Beloved,
As expected, my article on divorce some weeks back attracted a lot of responses. I also had the oppurtunity of talking with a few who had questions on where to draw the lines in thorny cases.
Like I promised, I post here some of the respones I recieved. And I look forward to more reactions, comments and questions to this important issue. Please just click on comments below to add your comment or questions.
Let me encourage us all once again not to give up too quickly on a vision of a glorious marriage. Let us fight on our knees and by applying God's Word for our marriages and God will make it shine. ~ Chim.
Nike K, from Warri, Nigeria wrote..
Your article is very topical. I want to lend my voice to yours that divorce is not an option for the Christian. A little more patience and much more prayers will help us in our marriages. Selflessness and unconditional love are the keys. We need to be more intimate with God in order to get along better with each other. May the Lord sustain our marriages and homes in Jesus' name.
W. Riad from Kuwait ..
I agree with all you have discussed. I say with Jesus and with you "No divorce".
Chinua O, from Nigera
Personally, I see Christianity, today, as playing the ostrich with the issue of divorce (hiding our heads in the sand). With the recent addition of two popular female TV ministers in the USA to the failed marriage statistics, we can no longer pretend that all is well.
I shocked when I found out that we have the same rate of divorce both among Christians in America and non-Christians!! My question is: What then is the difference that Christ makes in us? What then is the evidence of the Spirit of God dwelling in us? What then is our testimony?
As I was studying the statistics and pondering over the above questions I saw a foot note at the bottom of the statistics spreadsheet that said it all: Among the Christians, for the couples that pray together, the percentage of divorces drops dramatically!
Christians today needs to go beyond just being "Born-again" to being Disciples of the Lord, whose lives can be described as "Have your way Lord".
As long as we are still living for ourselves, we would be missing the mark. (Note: the direct literal translation of the hebrew word for "sin" means "to miss the mark").
The enthronement of SELF in the developed countries (and it is also gradually happening here in Africa) needs to be treated as alarming by all Christians. Else, the scourge will spread to us all.
Owojori G. from University of Stellenbosch, South Africa;
Really enjoyed your piece titled "Till Death do us part". It’s in my opinion, a message that is urgently needed given the rate of divorce in homes in the West which is gradually creeping into our well valued homes in the South (Nigeria inclusive). However, I believe that there are occasions when a divorce may be necessary, in extreme cases though. For example, a wife who has been beaten for the umpteenth time by her husband, and the man is ready to kill her, in as much as she comes back home....A faithful husband who is unlucky to have a strange woman, whose marital ideology, is one wife several bed-mates. Imagine if this woman has HIV, is the husband supposed to remain in such marriage until he contact the HIV and ruin his life, and probably ministry because of an unfaithful wife? These hypothetical cases seldom happen between "believer and believer'' marriages, but some believers do actually marry unbeliever by omission or commission, so what do we say when that happens? Also when Christ said, "in the beginning this was not so", we must also remember that in the beginning, sin had not entered into the heart of man. The man in the beginning was following God, and had regular fellowship with God. Yes I believe, that was the intention of God. May the Lord save our homes.
Charles B from Lagos, Nigeria
You've taken the bull by the horn. This message will surely not be popular in the US and other Western nations. Although I'm afraid even in Africa divorce is becoming an acceptable thing in the Church.
I agree that if we enter into marriage knowing that there is no exit, we will have to "press on" until the solution comes. But when we think there is an option, we so easily look for the easy solution. What has always blessed my heart in this matter is where in Malachi, God says he hates divorce. God hates it. If he hates it, then we should hate it too and love our spouse. Just a comment, wouldn't it have been better to refer to adultery instead of fornication since it will involve someone already married?
Edith B from Nigeria,
Thanks for the mail on marriage. Marriage is honourable and indeed a discipleship school for us. The enemy is fighting homes and many Christians are giving him rooms in their marriages. There's bound to be challenges but divorce is not the way out. Overcoming those challenges is the issue. " ..and having done all to stand" (Eph. 6:13b). Marriage is a serious issue and must not be trivialised or cheapened as we see in the western world. The world can not love and therefore can't show us the true marriage. Christ is the Author and Sustainer of marriage.
Jesus says that you can not divorce except for the sin of fornication. But can a married person commit fornication? No!! He or she can only commit adultery. Fornication applies to the unmarried. So there is no way out or exit like yousaid. We are in and we are in! We must make the bestout of it.
And truly if the Lord has led us to our partner/spouse by his spirit, not that we just "opened our eyes and picked" , as some have been erroneously taught, we are bound to overcome all the challenges.
Well, I have so much to say on marriage though I'm still young in marriage (just 16 years this week), but let me stop for now as the discussion and contributions continue. Bless you my brother for your sensitivity to bring up this topic now.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
'Till Death Do Us Part
"What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" Matthew 19:6
I want to discuss an issue that was raised in Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees in Mathew 19:1-12. It is about divorce and it is something that has bothered me for a long time.
I believe the Pharisees felt they could put Jesus on the spot by bringing up this issue because, just as in our day, divorce in those days had become very rampart. Such that it had become a "don't-preach-against" issue for preachers who cared about their popularity. Today it is hard to preach God’s mind concerning divorce without being labeled judgmental or narrow-minded. Among believers and even some preachers divorce has come to be widely accepted. But Jesus was not afraid to confront the issue head-on, as we see from his reply.
Jesus' reply to the question whether one can divorce was that God’s original plan for marriage was that there would be no divorce. He said “in the beginning this was not so”. "In the beginning" divorce was not part of the Creator’s design for marriage. Instead the mystery of marriage is that when a man and a woman unite together in marriage they become one flesh. No longer two.
The mistake we make is to look at the physical and feel that since they are still two individuals, they can conveniently divorce themselves, if they want. But in reality, what they are now is an entity so that what divorce leaves behind are not two whole individuals but two incomplete pieces of a whole. Only those that have experienced it, can tell the amount of pain and mess that divorce always leaves behind.
The Pharisees understood Jesus was saying no to divorce, that is why they asked why Moses, the man of God, permitted it. Jesus said it was permitted because of the hardiness of the heart of the people even though it was not in line with God’s plan. Here is a lesson for us - it is possible that through the hardiness of heart of a generation for things that is not in line with God’s order to become accepted and permitted in the Church. But majority decision does not change God’s standard.
The only reason for divorce that Jesus allows here is fornication. Yet it is clear from the context of his discourse that divorce is not to be an option in marriage. The disciples understood what he was saying, that was why they said “If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry”. That is to say, “if marriage has only an entrance and no exit, given all the heat that comes up in marriage, it is better not to marry”!
But understanding that God planned marriage to have only an entrance and no exit does not turn it into hell on earth, but instead an opportunity to build a heaven on earth. I know it is difficult to generalize, but I believe there are many dissolved marriages that could have become glorious if the man and wife did not believe divorce was an option. When we come into marriage without divorce in our vocabulary, we would put in our all to make it work, because we believe there is no other option.
Every marriage has it’s challenges, yet if we do not hold firmly to God’s standard of "no divorce", we would not have the backbone to fight for our marriage, to pay the price of seeing it become a glorious testimony of a Christian marriage. We will give up too soon.
Ours is an age that are “lovers of their own selves”. I, me, mine are some of the big gods of this age. That is why marriage as God planned it is so difficult for us today. Marriage is not about what you can get, but what you can give. Marriage is God’s school of discipleship.
I pray that this truths do not come to you as judgmental but as an encouragement. It doesn’t matter what you have done in the past, what matters is what you’d do now. There are things we cannot change in our past but no matter where we are today, we can, by the grace of God, begin to live by this truth.
I’d would be looking forward to reading your comments on this issue. Please click below to read the responses of others and lets continue this discussion. And please do pray for your marriage and other christian marriages because there's a heated attack from hell on these like never before. And please don't hesitate to let me know how I can pray for yours.
I want to discuss an issue that was raised in Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees in Mathew 19:1-12. It is about divorce and it is something that has bothered me for a long time.
I believe the Pharisees felt they could put Jesus on the spot by bringing up this issue because, just as in our day, divorce in those days had become very rampart. Such that it had become a "don't-preach-against" issue for preachers who cared about their popularity. Today it is hard to preach God’s mind concerning divorce without being labeled judgmental or narrow-minded. Among believers and even some preachers divorce has come to be widely accepted. But Jesus was not afraid to confront the issue head-on, as we see from his reply.
Jesus' reply to the question whether one can divorce was that God’s original plan for marriage was that there would be no divorce. He said “in the beginning this was not so”. "In the beginning" divorce was not part of the Creator’s design for marriage. Instead the mystery of marriage is that when a man and a woman unite together in marriage they become one flesh. No longer two.
The mistake we make is to look at the physical and feel that since they are still two individuals, they can conveniently divorce themselves, if they want. But in reality, what they are now is an entity so that what divorce leaves behind are not two whole individuals but two incomplete pieces of a whole. Only those that have experienced it, can tell the amount of pain and mess that divorce always leaves behind.
The Pharisees understood Jesus was saying no to divorce, that is why they asked why Moses, the man of God, permitted it. Jesus said it was permitted because of the hardiness of the heart of the people even though it was not in line with God’s plan. Here is a lesson for us - it is possible that through the hardiness of heart of a generation for things that is not in line with God’s order to become accepted and permitted in the Church. But majority decision does not change God’s standard.
The only reason for divorce that Jesus allows here is fornication. Yet it is clear from the context of his discourse that divorce is not to be an option in marriage. The disciples understood what he was saying, that was why they said “If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry”. That is to say, “if marriage has only an entrance and no exit, given all the heat that comes up in marriage, it is better not to marry”!
But understanding that God planned marriage to have only an entrance and no exit does not turn it into hell on earth, but instead an opportunity to build a heaven on earth. I know it is difficult to generalize, but I believe there are many dissolved marriages that could have become glorious if the man and wife did not believe divorce was an option. When we come into marriage without divorce in our vocabulary, we would put in our all to make it work, because we believe there is no other option.
Every marriage has it’s challenges, yet if we do not hold firmly to God’s standard of "no divorce", we would not have the backbone to fight for our marriage, to pay the price of seeing it become a glorious testimony of a Christian marriage. We will give up too soon.
Ours is an age that are “lovers of their own selves”. I, me, mine are some of the big gods of this age. That is why marriage as God planned it is so difficult for us today. Marriage is not about what you can get, but what you can give. Marriage is God’s school of discipleship.
I pray that this truths do not come to you as judgmental but as an encouragement. It doesn’t matter what you have done in the past, what matters is what you’d do now. There are things we cannot change in our past but no matter where we are today, we can, by the grace of God, begin to live by this truth.
I’d would be looking forward to reading your comments on this issue. Please click below to read the responses of others and lets continue this discussion. And please do pray for your marriage and other christian marriages because there's a heated attack from hell on these like never before. And please don't hesitate to let me know how I can pray for yours.
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