Hammer on Anvil '

Last week I talked about why many Christians oppose gay marriage. I felt that I needed to give a voice to a topic that many Christians have an opinion about but that few of us voice our opinion or the reason behind it. As a few of you said, I tried to “state the truth in love.” I’d like to try to do so again this week while looking at Biblical marriage from a different perspective; I’d like to look at divorce. Last week’s post was intended for non-Christians just as much as Christians. This week is specifically intended for the Biblical Body of Christ.

Let me start by explaining why I chose to write about this. There was one response to last week’s post that I feel really sums up an unfortunately common view of Christianity. He said that Christians “pick and choose what they want to call sin and dismiss what they don’t like.” He went on to talk about marriage in particular by saying “Christians talk about the ‘sanctity’ of marriage they feel so compelled to protect, yet Christians have the highest rate of divorce of all religions in our nation.”

Wow, powerful words. And he’s right. We are such hypocrites. We are against gay marriage for the Biblical reasons I stated last week. But are we ignoring something else that has the same level of Biblical support because it is inconvenient?

Ask yourself, do you support gay marriage? How about if marriage was just a Holy thing in the church and had nothing to do with politics? Would you consider gay marriage to be a Biblical event endorsed by God? Now ask yourself about divorce. Do you support the re-marriage of people who have been divorced? Why is that? Biblically speaking, I feel that the two are intertwined. Let me explain.

One of the chapters I asked readers to focus on last week was Matthew 19. Let’s look at verses 4-6, where Jesus is talking, “[4]’Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, [5]and said, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? [6]So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’”

You can clearly see why verses 4 and 5 are used in reference to gay marriage. Jesus is clear that marriage is intended for a man and a woman. However, gay marriage was not what Jesus had in mind when he spoke these words. He was addressing what most of us would consider a “normal” marriage. And in terms of “normal” marriage, Jesus is then quite clear about divorce when he says, “what God has joined, let man not separate.”

He then goes on in verse 9, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Wow. Commits adultery. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. But if we place our faith in Christ, trust in the Bible as the true word of God, and don’t “pick and choose what [we] want to call sin and dismiss what [we] don’t like”, then I don’t see how we can ignore this. I mean c’mon, that verse is a quote of Jesus Christ himself.

Now let me share another verse that also explains why I feel that divorce and gay marriage are intertwined. This is 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (the underlining is mine), “[9]Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders [10]nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

(Let me pause for an important side note. The Bible is clear that we are all sinners and none of us will inherit the kingdom of God except by the blood of Jesus. Faith in Christ washes away these sins so that even those of us who have committed these sins WILL inherit the kingdom of God.)

Part of the reason churches re-marry those who have been divorced is because we feel that we should demonstrate the same forgiveness that Jesus showed us. However, Jesus himself is quite clear on this issue. He says that if you re-marry, you sin.

But God will forgive our sins, right? Yes, that’s absolutely true. “What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2). This is how the Bible answers that logic.

Others would argue that taking a stance on this would alienate droves of people. That may be true. But Jesus didn’t chase down the rich man and apologize and say that he could keep his wealth (Matthew 19:16-24). He allowed the man to walk away because his heart was not prepared to fully surrender to God.

Several years ago, I was in a Bible study in which a couple talked about “eligibility” for marriage. In other words, churches should consult the Bible to determine if a couple has met the requirements to be Biblically “eligible” to be married. After all, if we’re going to refuse marriage to homosexuals on Biblical grounds, shouldn’t we be willing to take the same stance towards divorcees?

I’m not saying this would be easy. I don’t have the answer for all of the specific scenarios out there. What I’m saying is this. If we want to show the world that we truly believe the Bible is the true word of God then we have to be willing to live by even the parts we don’t like or understand. I don’t like the idea of denying marriage to anybody who wants to get married, but as I said last week, I didn’t create marriage, God did. Therefore he gets to decide what it is and who is eligible.

And if we think that only bad things can come from standing firm on this then we’re selling God short. Who knows what blessings God has in store for those who follow Him even when it’s hard? At the very least, if we started taking a Biblical stance towards re-marriage, maybe Christians would understand that God is serious about divorce and we wouldn’t have the highest divorce rate in the nation.

Don’t agree with me on this? That’s fine. But ask yourself, what is your Biblical reason for your stance? Not sure? Ask your pastor or priest. But when you ask, make sure to ask for Biblical clarification on why divorcees are eligible for re-marriage while homosexual couples are not eligible. I’m definitely not a Bible scholar, but I can’t find any verse that would explain why one and not the other.

As hard as it may be, it’s time we start showing the world and our God that the only thing we pick and choose is the Bible in its entirety.