teaching on marriage and divorce is of great practical relevance to how we live our lives. If we are going to make decisions based on it, we need to be sure ourselves as to what exactly it says. To do that we have to check out all the pieces and not ignore any, and be ready to answer awkward questions from those who think differently. This site has been developed in an attempt to give the teaching of the whole Bible on divorce, but in order to do that, we have to advise you to check what we say about the scriptures, and to be sure about what you believe before you act on it.
As Christians we do not believe that God is unreasonable. We believe that he wants us to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. Marriage and divorce are areas where, if we get it wrong, it can be seriously wrong, so it is likely that God has given us the information in the Bible to work out what to do. As with other things, as we have to answer to God for our own conduct, we have a responsibility to make sure that we find out what he wants, rather than transferring those decisions to somebody else.
The Bible can only have one teaching on divorce - the fact that there are many views on such a basic subject simply reflects that everyone has their own agenda and a tendency to make mistakes. One of the most common mistakes is to ignore part of what the Bible says, sometimes by not having read it. We can only put the whole jigsaw together when we have all the pieces so we need to read it all to start with. Check out the verses listed on this site, and see if you understand how they all fit together with what the Bible teaches.
The teachings of the Bible cannot be subject to culture, for God is above the behaviour of any particular time and place. If we had to worry about cultural differences we could not be sure about the relevance of any of the Bible today, which would rather ruin the point of it being written. Nothing could be established about Bible teaching if the comment "that was because of the culture of the day" was capable of figuring in accounting for the Biblical worldview. Everything would be open to question, and any text that conveys rules for living is not given with such questions in mind.
It is in some respects the differences in culture which make the teachings of the Bible particularly relevant today, because the Bible speaks regardless of culture and influences the culture of the societies where it is read. The Bible tells us about a different culture because its worldview had affected the culture of the times in which it was written. The differences in culture show us how the teachings codified in the Bible affected the society of the time. The Biblical teaching is the cause and the different culture is the effect. The modern trend to treat the Bible as the effect of its society reverses the Christian understanding and robs it of all its meaning by confusing the cause with the effect.
Have you ever watched a TV show or a film and only half-noticed a reference to something else? You have an idea that they are referring to another TV show, or film or a book, but regrettably it is not one that you can remember. If you want to fully understand what you've seen, you're going to need to watch something else.
The first five books of the Bible affected everything that happened after they were written, and the New Testament can only be properly understood in the light of the Old Testament. Jesus and the Apostles spoke and wrote with an Old Testament background, and assumed knowledge and agreement with the Old Testament scriptures. So, if we don't read the Old Testament, we are in danger of completely misunderstanding the New Testament.
More to the point, there is a risk of throwing away the majority of the Bible, which the apostles taught was written for our learning. Some people treat the God of the New Testament as if he was different from the God of the Old Testament, and make out as though the faith of Abraham was different from the faith of Paul. Instead, the Apostle Paul urged Timothy that he should be "rightly dividing the word of truth" - he had to extract the right teachings and fit them to the right situations, but at the same time recognise that it was all one "word of truth" that fitted together into a unified whole - it was not many different words and not a collection of contradictory truths.
In fact, as you look at what God has to say about divorce, you may be surprised to find how much of what is written in the New Testament is in agreement with, and in application of, the rules given to the children of Israel. This partly explains why, immediately before talking about divorce, Jesus claimed he had come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it, and that "not one jot or tittle" would pass from it until heaven and earth passed away.
"permanent" is probably the wrong word. Marriage is clearly intended to be a life-long commitment, but it is not permanent. To begin with, it only lasts "till death do us part" - the Bible is clear that there is no marriage in heaven. And the Bible is also clear that some other marriages don't even last that long. It specifically talks of divorce and remarriage in Deuteronomy 24, and in Exodus 21 both of the ability for a woman to leave her husband if he has not fulfilled certain obligations, and for some marriages to be over-ruled by other commitments. Sometimes, as in Ezra 10, divorce was commanded - it wasn't even an option, and God even described himself as having married and then divorced the nation of Israel.
Marriage is a good thing, intended to last, and we don't always have to break it up when we have the option - but the Bible does not teach that it is permanent.
Yes and no. Technically, the gospel passages on divorce are not the last word, because Paul goes on to apply the Biblical teaching in 1 Corinthians. But as Christians we accept that Paul's writings are inspired by Christ and so Jesus did give the last word - definitive, authoritative, and the last in a series of comments in the Bible. To understand the last word - you have to understand the whole of the series.
Some people say that Jesus was talking about only a limited type of divorce when he allowed for exceptions, either that he was only allowing for divorce at the start of a marriage if a woman was found not to be a virgin, or where people had got married to relatives they were not allowed to marry. This allows them to give a very limited meaning to the exception that Jesus uses, although the word Jesus uses clearly has a wider meaning in the rest of the New Testament, and these interpretations would force Christ into contradicting the law that he was so keen to uphold.
But in a sense these people have got it half right. There are different types of divorce - it is just that the exception clause is not limited in the way they suggest. Today we tend to talk of "divorce" as if there was only one type, with the same rules applying to everyone, male or female, guilty or innocent. But this is not how the Bible treats the subject. In the law of Moses it was clear that society was very different, with the family functioning as the welfare system, and the husband clearly the legally recognised head of the household with obligations towards his wife, and obligations to her relatives for how he treated her.
In this context, being "put away" was a lot different to "leaving" a marriage. It is all about the concept of fault. The Bible does not leave much space for "no fault" divorces. If a woman was "put away" it meant that she had done something for which she was being punished. This is seen in Deuteronomy 24. If, on the other hand, she "left" the marriage, it meant her husband had not fulfilled his obligations - it was his fault, not hers. This is seen in Exodus 21 vv 10-11.
When Jesus was asked about divorce by the Pharisees they asked him about when a man could "put away" his wife. His answer was entirely related to this type of divorce. He didn't even make any comment on when you could "leave" a marriage, and this concept was dealt with later by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7.
Another point to note about Christ's conversations with the Pharisees is how he corrected their errors. They were interested in "putting away" wives, whereas he emphasised on how husband and wife are meant to stay together. They wanted to know when they could "put away" wives, and Christ had to remind them of how they were required to give wives a bill of divorce before they put them away. They argued that Moses had commanded them to divorce, and Christ corrected them by showing that Moses had permitted it - he had not made it compulsory. But also, the Pharisees had concentrated on putting away their wives, whereas Christ talked to them about putting away and marrying another.
The Bible already had an institution that coped with what happened when a man who was married wanted another wife. This is the institution of plural marriage, or polygamy, which was allowed throughout scripture. Christ talked of the Pharisees doing wrong by getting rid of one wife without good reason and marrying another, because they were free to take another wife anyway. Of course, if they took a second wife they still had responsibilities towards the first, and the law in Exodus 21 was designed with this is mind. If they failed in their responsibilities their wives could leave them, and they would be at fault. It appears that at least some of the Pharisees wanted the right to dismiss wives without good excuse so that they could replace them with others, simply because they couldn't afford to take on two wives and didn't want to be the person at fault when their first wife left them.
The acts that Jesus condemns are those of abandoning a faithful wife and marrying someone else in her place. He concentrates on the combination of groundless divorce and remarriage as one sin of adultery - almost as if they were one continuous act, disregarding the obligations to an existing wife by replacing her with a new one. Do you consider it a different situation where someone has wrongly divorced a faithful spouse, has repented of this sin, and later wants to marry someone new, for they are no longer engaged in the sin against their former partner and have obtained forgiveness for it?
Yes, and sometimes people think this means that God allowed the Israelites to divorce only because they wouldn't have accepted his law otherwise, or alternatively they think that Moses compromised the law he had been given in order to make it more acceptable to the Jews, and that we now return to a stricter law that doesn't allow divorce. But this is not what the Bible teaches.
The passages that refer to hardness of heart in relation to divorce do not portray the law as a "second best". The Bible repeatedly tells us how good the law is - in Psalm 19 we are told that "the law of the Lord is perfect", and Christ repeatedly talked of it as lasting for as long as heaven and earth, so it is difficult to see how people could say that Christ thought of the law as second-best on the question of divorce. Instead, Christ compares divorce to the situation that existed at the beginning, and relates the reason for divorce to the problems Moses experienced with the children of Israel.
In short, Moses is the man the Bible most closely associates with experiencing the "hardness of heart", both from Pharoah and from the Israelites shortly after they had been delivered from Egypt. It was because of this hardness of heart that God ultimately had to divorce Israel as a nation, and just as this occurs in the divine marriage, so it also occurs in the earthly shadow of that relationship. We can divorce because God can divorce, and this is because the hardness of heart evident in sin is what makes our situation different from the beginning, when marriage was instituted. When Adam married Eve it was not intended that they should divorce, and as there was no sin there was no reason to, but now that sin has entered the world, God's law allows people to divorce rather than to suffer continually irrespective of the serious sin of their marriage partner.
Jesus allowed a man to divorce his wife for a reason rendered in the greek as porneia, which the King James translators called "fornication" and which others have identified as "sexual immorality". People often think that Jesus allowed divorce for adultery but it is clear that the word for adultery is not used by Jesus for the exception clause. Some people seize hold of this to say that adultery is no ground for divorce, and support this by referring the Law's punishment for adultery, which was capital punishment - an effective way of ending a marriage, but not technically a divorce!
However, this merely shows that Jesus didn't use the word "adultery" to describe the exception. It does not prove that adultery is excluded from the exception. In fact the word for "fornication" is not limited to a description of pre-marital sex as it sometimes is in English, but includes wider ideas about sexual immorality, which later translations show. For example, in 1 Corinthians 5 a man who had his father's wife is described as committing "fornication" and in Jude 7 the word is used to describe the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah, including the desire to have sex with angels! Clearly the word porneia is not limited in the way that "fornication" is in English, and encompasses many types of sexual immorality. Further evidence for this is seen in the ancient greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament that was often quoted by Jesus and the apostles, which uses the term porneia to describe adultery in Jeremiah 3 (see p 54 of Jay. E. Adams book in our bookstore for more on this).
Essentially, any sexual intercourse prohibited by the Bible is capable of being described as fornication, and therefore as giving rise to grounds for divorce.
It is important not to make the same mistake as the Pharisees. They phrased their questions to Jesus as if Moses had given them no choice. "Moses commanded to give a bill of divorcement" they said, when in fact, as Christ points out, Moses only permitted it. Divorce after sexual immorality is allowed by God, but it is not required, as the many chances that God gave in his marriages to Israel and Judah so amply demonstrate in the Old Testament.
Even though forgiveness is a valuable attribute, there is no pressure from God to abstain from divorce in such circumstances. For example, when Joseph found that Mary was pregnant, and he knew the child wasn't his, Matthew 1 v19 says "Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily" - so the Bible accepts a decision to divorce can be the decision of a just man.
In a case of clear-cut sexual immorality a man has a decision to make as to whether to divorce his wife, and it is his decision - whichever route he chooses, he cannot get it morally wrong.
However, where a sexual relationship is prohibited by God then divorce is required. Modern states may allow homosexual men to marry, but no such legal relationship can overrule God's law, which prohibits such relationships. The same would apply to cases of incest and of intermarriage between Christians and non-Christians.
In the following circumstances, which cover both what the Bible calls "putting away" and what it describes as "leaving":-
This is what the Bible allows in the way of divorce. It is obvious that while some of this may match modern grounds for divorce it is not possible to root all modern grounds in Biblical divorce law. Today, for example, it is possible for people to agree "no fault" divorces when they no longer feel that they love each other. This is unbiblical - as the Bible requires them to love each other - it does not give them a choice. The best that can be said in these instances is that, far from being "no fault" it could be that we have both partners deserting each other, both being at fault and both, ironically, through their sin, giving each other legitimate biblical grounds for divorce.
Refer to the above. There are two ways of getting to that situation and the Bible regards them as completely different.
If this has happened because someone was a Christian and didn't follow God's requirement that they only marry a Christian, then the marriage to the non-Christian is void while that person remains a non-Christian and they should separate (see What God has not joined together)
If however they married as non-Christians and only one has converted, 1 Corinthians 7 is quite clear that the Christians should not try to separate from their non-Christian partner for that reason, but if the non-Christian leaves then the Christian is no longer bound.
If you want to restrict divorce, but can't quite make it fit with scripture, it could be tempting to argue that where there has been divorce there should not be remarriage. In fact, without fully understanding the context of some of the scriptures, it is easy to understand how people could be left with this impression, but there are a few fundamental points that show this to be false.
So there is no general ban on remarriage. This means that if someone alleges that a remarriage in a particular case would involve adultery, they need to be able to prove it from the scriptures.
Then you did wrong,. God expects repentance and he is prepared to forgive you. This may mean that you can remarry. Sin has consequences, and while it is clear that some guilty people can remarry, sometimes sin may prevent remarriage.
For example it is clear that where a woman has been divorced by her husband fairly, because of her sexual immorality, as in Deuteronomy 24, she is free to remarry. In fact the limitation on remarriage in that text is that she may not then return to her first husband and remarry him - yet this is exactly what some have advised Christians to do, on the basis of the groundless theory that God still views them as married to their first husband.
However, while there is no restriction on a woman remarrying where she has legitimately left her husband for failing to meet his obligations, she ventures into riskier territory where she leaves without due cause. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul reminds Christian women that they should not leave their Christian partners, but if they do they should remain unmarried or be reconciled to their husbands. Of course this may be resolved if the husband then divorces his wife, or if it was a case of mutually agreed desertion, which gives each partner grounds and blame for ending the marriage.
This is just a page of questions and answers, and deals with general principles in a general way. To see whether the Bible allows you to marry or remarry you need to consult the Bible itself. We have a number of articles on remarriage and related issues to help you find and understand the scriptures that apply to your case.
God has banned various classes of marriage. They are not truly described as marriage as every instance of sexual relations in them constitutes a sin. It is clear from the Bible that general divorce and remarriage does not fall into this category. Where God allows divorced people to remarry he quite clearly describes it as marriage. Similarly where people are divorced, God describes it as divorce - not as an attempt or a pretense at divorce. Some teach that divorces are ineffective and that second marriages are not really marriages, but this is not what the Bible says. It calls them divorces and marriages. Even where those marriages were founded in sin, God is capable of exercising forgiveness and of recognising the continuing validity of the relationship. Take David and Bathsheba - this began with adultery and murder, and resulted in the birth of Solomon. David clearly was really married to Bathsheba, or otherwise Solomon would have been illegitimate and therefore ineligible to be King. Similarly in Deuteronomy 24, a guilty divorced woman was allowed to remarry. Remarriages are treated the same way as first marriages by the bible - if they don't involve continual breaches of God's Law, then they are valid marriages.