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This is my full and exhaustive teaching on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. According to the bible, it's going to cover all of the relevant biblical passages. We're going to get into a lot of historical insights, original language issues, and even scholarly debates on this topic of divorce and remarriage in particular, I'm going to try to also answer, uh, real questions, hard questions about how to apply these things into your life faithfully as a Christian. We're going to go very deep in this video, which is why there's a video map down below in case you want to skip around to specific sections that you're interested in. I'll tell you more about that in a minute. So, this is a topic that I've actually been confused on for years. Uh, when people have asked me as a pastor about the topic of divorce and remarriage, I sometimes have said, boy, that situation is confusing to me. I don't know the right answer. Um, go to the scripture and study it and seek to honor Christ as best you can. Well, as you can imagine, I'm not happy giving that answer. And so what I thought was, in my verse by verse study, going through the gospel of mark, when I hit mark ten, I would stop that study and do a whole research project on the topic of marriage and divorce. That's what I've done. I've put over 200 hours. I don't know exactly how many, but it's definitely hundreds of hours of work into studying all the relevant stuff. I can find a number of different books, um, scholars, all kinds of stuff on this topic, hearing different from sort of popular, uh, pastors, and they're teaching on it, versus more like the scholastic type stuff from people no one's ever heard of. So I've tried to get into all that because I have a lot of trepidation. I feel like this issue has a huge impact in your life, and it's a really important issue, marriage and divorce. It's so radically important that we get this right, and I didn't know the right advice to give in many cases. So now I feel like I do. I feel, like, a lot better, and I don't know how to answer every question, but I think that I can help equip you to answer a lot more of those types of questions, because I have had. Oh, man. Of all the requests from you guys on videos and teaching topics, this has been one of the number one things that's been requested. So this is that video. In fact, there's going to be three videos. Um, I'm going to be doing this video today. This is the long, exhaustive teaching. Then I'm going to give it about a week or so and I'm going to let you push back. I'm going to let you comment and challenge the things that I'm teaching here. And I'm going to read those comments and I'm going to do another video question and answer type video where I respond to that pushback. Maybe I say, you're right, I was wrong about that. Or maybe I give a better, clearer answer or explanation. Or maybe I deal with an issue I forgot to deal with in this video. So right now what you can do is uh, as you watch this video go down to the comments and either put your questions and your pushback in there or vote up with the little thumbs up. Vote up the questions that you think I should deal with in the next video and I'm going to give it at least a week for those just to sit there and populate. Then I will do another video on that topic. Finally, I'll do a third video. This could be like a short, maybe a twelve minute, I don't know how long, some shorter, quick teaching where I just survey the bottom line on all these issues because this long, exhaustive video isn't going to be for everybody but those of you who need it, I know you will really appreciate all the work that goes into it. Eventually everything's going to be linked down below. And uh, I've also linked a bunch of um, uh, resources for you. Some of the books and articles and stuff that I've read that I thought you might be interested in. That's all down in the video map. Uh, down below the video map in the video description. So here's an overview, quick overview. I think there's two slippery slopes that we can fall into and uh, one of these wrong ways in my opinion, of responding to the biblical teaching, the strict biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage is the too restrictive response. The response, I don't want to say legalistic because I don't like using that term, uh, outside of its proper context. It's not legalistic, it's just half the story. That's the problem with it. And this restrictive view is based off. Let me share with you a few scriptures. Mark um, ten, verses eleven and twelve where Jesus says whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. And they say look, it's pretty simple, it's pretty straightforward. That's the whole story. Uh, another verse that is used to build this case is Romans seven, verses two through two and three. It says, for a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage. So she'll be called an adulteress accordingly. She'll be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she's free. So this is, um, the restrictive view. They go to these three passages. The third one I'll point out is one corinthians seven, uh, verses ten and eleven. And in this one, it says, to the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. So they quote these three passages, and they say, look, this gives us all we really need to know about the topic. Everything else is like a side issue. And I think that this actually misses out on the context of these actual passages. But I also think if you interpret these passages that way, it's actually impossible to maintain a careful, thoughtful interpretation of scripture. When you go to other passages that seem to disagree with your view of these three restrictive passages. I mean, it looks really good when you see these three sections just thrown at you. And it gets you committed to this view that there's no divorce under any circumstances, ultimately, and no remarriage unless the death of a spouse. But then really bad Bible study techniques start happening when you hit one corinthians seven, the rest of the chapter, or Matthew five, or Matthew 19. And to me, this is a red flag. Every proponent of this restrictive view that I've read, they, when they come to these other passages we'll talk about today, they suddenly start using really weird Bible study techniques that normally they wouldn't use, and they are interpreting and reinterpreting, and they're sort of doing all kinds of weird stuff. We'll get into more details, but some of the people who I respect, who are thoughtful, God loving people who say these things, are like Gordon Wenham, he's one of the proponents of this type of view. John Piper and David Possum. I'm going to be dealing with some of their specific views in this video also. There's really good reason for thinking that even in context, these very passages I've put on the screen so far, they're meant to be taken as true principles but not without exceptions. There's really good reason to think that I'll get into that. Now, the other, there's two slippery slopes. I said, that's one slippery slope, the restrictive view that, um, mishandles the text, in my opinion. Then there's the view that realizes there's genuine exceptions to the marriage and divorce thing. And they go to passages like Matthew 532 where Jesus says, but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. So then there's like, oh, there's an exception. Um, another passage for this is Matthew 19 nine.

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And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, there it is again, and marries another, commits adultery. So Jesus is giving us an exception to the rule. And so they say, look, there's exceptions. And in one corinthians seven, Paul seems to give exceptions as well. So we go, gosh, there are exceptions, but here's where that's a slippery slope. The minute you say that there's legitimate exceptions for a Christian to get divorced, very quickly people start blowing everything into an exception, and all of a sudden what was permission for exceptional situations becomes permission for anybody who can just turn anything into an exception. And, um, how far are we supposed to really go with this? I'm going to give a biblical case for exceptions, these ones and more, but I want to be very careful that you would know these are exceptions. For the vast majority of the audience watching this video, you need to stay married. You need to double down your commitment to your spouse, and you need to honor Christ unilaterally whether your spouse is or not. And that is the starting point for christian obedience. But there are exceptions, and we need to acknowledge them lest we victimize people who are living in those exceptions and we're telling them that they can't get a divorce or a separation or remarry ever again. So, um, when are the exceptions valid? Um, we have to watch out for the great danger in our hearts, our hearts deceitful and desperately wicked. We will justify divorce when we want it really bad, and we will do it whether it's actually justified or not. And we don't want to expand the exceptions to anything. So both of those, those are the major concerns. The two slippery slopes I want to avoid in this survey through scripture. And, um, we're going to try and do that very carefully. I hope I can do a good job and I hope that you find it helpful. Now, who did I read just to get this out of the way, since this is the long, exhaustive teaching I already mentioned. Uh, Gordon Winnham, John Piper, David Possen, um, looked at their works and, um, I also looked at the works of like, William Heth, Craig Keener, David and Stone Brewer, Wayne Grudom and a bunch of others. I've put a number of those resources down below in the video description. This study format, though, today is going to be a survey through the scriptures. We'll start with verse by verse commentary going through all the relevant biblical passages. What we'll do while we're in that verse by verse treatment is we're going to gather principles, um, out of the text of scripture. And I'm going to bring up 16 total principles for you that are principles that are true about marriage, divorce and remarriage based upon the teaching of scripture. I think that summary at the end, when I bring all 16 of those forward, it's going to really help bring clarity to people who might be confused on the topic. I'm also going to deal with debates. We're going to go into the nitty gritty. We're going to box it out on the topics of what is the exception clause? What did Jesus mean by sexual immorality? Um, what was the cultural context of, uh, the jewish setting on the debate about divorce? All that kind of stuff. The topic is going to get complicated, but we're going to go into it, get it complicated, get clarity, and then you won't be confused anymore. That's the idea. And then I'm going to handle a bunch of whatabouts. Right after we do the survey through all the scripture, I'm going to handle a bunch of what about issues? Um, what about alcoholism and gambling? If your spouse is doing that? What if you sinfully entered a marriage? Um, what about the church fathers? Uh, I heard that all of them agreed that there was no divorce or no remarriage after divorce, and that even divorce was frowned upon in pretty much any scenario. Well, we're going to deal with all that. And again, if you have to skip around, I'm here for you. My goal isn't to get minutes watched on my video. I want this to be a ministry tool. So you can go to the video map and you can skip to whatever you want. And I just hope it helps you out. So here is our first segment, our first section. This is what you need to know about the jewish backdrop of Jesus's teaching on divorce as, um, we begin our survey of scriptures. The first scripture we're going to get into is going to be deuteronomy 24. The reason why is because in Jesus's day, Deuteronomy 24 was like a major, major debated passage when it comes to divorce and remarriage. Like, this is something they were debating about. And when they come to Jesus and they talk to him about it, they're talking out of that debate. They're, like, asking him to pick sides. So in our day, it'd be like if someone said something about, um, uh, what do you think about AK 47s? There's a major debate, and so we need to know the backdrop of that debate if we understand what the person says next. If you don't know the backdrop, you might get confused. This is something that actually the church fathers, a lot of them, did not know about. Maybe I don't know how many, if any of them knew about it. But it helps us see why Jesus's exceptions in Matthew are there and they're not in Mark and Luke. What is up? Is that a contradiction? And the answer is going to be no. But this backdrop of a debate is going to tell us why. So here we are, uh, Deuteronomy 24, verses one through four. Before I get into the debate, because, uh, sometimes jewish rabbis and sometimes even now, different teachers, if you listen to their debate about a passage before you read the passage, you end up not being able to think clearly about it. So first, let's just study the passage. Then we'll look at the debate. Deuteronomy 24, one through four, says, when a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes and, uh, because he has found some indecency in her in that phrase, remember that. Because he's found some indecency in her. And he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house. Verse two. And if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled. For that is an abomination before the lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. So what is this text telling us? Uh, well, there's a few things to know. There's what it allows. There's what it disallows. Um, and there's a thing or what it forbids, and there's also what it causes. So it allows something, which doesn't mean it's good. It forbids something, and then it also causes something. What it allows is divorce and remarriage, not only from your first husband to your second husband, but to your third. So there's a third remarriage. That can happen. You just can't marry your first husband again. Right. So it does allow for divorce and remarriage. This doesn't mean divorce and remarriage in general is. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. We're asking what this text.

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What's the permissive, um, nature of the text? The, uh, law often permits things that are not good, um, because of the culture of the people, uh, that it was sent to, as Jesus will affirm. We'll see later. So what does it allow, uh, divorce and remarriage, even to a third husband, just not the first.

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What does it cause? It causes certificates. Now, this is really interesting, um, where it says that the latter man writes her a certificate of divorce. This is really interesting because nobody in the ancient near east at the time was writing certificates of divorce. This is like a uniquely deuteronomy type thing. So it caused there to be a certificate of divorce. Now, the function of a certificate of divorce back then is that the woman is now no longer under the authority that man. See, uh, in the ancient near east, in the code of Hammurabi, for instance, if a man divorced his wife, said, get out of here, and she went and married another man. At any time, the first husband could literally go over there and just take his wife back. She's mine. I'm taking her back. Come five years, ten years later, he would just take her back. This is part of the code of Hammurabi. But, uh, in the law, in deuteronomy, what it's doing is it's making it so that if a man sends a woman away, he has to free her from his authority. She has that certificate proving that she's free from the man. So this would, in other words, uh, improve a woman's condition in that society at the time. That's the thing. It causes certificates. What, uh, does it forbid? Well, it forbids remarriage to the first spouse. Now, here's where a whole debate goes on. Um, why is it that the woman's not allowed to remarry her first spouse again? And there are three possible reasons. And you do want to know this. This is all the background, necessary background for understanding Jesus's words in the gospels. There are three possible reasons that I think are possible, at least, uh, one is potentially because of prostitution of a wife. Um, now, in some cultures, and even some cultures today, they do this where a man will give his wife to another man for a night or for a short period of time, and he, like, divorces her. And the next man marries her temporarily. It's like an overnight marriage. This is actually in islamic tradition, too. And then the man sleeps with her, and then she can go back to her husband. And so there's this sort of, uh, prostituting out of your wife. Now, this would mean that that's impossible. This would mean if this is a practice going on in the ancient near east, in Israel, or around the neighbors of Israel, this rule in Deuteronomy 24 would mean that they can't do this with their wives. So this would again elevate the rights of women in the society. So that's a positive thing. Um, do we know that this is the case? Uh, no, but it fits, right? It fits. And it is something, uh, in the east that we still see.

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So that's one possibility. Another possibility why she can't go back to remarry. Her first husband would be, um, that he then can't just casually send her away. The husband realizes that if he separates from her, um, he can't just get rid of her and get her back and get rid of her and get her back. And so it would just raise the stakes of a divorce. That's a possibility, too. But then Raymond Westbrook, and I've put his article, a link to it down below. Um, he has an article called the prohibition on restoration of marriage in Deuteronomy 24, one through four. And it goes like this in the situation, Deuteronomy 24, the woman in her first marriage, she leaves for cause or for reason. And we get that from the phrase indecency. The first husband sends her away because of indecency. But the second husband, he doesn't seem to have a good cause. It says he sends her away because he hates her or because he dies. Now, the difference between those two divorces or two endings of marriage is that in the first one, the woman would not take her dowry with her, but in the second one, she would have the full inheritance or the dowry, depending on death or divorce. Uh, then she would have the dowry and she would take it with her. So the first husband seems to have rejected her for cause and then kept her money. And then the second husband ended up giving her money, and now the first one can't take her back to do what? To get a double dowry from her. So this might have been a type of thing where her dowry or her ketubah is the hebrew term for it. He can't get her money twice. Um, and this would keep him from abusing her in that situation, right, where he can take her money two times in a row. This is a possibility. It's a really interesting whole theory, and it has to do with the word hate and how hating and sending away means unjustified divorce. And then she keeps her ketuba. Um, so it's a really interesting thing. Raymond Westbrook's article is in the video description, if you'd like to check it out. It was called, uh, the prohibition on restoration of marriage in Deuteronomy 24. So it could be all three of these. These could all be things. But I want to make one major point on DEuTeroNoMY 24 as it relates to the TOpIC we're dealing with today. It's really hard to sustain if you say that second marriages are invalid. If people say, when you divorce and get remaRried, the second marriage is invalid, it's REAlLY hard to sustain that. When, if they were invalid, then this text is actually forbidding a woman from going back to her rightful husband, who she's still married to. So this is one blow against that view of the permanence of marriage in all scenarios until the death of a spouse. I'll talk more about that later.

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So let's talk about the debate. The debate in Jesus's day. They took the DeuteronoMY 24 passage, and they thought, when it says a husband divorces her for some indecency, I'll bring it back up for you to make sure you're with me here. In Deuteronomy 24, it says that first husband, uh, she finds no favor in his eyes because he's found some indecency in her, and he writes her certificate of divorce. They would say, hey, whatever some indecency is, the rabbis of Jesus'time, whatever some indecency is, that's a legitimate reason for a divorce. So then they would debate, what does it mean? What is the legitimate reason for a divorce? Notice the terms they use, as I share with you, actually, this is from the Mishnah. Uh, this is Their actual debate. This is between two different Jewish rabbinical groups, the House of Shemai and the House of Hillel. So the house of SHEMAI or the shimmaites. They held a very strict view, and the house of HilLEL held a very liberal view. And this is the debate Jesus is being asked to give commentary on in the gospels. So you want to know this.

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Okay, here we are. Let's ReAD ThROUGH this, and I'll point out, uh, for clarity, what ExACTLy it is. This is recorded in the mishnah in the, uh, Jewish, uh, TALMUD. The house has said, uh, a man should divorce his wife only because he has found grounds for it in unchastity, since it is said because he is found in her indecency in anything. So here they quote, deuteronomy 24 one. They use it as legitimacy for when you can get a divorce. Anything that's considered unchastity. So you can't divorce her because you don't get along, right. It has to be unchastity. Some kind of a sexual violation of some kind. And then the house of Hillel's response. Their debate says, even if she spoiled his dish, since it is said because he's found in her indecency in anything. Now, in English, you might not notice this, right? But what they're saying is, uh, shemai is saying it's indecency. That's the cause.

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And, uh, Hillel saying, indecency in anything. So if she burns your food, you can divorce her. That's fine. You ruin his food, you can kick her out.

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Uh, now then, there was, of course, one last and oftentimes in the Mishnah and stuff, when you hear the last commentator, the last person in the debate is, like, the winner. Well, Rabbi Akuba said, even if he found someone else prettier than she, since it is said, if it shall be, she find no favor in his eyes. Going to the earlier part of Deuteronomy, which I'll put on your screen here in a sec.

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Right there. If she finds no favor in his eyes.

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So the debate we actually see, um, discussed by Jesus, is this debate. They're asking Jesus, what are the grounds for divorce? Here we've got Shimai, who says only indecency or unchastity, which is their understanding of indecency in deuteronomy 24. We have Hillel, who says, whatever you want. Like, even if you burn her dish, she burns his dish, you can get a divorce. That's fine. And then we have, um, Akiba, who comes and even makes it stronger. And he's like, yeah, you find someone else prettier, that's fine too. Which is clearly adulterous behavior. Jesus, is commenting on this. He's commenting on this.

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So here are some points I want you to have going forward into our discussion of the gospels.

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The debate of Jesus's day is not just a debate about marriage and divorce. It's a debate about deuteronomy 24. It assumes that deuteronomy 24 shows when divorce is okay. And the Hillel school says any issue. In fact, they're quota saying any matter, any matter. So any issue at all. And Shemai says, uh, his school says only unchastity, but they interpreted this very broadly. Shemai interpreted this very broadly. So if a woman went around with her arms bare or her hair disheveled, then they would consider this like behavior, leaning toward adultery. Therefore it's adulterous, therefore you can get a divorce. So they would have a really liberal interpretation of unchastity. Now, they may have seen other exceptions in Exodus 21. That's true, but we're going to come back to that later. That'll be like the very end. I'm going to cover that topic. But this backdrop has to be understood if you want to know what Jesus meant in the gospels. This is the missing backdrop why people think Jesus is looking like he's disagreeing with himself or contradicting when he adds an exception in Matthew. But it's not in Mark and Luke.

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Jesus, in short, by putting this into the context of Jesus, when he wades into this discussion, we can see that Jesus is especially commenting with his words on the hillelite versus shemaite debate. He's not so much siding with Shemai. There's an element of that. But more, he's really disagreeing with the hillelite marriage discussion. He's saying to them, you can't just divorce for any matter or any reason that is wrong, that is sinful, and it's ultimately leads to adultery. Matthew, when Matthew adds an exception, that's not in Mark and Luke. He's just helping us see that everything jesus says in Mark and Luke is in the context of the any matter discussion. We can actually see this when we look at Matthew 19 three. Let's look at that together.

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Matthew 19 three, it says, and pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking him, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? That is the hillelite position, right? The hillelites, that school, they thought, any reason, any cause, you can get a divorce. And so they're asking him to comment on that view. Jesus utterly rejects it, right. And he gives good reasons for it we'll get into very, uh, shortly here.

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So this is why in Matthew we have more commentary or an exception embedded into Jesus's statements on the topic of marriage and divorce. When we get to the passage I shared with you earlier, which is Matthew 532, he says, but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. So he's doing a couple of things. He's similar to Shimai, but he's stronger than Shemai, and I'll explain that later. So he's not just saying the shimites are right? No, he's not. But he's definitely refuting the hillelite view that you can get divorced for any reason you want or what we call in our modern times a no fault divorce. Like, hey, man, you know, we just don't get along anymore. Like, uh, we're just in disagreements. Uh, we don't like each other, right. I want to get a divorce. I found someone else, maybe, and they make me happy. Irrelevant. Jesus rejects that completely. We see this in Matthew 19 nine as well.

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And he said, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. Now, the shemites would never have added this later phrase and marries another, commits adultery, but they would have agreed with him that sexual immorality, um, is the only proper cause, or is the proper cause in relating to deuteronomy 24. So this is a pivotal issue.

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Do I say that Matthew and Luke properly allow for exceptions or not? This is a huge issue. I mean, this is half the debate that goes on on this topic within the christian church. Do we say that, uh, mark and Luke, rather mark and Luke with their strict, you get a divorce, you get remarried. That's adultery. With that formula, do we say that there's still the possibility to get exceptions into Jesus's ideas and thoughts in those passages? The no people, the people who say no, they always build their case about remarriage and divorce by quoting mark, Luke, Romans one, corinthians seven, just those verses I mentioned earlier. And then they use Mark and Luke and those other passages to refute the idea that there are really exceptions in Matthew and the yes people, the people who say, yes, there's exceptions. They tend to start with Matthew. I've done something a little different. I've started with the background, the biblical historical background that goes on. Jesus is in a debate, and he answers their debate with his own position, not just with a shimaite view. That's important. And so we're going to, um, see it that way. I think it absolutely gives room for, uh, thinking that even in Mark and Luke, when Jesus made those statements, it was just known to the audience that he was rejecting the hillelite view and establishing his own. Not that there were no exceptions under any conditions. So I need to labor this point a little more. So here's the second section of today's video, which is this. Why should you be open to exceptions to Jesus'rule about not divorcing? Why should you be open to exceptions to Jesus'rule in Mark and Luke about not getting divorced? I'm going to give you six reasons why you should be open to exceptions. Here they are. Number one, Jesus's other unqualified statements had exceptions, and I'm going to put a few of them on the screen here so you can understand we're interpreting Jesus the way he normally talks. It's nothing weird here. Matthew 522 here's an example of Jesus giving a rule that has exceptions even though he doesn't give them when he gives the rule. Matthew 522. But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to counsel, and whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire. So don't ever call anybody fool. Right? Don't call people fool. Now, you could say, well, his audience would have known that he didn't mean under all circumstances. But how do you prove that? Well, you prove it by saying, matthew 20 317, jesus says of the pharisees, you blind fools. I don't know what's worse, calling someone a fool or a blind fool. I imagine a blind fool is worse.

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This is where Jesus he himself calls somebody a fool. A group of guys calls them fools, and it's totally appropriate. So we go back to Matthew five, and we say, oh, he meant like, unjustifiably. You don't call them a fool out of your anger, out of your rage, out of your carnality. You don't say that someone's a fool, but Jesus then goes on to call the Pharisees a fool, and he's right to do it. So there's obviously exceptions to Jesus's statement about a fool. What about this one? Matthew 528.

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But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. There's no exception given here, right? There's no exception. Um, what if it's your fiance and you're engaged. And you look over at her and you're like, she looks good. And you're like, oh, no, I've committed adultery. In my heart, I don't think this would apply the same. In that situation.

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Engaged couples shouldn't be sitting there. They should guard their hearts and not sit there and obsess over each other's looks. As hard as that might be, it might not be healthy yet, but I wouldn't call it an inherently sinful act.

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No. And more carefully, more clearly, this can't apply in marriage. Marriage is the obvious exception, even though it's not stated right. It's good. Husbands, it is good for you to lust after your wife. Wives, it is good for you to lust after your husband. It's not even a carnal lust, a, uh, wicked lust. It's a proper and appropriate desire. It's healthy, it's good. We encourage this sort of thing. Scripture tells us that the marriage bed is undefiled. There's nothing sinful about the marriage bed. It, uh. Also, in one corinthians seven, Paul, he requires for husbands and wives to physically be together. He considers this part of the marriage obligation. This is a positive thing, the song of Solomon. I mean, if desiring your spouse is wrong, then the song of Solomon needs to be taken out of the Bible. So both of these statements, um, Matthew 522, don't call anyone a fool and don't look with lust. Both of these statements are in the same context of Jesus's statements about marriage. It's in Matthew five. It's just a few verses down. Boom, here he is. He says, you divorce and remarriage. Except for the ground of sexual immorality, it's adultery. Can I guess that there's at least some kind of exception? I think that we have at least one piece in a case building towards exceptions. The second piece I'll give is this.

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Jesus gave exceptions to other rules. Jesus gave exceptions to other rules. And that's Matthew twelve, verse five.

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So he gave exceptions to his own rules. He has his own rules, and then there's exceptions that are implied in them. And Matthew twelve five, he gives exceptions to other rules, um, rules that come from scripture that would be considered law. He says, or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? What does he mean? He means the priests are working. They're, like, laboring physically in the temple, and they had a lot to do on the Sabbath. The priests were on duty on the Sabbath, right? They're working. But it's okay because it's an exception to the rule that you can't work on the Sabbath. And Jesus points that out. This is an exception to the rule. This is just how things work. The next exception is in Luke 1820, where Jesus says, honor your father and mother. He's, of course, quoting the commandments, honor your father and mother. Right. But then look at what he says also, same book. In Luke chapter 14, verse 26, and in Luke 1426, he says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes. And even his own life cannot be my disciple. Now, if you're going to take this foolishly, uh, you can think Jesus wants you to just be hating people and yourself. This is not the case. He's talking about choosing him over them. That if they know you stop following Jesus, uh, or I reject you, well, then you say, I will suffer your rejection, and so you choose him over them. That's the context. But in some know, when my father and mother tell me, stop going to church, stop reading your Bible, stop preaching Christ, there's some sense in which I'm not honoring them when I tell them no. Right? But that's the exception to the rule. And I think that wise people get this. I think Jesus wants us to be wise people. We'll talk more about this a little bit later. But it's an important issue. If you refuse to allow the Matthew exception because you claim that that would be a contradiction to Mark and Luke, then you must refuse the fool exception or the desiring a girl exception. Um, you have to refuse these other exceptions, too. The third reason why we should look for exceptions from Mark and Luke, those statements, just by themselves, we should look for exceptions, proper ones, not going crazy with it. But Jeremiah, chapter three, verse eight, God divorces Israel.

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She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce.

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There were numerous adulteries, spiritual adultery of Israel against God. Over and over again, the northern kingdom. And God issues a divorce certificate to them. The fact that God divorced Israel is a really big deal. If you want to say that no divorce under any circumstances is okay, which is the view of some of the proponents that I'm dealing with in today's video. So that's a third reason. Um, now it's important to know why this is an exception, and it's because persistent adultery and a refusal to return when asked. So God representing, really, I think, the heart, a Christian should have in their marriage and divorce situations, the spouse committed adultery persistently and wouldn't repent, would not turn. So the door was still open. And finally it ended up in divorce. And you might say, but Mike, that's the law. We're not under the law. Well, it's true that we're not under the law and that Jesus calls us to the highest possible standard, but this isn't the law, right? This is what God did with Israel in his illustration of a marriage relationship with them. And so I don't think he did something that was a sinful act in that. And that does factor in the fourth reason why you should look for exceptions is this. The culture of the time of Jesus may have simply assumed that there were exceptions, and he seems to have expected them to assume it. Um, so know this, that the jewish debate of the time we can see, can give us an example of how they would have assumed. Know, they would say, okay, the shemaites and hillelites, they would talk about this issue and discuss it. And it was sort of a known discussion going on. And so when they hear the phrases of Jesus, no, I reject that view of divorce, they would have been like, obviously though, the most strict among us are viewing, uh, adultery as certainly a cause for divorce. That's just simply how they would understand any rule that was given in the law. They were familiar with understanding the legal requirements and exceptions that were not explicit in those requirements. So this reverses the rule from, uh, divorces by general principle permitted. That was the hillelite view to divorces by general principle prohibited. You can in general not get a divorce morally, you just don't do it. That's the general rule. And this is the rule that applies to most marriages. That's all you really need to know, most of you. But there's a lot more we should get into. The fifth reason we should look for exceptions is that Matthew specifically gives us exceptions in the verses I covered. M Matthew 532, Matthew 19 nine. Uh, we'll get there and we'll talk about the debate about the Greek. But there's two passages where Jesus himself gives us exceptions. And there's good reason to think they would have read that into Jesus's words in Mark and Luke anyways, so it's consistent. Another one is that one, Corinthians 715 gives us another exception. This is number six. Six three reason. I know I'm giving you guys a lot, but this is the long video, one Corinthians 715, which says, but if the unbelieving partner separates. Let it be. So in such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. So in the situation where you have a believing partner and an unbelieving partner, and this guy just, or girl just wants out of the marriage, you can let them go and you're allowed to be separated and divorced from them. The marriage is over. Is over. We'll talk more about that when we get there. There's obviously more debates on that issue.

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The context of M. Matthew 528, number seven. The last reason. The context of Matthew 528 shows us that we should take Jesus's teachings with some wisdom overall. Not only are there some exceptions that Jesus has with even the rules he gives, and they need to be taken with wisdom as principles. But Matthew five in particular goes on to say a lot of other things that, you know, you can't just take as a wooden, hard, exceptionless rule. So in Matthew five, he says, is a harsh black and white right. Um, if you lust after a woman, you've committed adultery with her in your heart. But nobody takes this as strictly as they take the marriage passage in Matthew five, because if so, every spouse has lusted after someone they're not married to, and therefore every divorce is now justified. We can't consistently take Jesus's words that way. We take it with some wisdom. So these points are really important, all these seven points I've brought up, and they really impact my understanding of Jesus'words in Mark and Luke. It's not a reckless, um, hey, we have exceptions. Let's just do what we want. But rather, it's a careful trying to follow the text, trying to understand Jesus in context. So the conclusion is this. Luke and Mark give the general rule or principle. The principle doesn't rule out all possible exceptions, but it's still the general rule and applies to most situations. Given the nature of Jesus's sayings in the gospels, that is exactly how we should take it. Further, exceptions are going to be supplied by both Jesus and Paul and God's actions with Israel in the Old Testament. And Jesus is more concerned with the rule than the principle or the exceptions. And here's a major issue we should be too. Uh, this video will do a lot with exceptions because it's a complicated issue. My concern whenever I encounter any marriage or in my own marriage is to be more concerned with the rule. Love your spouse, self sacrificially, unilaterally, honor Christ in that relationship, whether they are or not, and seek to keep that marriage together if possible. That's the general rule, and I want to obsess over that issue. I'll add other exceptions later and other reasons for exceptions. As I talk about things like, uh, should second marriages be broken up? We'll get into that. But before we get into a, uh, verse by verse treatment on the relevant passages, starting with Mark, I want to just offer this, uh, overview of all four gospels. They all have one thing in common that I think is important. They all count not just divorce as adultery, but divorce coupled with remarriage as adultery. And I think this emphasis is deliberate because there are countless marriages where the reason why the divorce went through in all reality, right, not the cause of why they were thinking about it, but the reason why they pulled the trigger. I'm going to get a divorce is because they found someone else, a coworker, a friend. They would become a confidant. They start talking to them, they start really leaning on them, and then they no longer feel their need for their spouse. And whether they get married to that person or they just try to keep them in that little emotional place in their life, that really is a cause of a lot of divorces, a cause of people just finally giving up because they have somebody else to fill the gap. And that is something I think Jesus is specifically saying. That's adulterous. Uh, when you get out of your marriage because somebody else is fulfilling the spouse role for you, that has, uh, caused so many issues, so many marriages, so many, uh, marriages to fall apart that we need to be very aware of that. It just seems common to me that women and men, they're finally ready to pull the trigger on divorce when they find at least a potential mate in someone else. And that means that that kind of divorce is driven by adulterous motives. And the first step in marriage recovery is going to be, let me be pastoral here, is going to be this. Cut off anybody who's replacing the love that your spouse is supposed to give you, you need to cut them out of your life, or you won't even think clearly about the issue of your own marriage. No flirtations, none of it. You have to forsake all others. And, uh, that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions where you're going to still need to get a divorce. But that's a starting point. You won't even think clearly right now. Now let's go verse by verse. Uh, next section is this. We're going to deal with Jesus's teaching on divorce in Mark, chapter ten. And since technically this is like part 34 of my Mark series, although it's the most long and in depth part ever.

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Um, I'm happy to do Mark, chapter ten, which is where we're going to pick up where we left off. So here we are. Mark, chapter ten.

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And we'll dig through Jesus's teaching on Mark.

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In Mark on divorce, it says. And he left there and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And crowds gathered to him again and again, as was his custom, he taught them. And pharisees came up and in order to test him, asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Now, this is where I'm going to take the stuff I've done in deuteronomy and bring it into the understanding of Mark. Why? I say they would just assume that there were other reasons Jesus wasn't mentioning to divorce. And that's because the debate of the Jews wasn't whether or not anyone could ever get divorced. The debate was, when was it appropriate to get a divorce? And there was the any matter, get a divorce for any reason you want. School, Hillel. And then there was the Shemai school, who said, only for unchastity. So did the Jews think was the question here, as it sounds in English to us, is the question really like, is it ever okay to get a divorce? That's not really what they're asking.

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What they're asking from their perspective, as they would think about this question, is, which divorces are okay? Like, when is it okay to get a divorce? And Jesus is going to reject the any matter view which Matthew supplies in Matthew 19 three, as, uh, the context. When he says, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He adds the phrase any cause into the question of the Pharisees. And there's a parallel passage in Matthew. So they're asking Jesus to weigh on the current debate, to test him and maybe get him in trouble with some crowds, because it's a controversial topic. And, um, we also will see, to give you another reason piece of evidence in the case that they're arguing from the debate between the Hillelites and shimmyites. And by the way, I'm not out on a limb on this. Everybody agrees on this, okay? All the people who study it deeply agree that the Hillel and Shimai discussion, that's the backdrop for this question. But, um, to give another clear reason why, they're about to quote from deuteronomy 24 in verse four. So Jesus says, what did Moses command you? And they said, moses allowed Amanda write a certificate of divorce. And to send her away. So they're quoting from deuteronomy 24. They're asking him to comment on the Hillel Shimai discussion.

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So this gives weight to hearing Jesus's restriction as commenting on this debate. Um, but Jesus's response will not just be to agree with Shamai. Let's look at what he says in verse five. And Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment, but from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What? Therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

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So Jesus is like, what did Moses tell you? They go, deuteronomy 24. And he's like, yeah, you kind of missed the whole Genesis one stuff, right? He refers to Genesis 127, Genesis five two, and Genesis 224 to get to the heart of the issue. And the heart of the issue is this. Marriage is God's design.

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It's a divine design by God about the nature of man and woman. One man, one woman coming together and being married. The two become one flesh, and it's a oneness created by God. Mark ten, nine. He says right there on your screen, what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Now, Paul takes this even to another level when he reveals to us in Ephesians five that this is a picture of Christ in the church, that husband and wife is Jesus in the church. So to recklessly think like, yeah, can you get a divorce whenever you want? Is to just not fundamentally understand what marriage is. We don't appreciate this enough. We often, in our struggles in marriage, when we go through them, we think, I'm not happy. Instead of, what is this marriage? It's about me being happy instead of about preserving this incredible, glorious thing that God has given me, that he has created, and seeing the holiness of it and seeing how it pictures Christ in the church and how it's part of our very nature.

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It's hard to see this when we're looking at how someone's acting instead of being reminded of the very nature of marriage. Just the nature of your marriage should inspire a change in your behavior towards your spouse. You're not just dealing with their bad attitude, you're dealing with one who you are one with. And you should honor God in that. So I'm going to offer now three principles that we can get so far from what we've done in mark. Here's the principles, and I'm going to be putting principles on screen as we go here. First principle, marriage is a union that God created, therefore we should keep it together. This is a general rule.

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Second principle, divorce is wrong and shouldn't be done. I mean, that's from Mark, right? We're just getting the data from mark. Divorce is wrong and shouldn't be done. Third principle, divorce coupled with remarriage is actually adultery.

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This is pretty, uh, heavy stuff. And it comes right from the next verse we get. Verses we get in mark. So here we are, verse ten. And in the house, the disciples asked him again about this matter, and he said to them, whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, commits adultery. So hence we have our third principle, right? Uh, divorce coupled with remarriage is adultery. Now, I say principle. I don't mean, uh, as you already know, I don't mean like, this is a law that must apply to every scenario and situation, but it is a principle, and we must absorb it as true. We need to allow the weight of this to hit us. These are really big things, these three principles that we've gotten so far.

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Now, there's not much different in this section here than what we have in, say, the Matthew text. It answers the question, though. Here's something to note. Some people think Jesus is only talking about protecting women, right? He only wants to say that women, um, if a man divorces a woman and gets remarried, it's adultery. But he has no comment on a woman getting divorced or the woman divorcing the man. There are some people who try to point that out, but that doesn't work with the text, because in verse twelve, it says if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. So it applies to both people. It goes both ways. Women divorcing men was rare, that's true back then. But it could be done either if they did the greek version of divorce, where they just leave, and under roman law, that ends the marriage unilaterally. You don't need permission or anything. Or the jewish version, where a woman could push to try to get her husband, even by the courts, to be forced to writing a certificate. So there was a way to do it. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world. So my conclusion so far is about Mark. Uh, there is a rule or principle that marriage is a union from God, and therefore you should stay married. And, um, that is all that most of us need. Most of us don't need any more information than that. I think you should go back to scripture right now. If you're contemplating divorce and you start by radically following the Lord's commands to you as a husband or as a wife. I have a teaching for husbands and wives in the video description that I think you should check out. Whichever one applies to you, that's the starting point. That's the beginning. Place, right value of marriage, honoring that, seeking to follow Christ unilaterally. But we get a principle, principle number four, that I'll put up divorce, and this is a big deal. This is where Jesus disagrees with the shemaites, right? This is where he's putting his own thing out there. Divorce does not end the moral obligation of the marriage. This is heavy. Now. I think it's a real divorce, and I'll talk more about that later. But as a general rule, it just doesn't end the moral obligation of the marriage. So reconciliation is to be sought even after divorce. Even if you're divorced, you should be seeking to reconcile with your spouse if you want to follow the teaching of Jesus. This, again, is where Jesus goes much further than the shemaites. And so, uh, I don't think he's just siding with them. I think he's providing his own teaching. Divorce doesn't end the moral obligation of the marriage. I think it does end the marriage, but not the moral obligation. That's how I put all that together. More on that later. Okay, let's talk about Luke. Let's move over to the section on Luke. This will be shorter. Jesus's teaching on divorce in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16.

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In Luke 16, verse 18, we read Jesus's words in the gospel of Luke on this topic, and there's very little in Luke. It's just pretty much this one verse. It says, everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. This seems like a clear cut and dry fact of reality. This is not where our culture would agree. Um, generally speaking, when a woman or man says, I'm getting divorced, everyone rallies around them. They're like, you do what you need to do to keep you healthy and strong. And very few people are willing to say, um, something like this. Uh, Jesus's words would not be welcome in our culture, but they need to be welcome in the hearts of christians, for sure. It's the same principle we talked about earlier, that you get married, you stay married. Divorce and remarriage in general is an adulterous thing. Now, they would likely assume some exceptions. Uh, Jesus makes an exception clear, and Paul makes another one clear. But the rule is what we need the most. We have to apply the exceptions very carefully and not too broadly. This is, again, I feel especially obligated, since I'm teaching you that and will teach. There's several reasons for divorce that I must remind you that most of them won't apply to most of the people watching this video. We ignore the value and nature of marriage. We become calloused to our calling as husbands and wives. We rack up excuses, we play the victim, we become blind to our issues. We make their issues as big as possible. We blow them out of proportion.

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We would rather quit the marriage before ever obeying the radical call of Jesus in some cases. And this is what we need to get into our hearts, that divorce coupled with remarriage most of the time is adultery. Big deal. Let's talk about Matthew five, Jesus's teaching on divorce in Matthew chapter five.

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And here we get the first time where Jesus offers a clear, specific exception to the rule about no divorce and remarriage.

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But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. And now we're going to get into some of our debates. Um, does this mean that divorce in and of itself is adultery? Because the way it's written here, right. He who divorces her makes her commit adultery? I think not. Um, I mean, you can make a case for this by saying, hey, look, the context says everyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery. Therefore, divorce itself is adulterous. But against this would be a few things. The rest of the context shows that Jesus is thinking of remarriage in view, right? Whoever divorces, and then whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. So there's remarriage is just assumed, and it would be happening in that culture. You get a divorce, you're going to remarry somebody. Everybody gets married. That's kind of what happens. That's how it works. And there's lots of reasons for that. But in their culture, they would all get married. We have way more single people now than they ever had back then. So I think that, um, we should consider this part of a divorce and remarriage coupling. That's the hypothetical. And the result of the pro side of the side that says that divorce itself is adultery is that the woman is now guilty of committing adultery, even if she's merely the unwilling victim of a divorce. Think about that.

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That seems really wacky.

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So here's another question. Does this passage, does this mean that divorce doesn't actually work? And now I'll deal with the debate on is divorce ontologically indissoluble, which means that once you're married, literally nothing can break the marriage, not even a proper divorce, not even a justified divorce. Like nothing will break this marriage, so that if this person is still alive for the rest of your life, you're still married to them no matter what happens next.

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I, um, think that this is wrong. Uh, but I'll offer the case for it. Here's the case for it. The case for the unbreakability of marriage, or the idea that marriage can never end is, uh, one.

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This is a big deal to some people, the catholic church says. So that is probably the strongest thing. If you're a Catholic in particular, um, then you'd think this is a really big deal. Um, or another way to put it would be, hey, well, that's what a lot of the church fathers thought. I'll cover the church fathers later, but it does seem that this was a progressive development historically, and a mistranslation may have contributed to this. In ephesians 532, Jerome translates a discussion about marriage. Paul talks about marriage, and it's a profound mystery in Ephesians 532. But Jerome translates this as a sacrament, and not a mystery, but a sacrament. And so he starts to change the understanding slowly. It progressed over years to the idea that marriage is this sort of unbreakable thing. Um, it just can't end except by death. And I'm not sure what other reasons there are. It seems to me that most of the reasons for thinking marriage is utterly unbreakable, like even with a divorce, even with a justified divorce, you're still married to the other person. I don't see any good biblical reasons for it. It's all historical analysis.

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Now, here's some reasons not to think that Jesus did not say, um, you cannot what God has joined together, you cannot separate. He says, what God has joined together, let not man separate. I mean, this implies that man can separate it. Jesus also affirmed in his discussion in John four with the woman at the well that she had had five husbands. He says, you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband, which means a couple of things. For one, um, the guy she's with now, even though they were sleeping together, they're not married. So sleeping doesn't make know. Sex doesn't make marriage, but also that she'd had five husbands, he seems to affirm that she had five husbands. He doesn't say, you've had one husband and four adulterous pretend marriages.

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Also, God divorcing Israel implies that it can really happen. God divorced Israel in the Old Testament. So the implication is that that's like an ontological reality, like this thing can actually happen in one corinthians seven, where Paul says that the believing spouse is not bound. In such cases where the unbeliever wants to leave, this makes a lot more sense if marriage can actually be ended. Otherwise, of course, they're still bound. Doesn't matter if they leave, doesn't matter what happens. It's unbreakable. The exception in Matthew, right where we are now, Matthew 532, except on the ground of sexual immorality. Well, the fact that there's an exception means that a justified divorce must actually break the marriage. If nothing else, then, uh, the affirmation in deuteronomy that we read earlier, deuteronomy 24, that a woman cannot return to her first husband after remarrying a second husband. But if the second marriage was invalid and the first husband is still her husband, why on earth can't she come back to her husband? It wouldn't make sense. I'm not saying that we're under the law of deuteronomy. I'm saying that, um, deuteronomy doesn't make any sense on that theory. Like, even in the context of ancient Israel, it makes no sense if marriage can't be broken. So what does it mean? It means then that divorce does actually work. It separates you from your spouse.

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And I think every divorce works. Every divorce is a real divorce. But this was our, uh. What was it? Principle.

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Ah. Uh, there it is. Principle four. Divorce doesn't end the moral obligation of the marriage. And that's why I worded it that way. Um, it's not just me. Jay Adams, in his book on this topic, he says the same thing, and I think it's accurate. I think it's a good way to harmonize and understand what's going on here in the different texts. Divorce is real. It actually ends the marriage, but it doesn't end the moral obligation to reunite the marriage because of the nature of what God has done. So I think that that gives us a better understanding. Um, let's talk now about a topic that comes in Matthew five and in Matthew 19 about Jesus's exception to the rule. Jesus's specific exception here is, except on the ground of sexual immorality. And there's a whole debate amongst scholars and theologians on what did Jesus mean by sexual immorality? Now, the greek word here is pornea. And that might sound familiar. You may be like, wait a minute, we get our english word pornography from that. Porn from that. And that's absolutely true, we do. But the greek word doesn't mean what the english word means. Don't think that 2000 years later we have an english word that sounds similar, that they mean the same thing. The question we have to ask here is, what on earth did Jesus mean except on the ground of sexual immorality? What did he mean? And there are five options, five options that are given for what this word means. And I'm going to go through all five of them first. I'll just overview them. Okay? I'm just going to talk you through all five real quick so you can get a good survey of the landscape. And then I'm going to go through them one at a time to try to help us understand what the exception is, because, hey, this is important. Maybe you're thinking, I think I have a legitimate grounds for divorce. But what does Jesus mean by sexual immorality? So one option is thinking that it's only during engagement that sexual immorality refers to premarital, um, sex that couples engaged. And let's say the guy, he goes out and he sleeps with somebody, the girl goes out and sleeps with somebody before they get married. Then you find out about this, so you cut off the engagement. That's one argument. Another option number two is that it's incest. That pornea specifically refers to incest, in which case Jesus isn't really saying, um, you can get a divorce if you've married a relative. He's just effectively saying, like, that marriage never should have been anyways. You're kind of annulling the marriage. It's an invalid marriage to start with. So that's some people's view. Pornea means incest. A third view is that, um, sexual immorality, or pornea, it refers to specifically adultery in the sense of natural, physical intercourse with someone of the opposite sex while you're married to someone else of the opposite sex. Right. So if I cheated on my wife and I actually slept with some woman, God forbid, then that would be considered adultery. Very strict, very full scope of the term adultery. Fourth view is that it's spiritual adultery or apostasy. There are people who put this view forward. I know it sounds wacky to most of us, so that if you have an ungodly partner, then you can divorce them. It's spiritual adultery. And the Old Testament talks about adultery in that sense. Um, and then five, the fifth one is that, uh, Pornea. And this is my view, of course. Uh, is that pornea is an umbrella view for sexual sin. It's a term that refers to all kinds of sexual sin. It's a very generic term. If it's done in the context of marriage, it's adultery. If it's done in the context of singleness, it's not adulterous, but it's still sexual immorality. So that, um, adultery is one of the things that fits under the term pornea, but it's only one of them. All right, now we're going to go through the debate. Okay, definition one. Let's imagine, uh, you want to make this case. How would you make the case, and then how would we refute it? So, definition one is that Pornea, Jesus'exception for divorce, only refers to sexual violation of an engagement, such as sleeping with someone other than the person you're engaged to. And it's mutually exclusive to adultery while in marriage, so that even if your spouse sleeps around, you can't divorce them. That would be this view. Now, how do people make a case for this view? They say, well, Matthew, why Matthew had the exception and we don't see to Mark and Luke is because Matthew is trying to give us justification for why Joseph was going to divorce Mary. So in jewish context, the Jews did require a divorce to stop an engagement. You actually had to get a divorce to stop an engagement. But they would say, this is what Matthew's doing. He's saying, look, uh, this is why it was okay for Joseph to divorce Mary, or at least he planned on it. And that was a righteous thing, according to the text. And that's okay because it was Pornea she had, in his mind, he thought she had committed to sexual immorality. Um, now, this depends on isolating the meaning of Pornea to this. Um, but this is totally unsustainable. I mean, this just utterly falls apart when you actually look at the usage of the term pornea in various texts in the Bible and out of the Bible at the time. It completely fails. Now, the view that this is referring to premarital sex during engagement, that view is utterly refuted by a number of things in the scripture. Number one, um, pornea, the term is used in a variety of ways in the Bible. Uh, in one corinthians five, one, it's talking about incest in Jude verse seven, it's talking about homosexuality. And I know there's a debate on that. But it is. That's what it's talking about. Porne is talking about adultery in the Septuagint, or the greek translation of the Old Testament that many of the gospel authors were familiar with. In Jeremiah 32, it talks about adultery, um, and calls it Pornea. In Jeremiah three six, it talks about adultery and calls it Pornea. Also, in Ezekiel 1623, hosea two, three, and verse five, amos 717, it's not referring to premarital fornication, it's referring to adultery in those places. A third reason to reject, um, the engagement view would be that Jesus uses the term in the context of a question about marriage and divorce, not engagement and breaking off engagement with a divorce. It relates to two Old Testament texts that he even is referring to, and they're referring to that are about divorce after marriage, not anything that happens during an engagement period. And so there's the Old Testament context of the verses that are being quoted also. Um, third reason to reject that view, the debate of the day wasn't about engagement, it was about marriage. So not only are the Old Testament texts about marriage and divorce, the debate and the question Jesus weighs in on is about marriage and divorce, not engagement and divorce. And number four, uh, God divorced Israel for fornication. So this view would say that God did something wrong in Jeremiah three when he divorces Israel for fornication. They weren't just betrothed, there was a marriage there. In the analogy of scripture. A fifth and final reason to reject this engagement hypothesis comes from a non canonical book called Syrac. And it's in chapter two, verses 22 and 23, where it accuses someone of committing adultery by fornication. Now, the terminology there in the Greek is really interesting because it, uh, says, committed adultery by Pornea. So that pornea is an umbrella sexual sin that causes adultery. Why? Because you were married when you did it. And that's, of course, my view on it, which I'll get to in a minute. So the second definition we'll cover is this, um, we've ruled out the engagement hypothesis. It's that Pornea is just incest. And so it basically means. And this is, by the way, this is the position taken by roman catholic scholars. This is the position they're going to defend. It's most common amongst them. And they're going to say that basically, look, if you marry your sister, then the marriage is invalid and they get annulment, an invalid marriage. So that's the only time you can separate from someone you've married, is you find out that you're close relatives. And so then you have to separate, of course. Now to try to build a case for this. They'll say that Leviticus 18 in the jewish context, Leviticus 18 in the law, it specifically restricts marriage from happening between relatives. You can't draw near to your father's daughter, your sister, your mother's sister, that kind of thing. It's relatives can't get married together. That's the idea. And they're like, this connects Jesus's exception to a specific Old Testament rule. And that is kind of one of the reasons that they build this case. Another one is they say, one corinthians, chapter five, verse one, refers to this as Pornea, incest. It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality, Pornea, among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans, for a man has his father's wife. So they say, look, pornea is incest. And we'll argue against that in just a minute, but I'll leave it up for you guys to kind of ponder on. Now, Leviticus, uh, 18. Against this view, there are several things. Leviticus 18, it never uses the word pornea. And that's the whole point. The whole argument here is that that's what Pornea means. Not just that, that's something you can't do. So ancient and modern audience audiences would. Well, ancient audiences would never make this connection. Modern audiences should never make this connection. And, uh, this is just ignored by people who hold this view, at least the ones I've read. They point out Leviticus 18, but they don't even acknowledge that the Greek for pornea is never there in the text. So the connection is completely broken. The first corinthians five passage. It doesn't say that all Pornea or sexual immorality is incest. It rather refers to incest as a kind of pornea. Right.

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This sexual immorality among you is of a kind that's not even tolerated among the pagans, for a man has his father's wife. So this is just an umbrella term. It's a kind of sexual immorality.

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Pornea is also in the text I've shared with you already. But there's more. Um, it's often used of other issues unrelated to incest, not only in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well. In the greek translation of the Old Testament, that was around in the first century, uh, they used the word pornea to refer to all sorts of things other than incest. So there's just no real grounding for this view, it's unlikely, actually, that a jew like Paul or Jesus would even consider an incestuous relationship as a proper marriage, meaning that the divorce certificate wasn't even needed in this case so much as like a kind of annulment. So none of it fits. It's a very forced theory, because the Catholic Church has a particular doctrine of divorce and remarriage, and so they're coming up with theories to support it. The third definition for Pornea that I also disagree with is that it just means adultery, no more and no less than full adultery. And the pro for this, the reason to support this view is that it can mean that, like, that's a possible meaning for the term pornea, it could mean adultery. Against this view are several things. In the Greek, there is a word for that. There's a word that simply and always means adultery, and that is the word moikea. Moikea. And that's not the word Jesus used. He used the word pornea, except for sexual immorality. And when he talked about adultery later, he uses the word moikea. Matthew already, actually, in Matthew 515, uh, 19, he uses both words together.

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Why is this significant? Because if pornea just means adultery, then you wouldn't use both words together like this. For out of the hard come evil thoughts, murder, adultery and sexual immorality. Theft, fault, false witness, slander. But if pornea, sexual immorality here, if that means adultery, why does it also say adultery? So they're not just synonyms or so it seems to me. Then we get to the fourth definition. This one, I think, is probably the worst one, um, as far as it just not having any grounding, and that is that you can divorce someone for spiritual adultery or apostasy or backsliding, that kind of thing. And this is not only is there nothing to support this view, except for saying, well, adultery is used symbolically in the Old Testament.

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That's it. It's not that it's used symbolically with Jesus in the gospels, it's that it's used symbolically somewhere else. But against this view, against this view is the idea that Paul actually teaches in one corinthians seven, to remain with an unbeliever and make the marriage work, not to divorce them. So the original audience, they never would have thought this. They never would have thought spiritual adultery was a cause for divorce. So we're left with our fifth definition, which I think is the accurate one, that pornea is an umbrella term for sexual immorality, which could refer to, um, any kind of sin during marriage that is of a sexual nature. It can also refer to those same sins while you're not married. It's an umbrella term, so it can refer to any of those kinds of things. Now, I think that this seems like the correct view. I think it harmonizes all the uses of the word. And most interestingly, the Syracuse verse I quoted earlier that says, committed adultery by pornea by fornication. And it also allows us to ask a new question. Why did Jesus say pornea instead of moikiwo or mokue? Why did he know sexual immorality instead of adultery? And I think it's because of this. If he said adultery and not pornea, then it would be difficult to know what to do with bestiality or if a husband had raped his wife violently. Um, I mean, all rape is violent. So if your husband had raped his wife, or someone cheats with homosexual or lesbian encounters outside of their marriage, or does things that are adulterous but less than intercourse. Right, they're sexual immoral, but they're not exactly intercourse with somebody else. But by giving us pornea as the excuse, instead of adultery, Jesus is opening up bestiality, rape, homosexual encounters less than intercourse, but truly sexual immoral behavior. It's just a little bit more broad than the term adultery. Now, if you want more on this, which you probably don't, but if you do, da Carson has a commentary on Matthew, where he goes through, uh, a lot of these in detail, more detail than I've given you, he concludes, and I'll quote him now, it seems best, then, to permit both pornea and the exception clause to retain their normal force. Jesus is then saying that divorce and remarriage always involves evil. But as Moses permitted it, because of the hardness of men's hearts, so also does he. But now, on the sole grounds of pornea or sexual sin of any sort. Of any sort.

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Now, I want to talk briefly before we gather our principles that we've just got from this extensive survey here. Debate, uh, of the debate on Matthew five. I want to talk about John Piper's view, because John Piper is a very influential pastor, a pastor I love, and I love so much of the stuff he shares. This is done with respect, but I think he's incorrect. Um, now, I have linked his paper where he talks about his position paper, his position on the topic of divorce and remarriage. And in that paper, he gives his opinion of Matthew 532. So I'll bring it up again just to make sure we're all on the same page here in Matthew 532.

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But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Now this is taken to mean that she's made to commit adultery only if she hasn't already been doing it. That's John Piper's view. So then it's no exception at all. It's merely an hey. Like if you divorce her and she's already been committing sexual immorality, well, then you don't make her commit adultery.

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Right? And now that's neat. Like neat as in it fits. You can take Jesus's statement that way. There's a few problems with this view. Um, one of them is going to be that, um, it doesn't work with Matthew 19. Like once you get to Matthew 19 and you see how Jesus says the same kind of thing in a totally different way, you realize that you can't carry this view thoroughly through. And this kind of shows you that that's not what Jesus meant. But I want to quote to you what Craig Keener says about he doesn't refer to John Piper, but about that view that John Piper holds and the view that others also share. He says some interpretations of the passage argue that this exception is not actually an exception at all. One writer proposes that the clause just means that a woman is not being caused to commit adultery by being remarried in the case of immorality, because she's already committed adultery. The problem with this proposal is that it is simply too ingenious. Were it correct, there would be little reason to state the exception clause to begin with, since it would not add anything to the statement. And if one wished to make such a point, it's peculiar that the point would be stated in such a manner that so few other interpreters throughout history could have caught it. And that's from Craig Keener's book and Mary's another, which is linked below as well. Just as John Piper's article is so not to mention this, the original audience, uh, in the context of the debate and the question that was asked, would never take Jesus's exception clause to mean she's not an adulterer. He doesn't make her an adulterer because she's already committed adultery. That just would never be taken this way. And like I said before, you can't take Matthew 19 nine that way. Which is why when Piper gets to Matthew 19 nine, he never tries to harmonize his understanding of 532 with Matthew 19 nine. In my opinion, it just doesn't work together. So Matthew 532, um, is giving us an exception, which now we can say is a principle, sexual sin can justify a divorce.

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And because of the, the way the exception clause is written, which we'll come to later, more sexual sin can justify a remarriage. Now, here's what this does. This makes me want to go back and change our principles that we have had before. I want to change them in accord with Jesus, with the full teaching of Jesus. So principles two, three and four could be qualified slightly. Divorce as a general rule is wrong and shouldn't be done. Divorce that is unjustified coupled with remarriage is actually adultery. And divorce that is unjustified doesn't end the moral obligation of the marriage. So now we've got, um, that qualification from Jesus's own lips that, uh, a justified marriage does allow for divorce, does allow for remarriage. The next passage, though, Matthew 19 is, of the gospels, the most important one, I think it's the most extensive passage. And it is Jesus's teaching in divorce, on divorce in Matthew, chapter 19. So here in verse three, it says, and the Pharisees came up to him and tested him. I'll put it on your screen as well, tested him by asking, is it lawful for a man, uh, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? And of course, that phrase, any Cause, is a trigger word. We know what that means. It's the hillelite position that you can divorce for any reason you want. That's the fuller context. Helps us see what the original audience, uh, saw. It's a question about divorce for any reason, and Jesus utterly rejects it. And it is, of course, the majority of modern divorces. They fit that bill. The point here is there's strong confirmation already in the Matthew 19 passage that all of Jesus's statements of divorce have the backdrop of the debate on deuteronomy 24. And it's about, uh, the exception of when divorce is okay, not just whether any divorce can ever happen under any conditions. It's really a rejection of any matter. Divorces or divorces, uh, without justification.

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Verse four says, and he answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one flesh? What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Same thing that we get from the gospel of Mark. They said, to him. Uh, why, then, did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and send her away? And this is great, because this is the question we ask, too, right? Well, then, wait. If divorce is just generally wrong, why is the law written like that? And verse 80 says, because of the hardness of your heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. So don't get divorced. Right? What God has joined together, let not man separate. That's the general rule. That's the overarching concern of Jesus, and that not the exception, should be our main focus. I should obsess over the nature of marriage, not the reasons for divorce, although today's study is going to be doing that as well, because at some point, you got to talk about it. So the natural question they ask, why did Moses allow it? He says, because you have hard hearts. You were permitted to divorce. It was regulating a bad thing, but it wasn't the ideal. It wasn't giving you. Here's your ideal, that you could just divorce because of whatever reasons you come up with. The point is this. The permission of the law of Moses to divorce doesn't imply the rightness of divorce. This takes the whole discussion away from deuteronomy 24. And this is the second place where I'll say, jesus is not siding with the shimmyites or with hardly anybody of his time.

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He's not offering sexual immorality as his interpretation. I think of deuteronomy 24 instead. What he's doing is he's saying that he wants to go above their debate. He wants to go to the heart of marriage. He wants to go to Genesis and understanding the very concept of the oneness of man and woman and say, hey, don't get a divorce. General rule. And if you do and remarry another, it's generally adultery. He, uh, does offer the exceptions, and it's important that we have those. But that's the point. That's where he differs from the Shemiites. Okay, then. In verse nine, Jesus says the hotly debated and contested thing here, which is, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. This exception, here's the important thing that we all need to swallow, is the exception not only allows for divorce, it allows for remarriage. And there is a lot of debate and discussion on that topic. What I will say is, d. Uh, a. Carson's commentary which I've linked below on Matthew is helpful here. It evaluates various interpretations, and I think it shows why they fail, why other options, where they go. It's not really an exception for this reason. Or the exception applies to divorce but not remarriage. I think that they fail. The short version is this. It fits the Greek well, the Greek. When you combine Matthew five and Matthew 19, the two ways, jesus says it differently in both passages, it's a lot easier to just take the Greek as it is. The exception applies to both the marriage and, uh, the divorce and the remarriage, that they're both permitted. Remarriage is permitted in the case of a justified divorce, is the point. This is definitely the majority position, uh, among scholars. The exception applies to the divorce and the new marriage. That's the majority position. It also fits the culture. This is what all the Jews would have thought. Any valid divorce allowed for remarriage. So if you were going to say the divorce is valid, then you're going to say the remarriage is also valid. They all would have assumed that, unless they were very specifically told otherwise.

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So, um, I did, like I said, I linked that below if you want more information, uh, from D. A. Carson's work.

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So what's implied in this, though, is that any divorce for an unjustified reason or any other reason is not allowing remarriage. And this is the general rule. And this is, of course, what would disagree with even the shemaites. Even if they thought you shouldn't have got divorced, they never would have said, it's immoral for you to marry someone else now. Like, that's not the way they would have reacted. The disciples, they flip out a bit, and it helps us see how harsh this hits them in their culture. The disciples said to him, if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry. But he said to them, not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.

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So they're like, look, we shouldn't even get married. And Jesus is like, if you don't want to get married, don't get married. Go ahead. Then he says, uh, for there are eunuchs who have been so from birth. I'll put this on the screen for you. There, uh, are eunuchs who've been so from birth. And there are eunuchs who've been made eunuchs by men. And there are eunuchs who've made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. That's a person who chooses singleness deliberately. We're not talking about castrating themselves. He's talking about just being single. Um, let the one who's able to receive this, receive it.

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These are like strong words from Jesus. Um, he's showing a few things for, uh, one in their culture. Did you know this, that infertility was grounds for divorce. Even amongst the shimmyites is that if you were, um, married to someone and after a period of up to ten years, you still couldn't have kids, they expected you to actually get a divorce and marry someone else so you could procreate. Because they viewed this be fruitful and multiply as an obligation for every single human. Jesus is here showing us that the command to be fruitful and multiply, it doesn't apply to every individual in that sense. It's probably applied to humankind in general. And hey, we've done a pretty good job at being fruitful and multiplying. But if having kids isn't such a binding command because you can voluntarily stay single for the kingdom of heaven, then you can't get divorced for infertility. So that takes off another thing that they would have thought of as an appropriate cause for divorce. So, conclusion here. Give us some conclusions. You can only divorce for sexual sin. That's the general rule and one exception given to it. The nature of marriage is a bond created by God, which man, uh, ought not to separate. And if you don't like it, don't get married. That's a real option.

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I don't want to be stuck in a bad marriage I'm not happy with. Well, then don't get married.

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Maybe you shouldn't anyways, if that's your situation, jesus says, that's perfectly fine. Which gives us principle number seven. Staying single to better serve the Lord is a good option.

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It's a good option. Now, I want to talk about Matthew, um, 19 and how I disagree with some other interpreters on this passage. Again, John Piper, who I mentioned because I respect him and because he influences a lot of people. Um, his position paper, he says, matthew 19, verses ten through twelve, and I'm quoting Piper now teaches that special grace is given by God to Christ's disciples to sustain them in singleness when they renounce a marriage according to the law of Christ. Because John Piper teaches that you can't get remarried even after a divorce, even if they commit adultery, you can't get remarried. You're going to be single the rest of your life. And he takes Matthew's, uh, verses chapter 19, verses ten through twelve as evidence for this. So, right, hey, it's better for man not to get married. And Jesus says, well, not everyone can accept it, but only to those to whom it is given.

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He takes this to mean, if you get divorced and have to stay single because you're not allowed to remarry anybody else, then special is given to you. But this is again, uh, in all honesty, I'm just disappointed in the exegetical treatment of the text, like the Bible study tactics or techniques, because this is just being forced to fit with his current view about marriage and divorce. It's clear that this is about staying single all of your life. It's not about getting divorced and then staying single afterwards. This is why, if such is the case, it's better to not marry. The disciples are not complaining about getting divorced and then staying that way. They're worried about being stuck in a bad marriage. That's their concern. So singleness isn't the complaint here. It's the solution to the problem of being stuck. In their idea of unhappy marriage.

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Um, they fear a bad marriage, excuse me, not singleness. They're not scared of just being single. So what loss is there if one can divorce but not remarry? Compared to singleness, this isn't even a risk. Oh, go ahead and get married. And then if they commit adultery, at least you can get divorced, and then you just stay single. Singleness would be the solution. So I think that John Piper's position, this is one of the areas where you see, if you follow him, you see where his exegesis of the passage of those three verses, it just doesn't fit the text at all. Another scholar, uh, Gordon Winham, who's very well respected, and he's written a book I've linked below, as well as contributed to another book I linked below the three Views book. He, um, says that one of the reasons why I would be wrong, in my understanding that the exception allows for a remarriage in the case of a justified divorce. He would say, I'm wrong on that, is because the exception is only found in the gospel of Matthew. Um, and I'm not kidding, this is like one of his strong arguments against interpreting it that way, is, hey, it's only in Matthew. So now Matthew is being made to conflict with Mark and Luke. But when you understand the background debate of the Hillel and Shimaites, these different groups, then it makes a lot more sense to see how they would have naturally understood that it was a rejection of the any matter position of the Hillelite school. It wasn't necessarily a rejection of every possible reason for a divorce. And so once you realize that, you go, okay, hold on. Um, Matthew and Luke aren't contradictory to the original audience. They would have married perfectly well. Mark, Luke, Matthew, all of them. Now we're going to go on now to Romans seven. Because Romans seven is one of the, uh, key passages to people. I've had people in me just telling people that I was going to do this study. This extensive, exhaustive study on this topic. I was rebuked by one person who was don't know, don't care, but rebuked by one person because they said that, um, the fact that I was going to study it so much. Was just, like, proof that I wasn't letting scripture speak. And the reason was Romans seven. Romans seven. Clearly, it just makes it so obvious. That if your spouse is alive, you cannot get a divorce, get remarried. Nothing like, as long as they're alive, you must stay faithful to them. And I will echo now the words of, uh, one of my old teachers, Carl Westerland, who said and it shocked me when he said it, romans seven isn't about divorce at all. And I was like, what, Romans? But it seems so clear. And the truth is, I was reading it with my preconceived notions. Instead of looking at it in context. Which is what we're going to do now, Romans seven, he says, or do you not know, brothers? For I'm speaking to those who know the law. That the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. Now, the context Paul is giving us is this. That, um, under the law, we all sin, and we all fall short. And we're all going to die and be judged. But there's a limit to the law. And it's when you die, it no longer applies to you. And now, verse two. He explains. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress. If she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she's free from that law. And if she marries another man, she's not an adulteress. So this seems clear, right? Like her husband, if he's alive, uh, she goes with another man.

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Verse four. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law. Through the body of Christ. So that you may belong to another, to him who's been raised from the dead. In order that we may bear fruit. For God. For while we were living in our flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. And he goes on, um, we're released from the law now, and so we live according to Christ. Now I'm dead to the law and I'm alive under Christ. And just like the death of a spouse breaks the marriage, so my death in Christ to the law breaks my connection to the law. I'm now, um, justified walking in the grace that he's given me and all that cool stuff. Now here's the thing, and if you look carefully at romans, this is not a teaching on marriage. He's not even addressing any marriage questions like he is in one corinthians seven. It's an analogy. The analogy Paul gives in Romans seven is that, um, marriage ends at death, and so you are dead to the law and marriage to another is allowed if your spouse dies. And so you are now married to Christ. And so that's, uh, the context of Romans six. Paul's not at all dealing with divorce. He's not intending to comment on divorce. It's an analogy. Now, being a teacher, I give analogies all the time, and sometimes people want to focus on the analogy and blow it out of proportion, as though I'm teaching about the analogy instead of using the analogy to teach about something else. If you're a teacher, you know what I mean? Right. You give an illustration. They're not meant to be analyzed and nitpicked at. That's just not the intention. You often, um, state things very, um, broadly and with little detail in the case of an analogy, because you're making a very specific point. So this works well with the idea that, uh, a divorce can still end a marriage and allow for remarriage, if it's justified, if it's proper, it works perfectly well that way. And it's what Paul seems to teach in one corinthians seven, and it's clearly what Jesus teaches in Matthew five and Matthew 19. So the phrase, while her husband still lives in romans seven, it just assumes that no divorce has happened. It's her husband that's still living. But if they're divorced, is he her husband? No, but divorce is not in question here. It's assuming that they're married and that her husband's still her husband and still alive. So, um, a successful or legitimate divorce just has no place in romans seven. I'll, um, give you some more proof. Um, if this is a teaching on marriage being unbreakable under any circumstances. It's odd because Paul is not talking about divorce here, but an unhindered marriage. It just doesn't fit the context for what people are using it for. The divorce can't be broken. That disagrees with lots of other things in scripture that I've already mentioned. And because Paul appeals to the law and the law offers. Think of this. His illustration is in the law, and the law of the Old Testament actually offers legitimate divorce as grounds for remarrying somebody else. So what is Paul talking about then? They're actually making Paul disagree with the law, uh, and saying that he's doing it in the name of the law. And that means you must be interpreting Paul wrong. Paul's just giving an analogy.

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Um, this terminology was used in marriage certificates, too, so we can actually go to ancient history stuff and we can get help with this. In marriage certificates, they would say that you can't marry another while your husband lives. But they didn't think it meant even if you get divorced, they never thought it meant that. So let me give you some examples. This is, um, a marriage certificate, um, that, um, David and stone brewer talks about in his first Corinthians seven article dealing with marriage papyri. It says, and it shall not be lawful for Feliscus to bring in any other wife but Apollonia, nor to keep a concubine or boy, nor to have children by any other woman while Apollonia lives. Now, if you took it out of context, you would think that this marriage certificate means that divorce is impossible. It's just how they talked about marriage. If your husband's alive, you don't get remarried to anybody else. These things are still binding, but divorce was considered a way of ending that contract.

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There's, uh, more, and I'll link that below, uh, as well in the tyndalearchive.com website.

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Also, there's a Damascus document, really interesting document. And in column 421, it mentions that it's wrong to take two wives in their lifetimes. Now, this, again, ignores divorce. It's just speaking of polygamy, and that is the understanding of the Damascus document now. And I'll link that below as well. And it's talking about simply, uh, polygamy issues. You can't take two wives in the life of their other. All these examples assume that divorce hasn't happened. And that's all that Romans seven is doing. The examples, um, of ignoring the possibility of divorce rather than ruling it out, is what we're seeing. Ignoring the possibility of divorce, ignoring the consideration of divorce. It's not ruling out divorce as a possibility. And that's important because as we get to one corinthians later on, it's going to become even more obvious. So the conclusion is this, Romans seven has no bearing on divorce, but it does give us a principle about marriage. And the principle is, if your spouse dies, you're free to marry another. If your spouse dies, you are free to marry another. It also seems to rule out polygamy, since it doesn't make any sense if polygamy is like an actual thing.

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But, uh, we're focused on, uh, other issues today, so we'll talk about that.

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Paul's teaching in one corinthians seven. Now we're going to dig into a new section. Paul's teaching on one corinthians chapter seven.

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This is a hotly debated chapter, and it's long and it gets a little bit complicated. I'm going to try to make it as succinct as I can, which will be not terribly succinct because this video is meant to be the exhaustive teaching. If you want the short teaching, there'll be another video in the description that'll be the short one. One corinthians seven, verses ten through 16 in particular. That's what we're going to cruise through right now. It says to the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. That means he's quoting Jesus, or, uh, referring to Jesus's teaching, the wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. Now, when we say these words, separate, um, and then divorce down here, what are we talking about? Well, uh, in the roman world, it was the same thing in their roman greek context. If you separated, like if you physically left your spouse, that was a divorce. You could divorce without a certificate. You could divorce unilaterally.

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Man or woman, either one could just leave. Or if you own the house, you kick them out and that's the end of the marriage. So when Paul says you shouldn't separate from your husband, he's saying divorce. He's saying you leave, you end the marriage by leaving. And he says, you shouldn't do this. It actually seems like this might have been fairly common at the time. And, um, uh, here's one quote from the time from the first century ad, a, uh, funeral inscription which said, uncommon are marriages which last so long, brought to an end by death, not broken apart by divorce. For it was our happy lot that it should be prolonged to the 41st year without estrangement. So they're rejoicing at how long their marriage lasted. Seneca, um, who was a first century philosopher, he complained that in his greek world, that, um, greek and roman, I mean, they had greek culture, but they were Romans. He complained that there are women who do not number their years by consuls but by husbands. They divorce to marry and they marry to divorce. So we don't know exactly how common it was, but it's a complaint, and it comes from different sources in the first century that it seems like it was a pretty common thing. And when Paul writes, uh, to the Corinthians in particular, they're in a situation where it seems like they're divorcing because they think it's more spiritual to be single and to not have any kind of relations physically. And this is, uh, asceticism creeping its way into the church. And Paul's like, no, don't do that. You're married. Stay married. Like, don't separate from your husband. And if you do, get reconciled, and the same goes for the husband. So, verses ten through eleven, this is about a theoretical marriage where both are Christians. Let me be clear. Paul's giving advice to christians. He's saying, christians, here's your rule, don't cause divorce. That's the rule. It's active in both cases. The wife is the one causing it, should not separate, and then the husband's the one causing it, should not divorce his wife. So don't cause divorce. Um, it's no mention here of what to do if the other spouse leaves you. There's no advice to what if you were the one that was left? Paul doesn't mention that he will come to that later.

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In a christian marriage, you just want to keep it together. I mean, that's the bottom line. So it seems to assume that they're going to listen. Paul just assumes that christians are going to hear him and hear Jesus on this topic, that they're going to follow through, that they're going to come back to their spouse. There's an assumption there. Now, what if they don't listen? What if your spouse left you and the instruction is for them to come back, but they don't listen? What do you do then? We'll come back, come to that later. This is based on Jesus's teaching in the gospels, as we can see. Um, and because of that, I would say, obviously divorce still can occur if there's adultery, at least in the case of sexual immorality, but it's not required in that case and restoration can still happen. But here we go. Here's principle number nine. Put it up on the screen. Are you the cause of an unjustified divorce? Stay single or be reconciled.

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Many of you may be watching are in this situation, you divorced and it wasn't justified, and your options are stay single, which means you can't start relationship with somebody else or be reconciled. In fact, that's the preference. Go be reconciled. Is it possible to be reconciled? There will be other exceptions, but that's the general rule. M that's not to say that if you didn't cause the divorce, you're automatically free, but that's the instruction to the one who caused it. In one corinthians, chapter seven, verse twelve through 16, Paul offers an exception Jesus never talked about. And it is very influential, uh, on my understanding of when someone can get a divorce and how to expand those exceptions to appropriate situations. Verse twelve. Let's look at it now. Verse twelve, it says here, to the rest I say, now, he talked to christian husbands, married to christian wives and all that. But now he says, to the rest I say, I not the Lord. And all that means is that he has no teaching from Jesus directly on this, but he still feels he can weigh in on it as an anointed apostle. And he says that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who's an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. And the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean. But as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, look at this. If the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Um, let's walk through this now. And as we understand this exception, I think it gives us a much fuller understanding of the topic. And it is my personal view that when you look at all of what scripture says about any topic, you get this really full orb teaching that applies to the complexity of life. And here, this is part of that orb orbing, the full orbification that we need when we approach the topic of marriage and divorce. So, verses twelve through 16, it basically says, look, um, here you're in a marriage where one of you is an unbeliever. The Christian in principle is to stay committed. Unless the unbelieving spouse gets a divorce or is wanting that divorce, they're choosing to divorce. It was possible back in the day, as I said earlier, for one spouse to just unilaterally just leave without the consent of the other or to kick them out. Uh, that was possible. I'm sure they could try to argue against it and all that stuff, but it could happen. So. Which means this is about what to do generally. Just when one spouse is like, I'm out of here, I'm out. The question I want to ask, though is this, why is everything different when it's an unbeliever who's not willing to stay with you? I mean, if you took Jesus's word as a strict, hard rule and you didn't think there were any exceptions, even if you thought the Matthew sexual immorality exception was there, but there were no other exceptions. You can't even think of a situation in life where, okay, that's an exception.

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Then Paul can't say what he's saying here, but for some reason he says, if it's an unbeliever and they want to leave you, that's an exception to the general rule of keeping marriages together. And the question is, why an unbeliever? What's unique about an unbeliever? How does this make sense? And there are a couple options, possible principles, and I'm going to go with the second one, but I'll share the first one with you. One is, and some people think this, that a marriage to an unbeliever is just like inherently less binding than a marriage to a christian.

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This is problematic for a couple of reasons. Um, for one, um, Jesus shows that marriage starts in the garden, right? And it's part of God's creation, and it's a thing with mankind. It's not a thing with believers. It's just something about humans that God has made us so that to become one flesh, uh, in no place do we see that non believers being married to non believers is less binding, or can two non believers get divorced more easily? Is that the rule? No, this is definitely not the case.

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This, uh, just doesn't work. And the second possible principle that we're getting is that a person who's beyond the influence of the gospel or church discipline, who is unwilling to continue in a marriage with a believer, that's an exception. And this principle, to me, this seems to be the rule that Paul is actually laying out, he's like, hey, earlier on, if you're a Christian, stay married. If you separate, get back, know, this is the general rule. There's an exception. Jesus talked about sexual immorality. But what if one of the spouses, one of them leaves, and they won't listen to Jesus and they won't listen to Paul, and they won't listen to the church? Well, they're an unbeliever. And so if they're leaving and there's no hope of recovery because of the situation of them not listening to Christ or the church, then it's an exception. You're not bound to that marriage anymore.

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So if they do get a divorce, here's a new question.

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Can they get married to someone else? If you're in this situation, does this not enslaved? I'll put it up again here for you. Does this phrase by Paul, this brother or sister, is not enslaved? Does that mean that they can marry a new person? They can marry someone other than their original spouse? So is it allowing not only divorce, but also remarriage, is the question.

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Um, now, some people are against this, they're against this, and it has to do with the phrase not enslaved. What does it mean? And so let me make the case against remarriage here, and then I'll build the case for it so I can bring you along in the debate again. This is the exhausting long video. I know the short video will come eventually, and, um, maybe that's what you want to wait for. Um, but, uh, I think that some of us need to know these debates, and we need to know the right answers and hear them thoughtfully. So, again, there's a video map there, so you can bounce around below. Um, the screen here, there's in the description, so you can bounce around to the spots you need the most. But here's the debate on what not enslaved means in one corinthians 715. And does it allow you to get remarried if your unbelieving partner wants to leave?

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Um, so those, against my view, that it lets you get remarried, they say the phrase not in bondage or not enslaved. That phrase could just be referring to not being bound to the spouse and therefore being able to divorce, but not permission to marry someone else. So it's a very specialized use of not bound, but this is unlikely. If unilateral divorce is a thing, then that means in which it was in roman times. So what that means is that they're being given permission to let the person leave, but you can't stop them anyways. Like, if your spouse left you in ancient Rome, you couldn't stop them. It wasn't like with the jewish man in know, in ancient Israel where the guy could say, I refuse to give you a divorce certificate. And the wife's like, but I just want to leave. And he's like, no, I refuse. A woman in the roman culture could just leave, and he had no control over it. So then it means that you're not in bondage. Means, like, you have permission to not keep them there when you couldn't keep them there anyways. It just doesn't make any sense. It actually turns the phrase not enslaved into, like, a nonsense thing that has no impact on the people. Another argument that when Paul says the believers not enslaved or not bound, that this does not free them for remarriage, is a greek argument. So it has to do with the word Paul uses here in this text. He says not enslaved. And that is dulao. Uh, is, um, the electrical form of the word dulao, which is to be enslaved. That's why we use that strong word enslaved here, like in the ESV. But Paul, usually when he's talking about marriage and separation or divorce and remarriage, he uses the word deo, or the root word deo, and different uses of that word. So this at first caught me because I went, huh, huh? And I check. And, you know, Paul does usually say deo for marriage and divorce. He uses that in that context. But here he says du lao, which is a much stronger word, and he says they're not enslaved. So the problem is. That's a neat observation, but the application of the observation is unjustified. The application is what. What does it mean then? It just means they're not enslaved to what? Pursue restoration of the marriage. They're not enslaved to. They can't keep them there because they can unilaterally divorce. So that's not even a thing. So all of a sudden, Paul's phrase not enslaved means almost nothing. It means almost nothing. So here's some things against that view. Reasons why, I think when Paul says the brother or sister is not enslaved, it means that they can get married to whoever else they want as long as they're believers. That's the rule for christians. Right. Du la'o is used, according to Wayne Grudom. Um, and I have his work linked below as well. Du la'o is used in some extra biblical text to refer to divorce. So you can't just say that Dulao doesn't have in its range of use the issue of divorce, because it does, at least in some texts. In ancient Greek, though, it's not in scripture in that way. But they're still speaking Greek. They're not speaking scripture Greek. Like, they can only use the words the way they're used in the Old Testament or something. Um, also against that view is the strangeness of the view. Right. So now you're allowed to violate your vows and your obligations to take care of and love and provide for that person. You're continually allowed to violate those that you're allowed to do, but you're still obligated to the marriage. I don't understand this category of it's okay to be divorced, but you don't have to get back together. It's, like, not necessary to even try. That doesn't really make sense. This category is unheard of into Jews and Romans. They never would have thought something like this existed. So, yeah, that's weird. Another strike against the no remarriage view in one corinthians 715 is that the ruling means nothing, because saying you're not enslaved under that terminology, with that interpretation, it doesn't change anything because there was unilateral divorce. Another strike against this is the meaning du lao. Okay. Deo is what maybe you'd expect Paul to write. The believer is not deo. They're not bound to the marriage anymore. Now they're free to remarry. That's what Paul talks about in Romans and later on in one corinthians seven, when he says that if a woman's husband dies, she's not bound. She's not Deo.

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Okay, that's true. But here's the thing. Dulao is a stronger version of binding. Right? Deo is like, uh, you're bound. You're attached to one another, like, contractually. But Dulao is an even stronger thing. He's not only saying you're not Deo, he's saying, you're not Dulao. You're not enslaved. In other words, the proponents of the no remarriage view in one corinthians 715 are effectively saying, you're not enslaved, but you're still bound. And that's their understanding, their handling of the Greek. I don't think this fits with just a common sense view of one Corinthians seven. If you're not enslaved, what are you? Bound?

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Hey, mom, good news. I'm not enslaved anymore. Oh, that's great. So you're still bound, right? Like, nobody would think this. It's natural to say, if you're not enslaved, what are you? You know it. Free. You are free if the brother is not enslaved. If the sister's not enslaved, then she's free from what? From the marriage. That's what she's free from. And therefore free to marry another. In jewish and roman divorce certificates, the concept of being free from your spouse, freedom from them, means that you're free to marry another. It always means that. In Paul, it means that as well. Here in one corinthians and in Romans seven, he uses the concept of free from your spouse, meaning that you're free to marry another. I think that any ambiguity about Dulao and Deo should be solved by how the original audience would hear it. And I don't think any original audience would hear and go, well, you're not enslaved, but you're still bound. Like, I don't think anybody would think that. Craig Keener points out, uh, that jewish and roman divorce certificates actually use the phrase free to simply mean free to marry another. In his book, which is linked below, uh, Keener says the following. I'll quote it to you. The ancient jewish marriage contracts, we have found, agree, in the context of divorce, free meant precisely that a woman was free to remarry and meant nothing else than this. If Paul meant that remarriage was not permitted, he said precisely the opposite of what he meant. No first century reader would have derived the meaning that some modern scholars have read into Paul's words. Perhaps because no first century reader felt that Jesus's general teaching was meant to apply to every specific case that's page 61 in his book, and marries another. And I think that that's a really strong point against the no remarriage view. Um, there's also no mention of staying unmarried. Right. In verse eleven, he says, hey, if you're a Christian and you leave your spouse, just stay unmarried or get remarried. But here, he doesn't qualify in his instructions to the believer who has an unbeliever who wants to depart, he doesn't say, and stay unmarried. So I think that unless he says it, then we would assume the other is true. In some jewish texts, um, actually, divorce was likened to emancipation from slavery because of the similar wording and procedure for both. And, um, this is important because the argument against remarriage is like saying, hey, the word enslaved doesn't relate to marriage. So this isn't really about, um, being separated from your marriage, obligations from that person. But in jewish thinking, marriage and slavery were conceptually related. Now, this doesn't mean they thought marriage was slavery. Okay? That's not what they're saying. They didn't have. Like, we get triggered by all these types of terms in our culture, so we don't really think sometimes even clearly, about them. Uh, they felt fine connecting the two.

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And, um, you can read about that in instrument Brewer's book. He has tons of really interesting insights about that kind of thing. So not under bondage in the context of chapter seven, or not enslaved, it seems to refer to not being bound to the marriage. This we see in other places in chapter seven, verse 27.

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Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. So bound and free. The concept of bound and free, though the words are not necessarily dulao, it's deo there. But the idea of freedom is connected to remarriage, uh, or being at least able to marry another. In verse 39, we get the same thing. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she's free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. That's actually the way it was written in the certificates. The jewish ones, they said, you. You're free to marry whoever you want as long as they're jewish. That's what they would say. And so, contextually, it fits what Paul is saying. And then it leaves us with one question. Oh, I meant to put that on the screen for you guys. There it is. Now, you've been able to read it very carefully. Um, sorry. You got a Bible? You can look it up. Um, why does Paul then use the more extreme word doula instead of the more common for marriage and divorce? Deo. Why does he use dulao? And I think this gets to the heart of the issue, maybe because being bound to a marriage where somebody wants to reject you, wants to separate from you, and wants to cut off the marriage, somebody who will not listen to the church, who will not listen to Jesus, and who will not heed the instructions of God. Being bound to that kind of marriage is more like slavery than the normal marriage relationship. And Paul's like, I'm not calling you to that situation. God's not calling you to that situation where you are enslaved, ultimately to your spouse. That is not the calling. That, I think, is why he's using dulao, the stronger word, enslaved, as opposed to, um, deo.

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So there's a major point here. I'm saying remarriage for a second exception. That Jesus never mentioned is morally permissible based on the interpretation I've just given. In one corinthians seven, you can remarry when you have this obstinate person, um, who doesn't want to be with you, and they're not subject to Jesus in the church.

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So let's talk a little bit about this additional exception. Additional exception, because this affects us in a lot of ways. First, um, off, we'll just point out that in verse twelve of one corinthians seven, I mentioned this briefly earlier, but Paul introduces this, um, as not the Lord, but I, uh, verse twelve, there it is.

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To the rest, I say, not I or I, not the Lord. Uh, then he goes on to say, like, yeah, you can have a divorce and you're free to remarry in this scenario. Now, here's what's really interesting. This is important, right? Paul offers an instruction to apply to the lives of christians, but it's a scenario Jesus never dealt with at all. And Paul felt like he had the ability to read an additional exception because he, it seems, assumed that Jesus's strict rule wasn't meant to apply to every conceivable scenario. That is huge.

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He did not see Jesus'teaching as applicable directly to the scenario in hand. It required another decision from another source. This means, guys, that the strict view of Jesus on marriage doesn't actually work. The strictest view applies Jesus'comments on marriage to any and all circumstances with no qualifications. Right? But Paul doesn't even do this. He saw a circumstance that was unique and it was not addressed by the general rule Jesus gave. And so he brings an instruction under the inspiration of the spirit for the church. Here's the point. Here's the point. Hear me here, because this is a big deal. And it took me a long time to get to this point. I mean, in my own studies, in my own research and thought and prayer on this stuff, if there's a situation that is unique, that is just unique, it's just strange and weird like this one, we can have it implicit permission to approach it without the strictest view on marriage that some take. We can say Jesus's rule is the general rule, but this situation seems different, so we need to consider it individually. I think this gives us real space for divorce, not only for the obstinate unbeliever who doesn't want to be married, but for things like abuse or other extreme and life. We get weird, crazy situations that people are in that you're like, man, I don't think Jesus had that in mind when he was giving this rule.

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Um, and I think this gives us space for those types of things.

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Um, okay, so here's some principles, principles that we've gathered. Now, if an unbeliever. Principle number ten. If an unbeliever wants, uh, I don't know why I wrote it that way. If the unbeliever wants to leave the believer or just leaves them, the believer may allow it and be free to remarry. If they want to leave or just leave, just leaves them, they can allow it and be free to remarry.

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Can we assume that attempts at reconciliation are made? Of course we can. Because you're a Christian, can we assume that you're trying to take up your cross and follow Jesus, that you're turning to the cheek, you're forgiving, you're doing all those things. Yes. Right. But if they want to leave, then you can come to this point. Then, principle eleven, jesus's rule has exceptions not explicitly mentioned. Therefore we can be open to new circumstances.

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That's huge. That is a really big deal. And I think that it's the whole teaching of scripture on the topic. So let's ask a new question.

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The new question is this.

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Let's say that I'm a Christian and I'm married to a Christian. Is there any scenario where I can treat that Christian as a non Christian? Or I'll put it this way. When can a christian spouse be treated like a nonchristian and then covered by one? Corinthians 715. And I think it can happen, and I'm going to build a case for it now.

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So can the unbeliever situation be properly applied to other situations, like a believer who abandons their spouse or is unwilling to stay married? And there's a few things I'll point out. Um, here. One is going to be, uh, Dr. Wayne Grudom. Uh, Wayne Grudom recently changed his stance on divorce and remarriage. And he wrote about it in a paper, um, called.

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I'm trying to remember the name of the paper. I have it linked below, but it's something like, um. Um, exceptions. Why? I now believe there's more than two, uh, about marriage and divorce. It's something like that, man. Anyway, it's linked below. You guys can check it out. The exact title escapes me, but it gets into a lot of greek stuff. And I'll let you read his paper. I'll say this, that summaries of his paper can actually miss some of the nuance he's actually trying to get at and when I first heard summaries of it, I thought, man, that sounds kind of weak. But as you read the paper more carefully and thoughtfully, you realize it's more careful and thoughtful. Basically, it goes like this.

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The phrase, um, in one corinthians 715, and I'm going to put it on the screen for you in such cases. This is a greek phrase, and this might sound like a little deal to people, but it's made thoughtfully, is that last word? Cases is plural in such cases. And basically, I'm going to try to summarize as best I can Dr. Gurum's work here. Um, he says, if Paul wrote in such a case, it would mean only in this exact circumstances. The brother is not enslaved. In the exact circumstance of an unbeliever who's going to separate, then you're not enslaved. You can get remarried, whatever.

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But Paul wrote in such cases, and that is a different greek phrase that has specific meaning when you use the plural there. And what it means is that Paul's gonna. He's open to extending this, um, instruction to things that are like this, other situations that you say, yeah, this is kind of like that, right? These are exceptional circumstances. Now, he builds this case pretty strongly. He surveys hundreds of years of literature to find every time that this exact phrase in such cases is used in the Greek. And he shows that it's a category. It's not just an instance. It's not just when an unbeliever leaves. It's rather. Or things like that. Um, so my conservative view of it is this. I would not use Wayne Grudem's case to allow for more exceptions by itself, I think it's not enough information by itself.

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I do, however, think that I have several reasons I'm about to share with you on why you can extend other exceptions, know, proper justification for divorce. And I think that Wayne Grudom's case helps strengthen that. It adds weight to this case.

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Um, well, because what I'm about to share with you right now, and that is that there are clear teachings in the scripture that sometimes believers are to be treated as unbelievers. Whether, uh, they're genuine believers or not is irrelevant. They're at least proclaiming they're believers, and they're to be treated as if they are unbelievers. And if that's the case, then the first Corinthians seven passage can be applied to a situation where both parties claim to be christian, but one of them wants to depart, and the innocent party can be free from that marriage. And here's the circumstance where that's the case.

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Matthew, chapter 18.

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Now, in Matthew 18, Jesus talks about a circumstance where a believer can be treated as an unbeliever. And we'll actually start in verse 15.

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He says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Step one. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. So seek reconciliation, confront them. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So that now you bring others with you, you bring a friend, you bring your dad, you bring your brother, your sister. You bring, uh, their dad or something. You bring other people. Use wisdom, uh, to try to confront them about the sin issues. These are obviously major sin issues. This isn't like they just hurt your feelings. Then verse 17, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. So then we get, like, local body discipline, confronting, going on. Hey, you've been abusing your wife, and we're confronting you, and we're going to bring this to you now. Um, in that case, I would actually call the police in addition. But if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.

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So this is a situation of church discipline where a person who is proclaiming they're a christian because they won't listen to Jesus and they won't listen to the church, they're to be treated as a nonchristian. Paul talks about this as well, in an effort to keep this video from becoming 18 hours long. I won't cover it in detail, but in one Corinthians chapter five, the entire chapter is about church discipline and treating a sinning unbeliever who will not repent, whose. It's gross sin, it's serious sin, and he will not repent. You are now to treat him as a non believer.

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Let me give you one more verse that strengthens this case and it ties it directly to marriage. One Timothy five eight.

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But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for the members of his house, he has denied the faith and he's what? He's worse than an unbeliever.

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So here we have. I mean, if a guy's doing this and he won't say that, uh, the husband's starving and will not provide for his own family, and then the wife's, like, going to the church and, like, hey, help me. Help me here. If he won't listen to her, to the body, he's to be treated as an unbeliever. That's the bottom line. So let me break this down, how this actually works in real life. Like, what do you do step by step? Okay, it goes like this. Step one, you have a christian spouse who wants a divorce. They claim they're Christian, and they want to divorce you. Step one, you deal with your own issues. First, you get the plank out of your eye. You do Galatians six one. Um, if anyone's caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourselves lest you to be tempted. So you deal with yourself. First thing you do is you deal with bitterness, anger, resentment, desire, um, for harm or malice towards the other person. You deal with all that stuff between you and the Lord, and you can come, uh, you open and honest and repentant. If you've been contributing sin into the situation, that's your first step. Step two, you work with your spouse. You go to them. Hey, let's work on this. Hey. I want to offer forgiveness for this, but I need to see you making differences, making changes. Um, I want to stay married. I want to stay together. And you try to work with your spouse. Step three, it won't work. You bring in one or two others, Christians, to try to help bring the pressure of, um, christian commitment to them. If that doesn't work, you involve the local church. Step four, if that doesn't work, leaders agree he is to be or she is to be treated as an unbeliever. And now one corinthians 715 applies. They're beyond Jesus's lordship, beyond the church's influence. Major attempts at reconciliation have been made. They want a divorce, they can divorce you, and you are now free to marry another.

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I think that's a consistent interpretation of scripture.

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Does this conflict with one corinthians seven, verses ten and eleven? If we look at those before, some would say, there's a conflict I'm creating here.

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He says to the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And the husband should not divorce his wife. Uh, no, actually, here in one corinthians 710 and eleven, it's the husband and the wife who are being given instructions. But what if they don't listen? What if the wife who's separated won't listen? The husband who's leaving his wife won't listen. Well, then they can eventually be treated as an unbeliever and be covered by 715.

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What do you do if the local church won't help you?

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They won't do church discipline, they won't get involved, or they won't listen. I think you do the best you can. You try to take those steps and you do the best you can. You walk with wisdom, get counsel, and you may still end up having to treat them as an unbeliever, depending on the scenario. Um, how much time has to go by? I'm not going to answer that question. Uh, how much time has to go by before you could look at getting remarried or look at building another relationship? I don't know how to answer that question. Every situation is so different. So, uh, God give you wisdom, and what if you want to wait? What if they've left you? But you're like, I just want to stay single and wait, and I'm hoping for restoration. Then God bless you. That's a great thing. Go for it. You're not enslaved, though. That's your choice. You're not enslaved. It's a choice you're making. It's not being forced upon you. I just wouldn't put it as a requirement. So this leads us to principle twelve in our long list of principles, biblical principles. The rule for unbelievers can be applied to proclaimed believers if they can be biblically treated as unbelievers. This doesn't mean they are unbelievers. It means that we're allowed to treat them as such.

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I think this is good Bible study, in my opinion. So let me go to the next question. Next question is this. And we're going to hit the what abouts now. Okay.

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Uh, I'll still have more in one corinthians seven, but we're going to start to really nuts and bolts now. We've covered so much theology and so much scripture and historical insights and greek stuff. Now we're going to ask about life. Right? Practical life application. What about abuse or extreme situations?

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Uh, first let me say this. The answer I'm giving right now does not apply in most situations. It doesn't apply to most marriages.

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Please guard your heart. It's easy to fake that you're abused or to get a victim mentality where after you've decided you want a divorce, all of a sudden you have this radically distorted retelling of the story. And, um, we don't want to do that. Right. But I can't control that. I also don't want to victimize the abused, to avoid people doing that. So I'm not going to do that. We are called as christians to turn the other cheek, to forgive 70 times seven, to be gracious and loving and kind, and to just go the extra mile. But we are not called to just sit there and stay in a marriage of abuse. My 13th principle, and I'm going to tell you the principle first this time, and then I'll give you biblical reasons for it. Radical danger or harm justifies separation and divorce.

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Radical danger or harm, it justifies not only separation, but also divorce. Now I'm going to give you a number of examples in the scripture and then show you how to apply that to divorce. Examples where any kind of radical harm or danger, it justifies, generally speaking, breaking rules. So, um, I know that sounds, this is potentially abused, what I'm about to tell you, but I think it's very true.

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Um, let's go to Matthew twelve, verse three.

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Jesus, we know the rule of the Old Testament. Like, maybe you know this, right? You don't eat the show bread. The show bread is for the temple, and it's for the priests only that only they can eat it. But in Matthew twelve three, Jesus says something where there was an exception to that rule. And he says, have you not read when David, what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and he ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests.

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So the principle seems to be, well, David's life is in danger. He's being chased by Saul. He needs food to continue on his journey and save his own life.

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And Jesus seems to be approving of his eating of the showbread. But there's a law against it because this is an exception to that law. There's a lot of other examples of these types of things. Matthew twelve, verses five through seven. We'll just scroll down a bit. Jesus talks about this and the Sabbath. Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests of the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless, right? Because they're laboring in the temple on the Sabbath.

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This is interesting, isn't it? They profane, but they're guiltless. And then he goes on to explain the principle they didn't understand. He says, I tell you something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the son of man is lord of the Sabbath.

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When a woman or husband, it's not as often common, but it does happen when a woman leaves or flees or a guy, because of abuse of themselves or of the children, and they have to get out of dodge to tell them that they are required to stay faithful to that marriage and to not divorce and to stick with that person. I think it condemns the guiltless, and I think that it's violating the God desires mercy and not sacrifice principle. So if you're saving someone or you're healing life, let me give you another example here. Um, same chapter, Matthew twelve, verses eleven and twelve.

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Violating the Sabbath, so to speak. At least their view of the Sabbath, their overly strict view of the Sabbath, just like some people's over strict view of marriage.

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Matthew 1211, it says, which, um, one of who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will take hold of it and lift it out. And of course they would. They would all have done that. Then he goes on to say of how much more value is the man than the sheep?

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So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Yeah, don't work on the Sabbath, but you can do good on the Sabbath. There's some great good deed that needs to be done. Well, it is good to encourage, uh, a woman to depart from a seriously abusive situation, or a man or kids for that matter. That's a general good.

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So unless you're saving or healing life, right, then you have a new exception. The exception here is about human life and human, um, health. And that's what the abuse issue is all about. Ah, can someone depart a marriage when there's abuse like that going on? There's more examples. Um, we've already talked about some of these, right? But in Luke 18, Jesus is like, hey, honor your father and mother. But in Luke 14, he's like, you have to hate your father and mother. Well, he doesn't mean actually hate, but he's like saying, yeah, it would be perceived as dishonoring them. But the greater rule is following me, not them. We're to obey government, but in acts, they disobey the government. And they keep preaching Jesus anyways because there's a general rule, obey the government. But there are exceptions to that rule that are appropriate. You're not to eat unclean food in the scripture. But Ezekiel, he was directly told to eat unclean food by God. So, um, if you have a direct instruction, then you follow that you're not to fail. Gathering on the Sabbath in the Old Testament. But if you're ceremonially unclean, you can't gather on the Sabbath. So there's an exception to the rule. You're to respect your.

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If, you know, if your husband's plotting to murder somebody, you would naturally go against that. Um, Abigail in the story of Nabal, she seems to disrespect and go behind her husband's back, but she's lauded for it. She actually saves his life and the lives of her servants by doing it. And so saving life seems to be a general exception to lots of rules. Um, there's all kinds of other stuff we could look at. Um, yeah, there's all kinds of other examples I could give. You're to turn the other cheek and take up the cross. But Jesus also says in Matthew 1023, if they persecute you, flee. Well, that's not exactly turning the other cheek. Yeah, but that's because you got to have some wisdom here. That's why. And again, finally, to get to where we are today, you're not to divorce except for adultery, I would say, unless essential health is at risk. After all, this is the commonality among so many examples of exceptions to the rule in the Bible and from the mouth of Jesus, it alone doesn't answer all the questions. But as a principle that we can say, we can obey this principle with wisdom. When life is at stake, when serious health concerns are at stake, yes, you can get out of dodge. You could flee, you could hide. You could do whatever you need to do.

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Jesus's instruction in the scripture is based on getting the heart of marriage. Therefore, uh, we can evaluate his instruction as a principle about the heart of marriage, not an unbending law that doesn't allow for exceptions. Jesus does this with other issues, like the Sabbath. And Paul offers an exception. Jesus offers multiple exceptions. We can extend that to abuse, I think, easily.

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So, to put another way, Jesus'similar understanding of exceptions for life or health, when understanding the heart of the Sabbath or other laws, it seems to indicate that there's at least room for considering that the same m kind of exceptions would exist in Jesus'teaching. On the topic of marriage. It's consistent with Jesus, it's consistent with the Old Testament, it's how Jews at the time would have applied it.

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Um, according to instone Brewer and Craig Keener, the Jews of the time would have assumed there were exceptions to any rule that Jesus had given. They would just assume there's other exceptions, and it's consistent with compassion. And probably, perhaps that's what Paul meant when he says, we're not enslaved, we're not talking about making marriage a slavery situation.

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It's not meant to be that. And so in such cases where marriage is becoming slavery, we are not enslaved. So, new question. If you divorce for abuse or extreme situations, can you get remarried?

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Can you get remarried to someone else? Um, can we extend from separation to remarriage? Uh, and I think there are several possibilities for this. I'm going to offer them to you three. One, we could say that abuse destroys the relationship, just like sexual immorality does. And I think there's legitimacy to that, especially if it's sexual abuse. Um, adultery has ruined the marriage. It's destroyed it fundamentally. And so abuse can fundamentally destroy it. So that may perhaps be one way to validate that. Another thing is that, um, if we just get the principle that a justified divorce always allows for remarriage, which seems to be the case in one corinthians 715, and even with the words of Jesus, he was arguing against unjustified divorce. And I would say any justified divorce, properly justified, would allow for remarriage. I think that that alone is, uh, a strong case. Another thing we could say to allow people who separated or divorced for abuse to remarry, uh, under biblical principles with christian truth, is to say that the abuse of the spouse is the equivalent of the first corinthians 715 situation. So, reminding you now, one corinthians 715, if the unbeliever is not willing to stay with you, then you're not enslaved, you're not bound to the marriage, you're free.

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How is abuse like that? Well, let me offer you, and it should be obvious, I think. But basically this, the separation that's caused by the abuse is a separation of the marriage that is the fault of the abuser. In that sense, it's the same as one Corinthians 715, if this person departs from you, it's on them. They've departed, then you're not enslaved. Well, if they drive you away with abusive behavior and you have to flee, then it's on them. And if they are then unwilling to submit to Christ and repent, submit to the church, then they can be treated as an unbeliever. So they're an unbeliever who's caused the separation between you. To me, it's a similar situation as one Corinthians 715.

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So we get principle 14, any behavior causing proper separation can, if reconciliations refused by the offender's continued acts, properly lead to divorce, because this is, in effect, the same as the first Corinthians 715 scenario, and it's a long one. Um, this means it would lead to divorce and remarriage. That's the bottom line. That's the bottom line. Right now, I'm just going to plow through the rest of the teaching in one Corinthians seven on this topic. And if you're watching this video straight through, then I'm amazed at you and wonder if you're even able to still retain information. Uh, it's not meant to be viewed in one sitting, but at any rate, here we go. Other quick insights from one Corinthians chapter seven. Let's, uh, go to the passage.

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And don't worry, I will summarize all these principles again at the end of the video to just bring us all back onto the same page. But I want to do full diligence here, so. One Corinthians 717.

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Here it says, only, let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned him to and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? This is about when you get saved. Were you already circumcised? You're living like a jew. Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision like, just live it out. You were under the law before. Keep following it. Fine. You weren't. Don't. Um. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God, each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.

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Were, uh, you a bond servant? When called, don't be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who's called in the Lord as a bond servant is a freed man of the Lord. Likewise, he who is free when he is called is a bond servant of Christ. You were bought with a price. Do not become bond servants of men. So, brothers, and this is his point, he's named a bunch of examples. Then he says, look, whatever condition each was called, let him remain there. Uh, let him remain with God. Now, he applies that to marriage. Now, concerning the betrothed or the unmarried people, he says, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who, by the Lord's mercy, is trustworthy. The question here is, should single people get married or not. And that's kind of the thing that Paul's addressing. And of course they're leaning towards no. Paul's going to give a careful answer and he says, um, now, concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy, is trustworthy. When he speaks of the Lord's mercy, Paul means his apostolic calling. So this is still authoritative. Scripture verse 26. I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Don't seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. And this is a, uh, verse we're going to talk about in a little more detail. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.

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What is meant by free from a wife does he mean if you're divorced, you can get married to somebody else? So, um, there's three options of what he means here, and I'm not going to labor this, because my interpretations don't actually depend on it. But one, he could mean free means never married. Free means are you free from a wife, meaning you're single, you're never married. Um, that fits the context. He's talking about betrothed or, uh, unmarried people. Um, so that could kind of work. But free is actually, in the Greek, the word free there is loosed. Loosed, uh, has to do with being released from something. And so it's a little bit weird to translate it. Free, actually.

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Second, um, possibility is that free means any divorce. Uh, this fits the word loosed. Like, are you divorced from a wife, don't seek a wife, but if you marry, you haven't sinned. Is that what Paul's saying? Well, against this is that actually violates the command of Jesus, that you're not free. If you're divorced, you're not always free to go marry somebody else. Divorce doesn't inherently free you. Um, so I think that violates Jesus, and it violates what Paul was saying earlier in one corinthians seven. So there's a third option, and I lean this way, is that when he says, are you free from a wife? Don't seek a wife. But if you do marry, um, you have not sinned.

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It could be that it means anybody who's actually free from a previous relationship by valid divorce, not invalid divorce or immoral divorce. But by valid divorce or a person who's never been married, it could refer to that. Um, that would fit the word. It fits the overall teaching of Jesus and Paul. It doesn't change anything about our theology. I wouldn't be basing my teaching off that interpretation.

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Um, but, yeah, so I lean towards three. Uh, the strike against. That was the next verse. But if you do marry, you've not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she's not sinned. That implies that the first person if you marry is a betrothed, someone who's engaged. Uh, and almost every young person was already engaged at that point. Uh, they got engaged very, very young, and years later would get married. Their parents were arranging marriages.

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Um, but some interpreters say that the phrase betrothed woman shouldn't actually be a betrothed woman, it should just say betrothed. So then they interpret it as verse 28, Paul saying, if you are, um, uh, divorced rightly, and you get married, it's okay.

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And if you are betrothed or engaged and you get married, it's also okay. You can do it anyway. That's a whole nother debate.

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Um, the principle here, though, is this. If you take my interpretation of Paul, there, anyone properly free from a marriage is also free to remarry if they choose. But this is already true from the principles we've gathered earlier. So with or without one corinthians seven, this is true. It follows from Jesus's teaching and Paul's. Um, but it is a principle I'm going to hold to, with or without my interpretation of one corinthians seven. All right, let's plow through the rest of one corinthians seven. We really just want to get to the very end of it, um, for what it says about death, uh, of a spouse. This is what I mean, brothers, that the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided, and the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord. Um, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. If anyone thinks. And basically he's saying, let me summarize. He's saying, um, they were going through famine at the time, it seems in one corinthians, or when one corinthians was written in Corinth, and he's like, look, things are hard right now, and it's going to be difficult for you right now, in the present time to get married. But also there's a spiritual concern that the single person has more time to serve the Lord and the married person has less. So then he goes on, says, but if anyone thinks he's not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong and it has to be, let him do as he wishes. Let them marry. It is no sin. Marriage is never a sin unless there's something sinful about it, right? It's never been a sin. But whoever's firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity, but having his desire under control and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as is betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries is betrothed, does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. Marriage is good. Singleness is even better when it comes to serving the king. That's not meant to apply to everybody's life, to make them single. It's just meant to give us a good way to evaluate our options. Verse 39. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord. Yet in my judgment, she's happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I, too, have the spirit of God. So there's some compelling reasons for her to stay single. But she's free to marry. This is the clear teaching of Paul. Your husband dies, you're free to marry someone else. Um, usually, uh, the husband would die first in that culture, even in our day, that's also true. So what's interesting here, though, is this. It's just the idea of being bound and free, bound and free. And that gives us, again, it gives us weight, that first corinthians 715, not enslaved. It means she's in the same situation as if her husband was dead. It's the same principle, though. In Romans, death, uh, ends marriage and allows for remarriage. All right, now it begins. We're going to get into the topical section of this video. I've covered some topics earlier, but this is just topic after topic. We're going to do all the what abouts. What about this? What about that? The first one, using the scriptures we covered already and then adding some more were helpful. Um, we're going to ask this question. Who is Mike Winger to disagree with the church fathers? Um, this is actually a pretty profound question. It's basically said that the early church fathers better understood the New Testament and the words of Jesus, and that they unanimously agreed that one could only remarry after the death of a spouse. In other words, adultery does not allow free marriage. And if an unbeliever leaves you or, um, abuse, you're driven away because of abuse. And, um, they won't repent that you still can't remarry. Um, now, Gordon Winham, who is a huge proponent of the no remarriage view, he depends heavily on the church fathers, very heavily on the church fathers. To, uh, some guys like me, it's really interesting. I care, but they're not scripture. Right. These are guys that came later. Anyway, I wouldn't find myself leaning on this. I know, like John Piper, who has basically the same view as Gordon Wynham, I think. Um, maybe not in every particular, but he doesn't depend on the church fathers at all. But Gordon Wynnham, it's a big, big deal to him. And that's, of course, because John Piper's reformed, um.

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Uh, views. Uh, now, first, the question we have to ask is this. Is it really true that the church fathers were unanimous in saying that only in the case of the death of a spouse could someone marry another person? Well, Origen, in the third century, he said the following, quote. Some, even of the rulers of the church have permitted a woman to remarry even while her husband was still living.

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Now, Origen was opposed to this view. So he writes like you'd expect, he ridicules that perspective, but it may show at least a break in unanimity. Origen was aware of a number of rulers in the church leaders that allowed a woman to remarry while her husband was still living. He doesn't say when or under what conditions, but apparently it wasn't totally unanimous. Ambrosiaster in the fourth century, he taught that desertion by an unbeliever was grounded for not only divorce, but for remarriage. Let me read that quote. Marriage. This is from Ambrosia. Marriage, which is without devotion towards God, is not valid, and therefore it is not a sin for a person who's divorced on account of God to marry someone else. For the unbeliever, in departing, remember, the unbeliever is the one who left, is seen to sin both against God and against the marriage because he's not been willing to have a marriage ruled by the reverence, by reverence for God. Therefore, marital fidelity need not be maintained in the case of someone who has departed so as not to accept that the God of the Christians is the author of marriage.

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So, um, he also went on to say that, ah, a man could remarry after divorcing a wife for adultery. But Ambrosiastor said, a woman, if she divorced her husband for adultery, she couldn't remarry. Why? Because he wasn't basing his actual teachings exactly off scripture. Jesus and Paul both applied all the rules equally to men and women. So that's weird, right? And I'm not suggesting we follow Ambrosia. We're just saying, look, here's a guy, um, in fact, David and Stone brewer, who has a lot of interesting insights, says this. Although Ambrosia was expressing a view that was not preserved earlier, he did not defend himself against detractors. He appeared to believe that this was a perfectly normal exegesis that the reader would accept without much persuasion. Perhaps he represented a sizable minority. So we're not saying that there is no majority, um, of church fathers views, but rather, it's not necessarily unanimous.

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Um, Epiphanius, in the early fifth century, he allowed for remarriage after divorce for fornication. Let me read a quote from him.

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He who cannot keep continents after the death of his first wife, or who has separated from his wife for a valid motive as fornication or some other misdeed. If he takes another wife or the wife takes another husband, the divine word does not condemn him nor exclude him from the church or the life, but she tolerates it rather on account of his weakness. So he considered it like a concession, but it was something that he allowed, and he seems to be closer to modern views. Epiphanius, in that perspective, Augustine. In the early fifth century, he wrote the following. Nor is it clear from scripture whether a man who has left his wife because of adultery, which he is certainly permitted to do so, is himself an adulterer if he marries again. So Augustine at least says, hey, it's not clear to me that a guy who gets remarried or probably would apply to a woman. Um, is an adulterer if the divorce was caused by adultery itself. So he at least leaves it open for that. Um, David and Stone Brewer summarizes some of the church fathers on this by saying this. Some fathers even discussed the possibility of other grounds for divorce. Origen pointed out that there were other offenses that were more serious than adultery, such as the attempted poisoning of a partner or killing of a child while the partner was absent. He also pointed out that a man may cause a divorce by sexual neglect of his wife. He did not, however, suggest that these should be additional grounds for divorce. He made the surprising decision to leave it to the individual's conscience. Interesting thing on origin there. So I'm not saying there's no majority. There is a majority of views, although they don't come to their conclusions the same way, they don't state them the same way, but generally they're opposed to remarriage after divorce. That's generally true of the church fathers, but it's overstated by people like Gordon Wynnham in their works. Um, here's the next question we're going to ask about the church fathers.

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Was the church father's view at least the majority view? Was it the result of a proper understanding of the New Testament and Jesus and Jesus and the apostles, or is it a result of growing asceticism and other unbiblical influences in these men? And I think it's the latter. We do see, for instance, early on in the first century, before the church fathers ever show up, because they're not really fathers of the church, right.

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You're 200 years after Jesus. You're not like a father of the church. Not really. That's just what we call you for some weird, traditional reason. Um, but we do see ungodly attitudes in the first century before these guys ever show up, right? In one corinthians seven, we see it in three verses, verse one, verse 28, verse 36, where Paul was fighting against attitudes of restricting marriage or even abstaining from sexual relations within marriage. This was a bad thing. Paul's like, don't do that. That's not what you're called to do. And so Paul fights against that. In one corinthians six, he's fighting against blatant sexual immorality. In one corinthians seven, he's fighting against, um, a low view of marriage and a low view of the goodness of sexual relations within marriage. One Timothy four three, Paul warns about, uh, a false teaching that will come from those who quote forbid marriage. That this is a doctrine of demons, to be forbidding people to get married. In Colossians two, verse 21 through 23, Paul also warns about aesthetic, specifically calls them aesthetic teachings, which would be these kinds of things like where you devalue marriage or you make singleness, um, not just spiritually more useful, but you make marriage, like, bad. Right? And that's what was happening. William Heth said the following. Responding to, um, Gordon Wynham on this topic of the Church fathers, William Heth said most of these writers also took a very dim view of sexual relations within marriage. The church fathers. Much like the aesthetics Paul confronted in Corinth, in effect, most church fathers said marital relations are only for begetting children. And even then you'd better not enjoy it. This was hardly the teaching of Paul. What we're saying is that there seems to have been a beginning point in the first century of weird teachings that we see affecting the church fathers later on. Augustine, in the fourth and fifth century, writing in the late fourth, early fifth century, he actually supported chastity during marriage, which Paul clearly refutes in one corinthians seven. Let me read to you what Augustine said and why I don't want to take his advice on when divorce is okay and remarriage. He says, at any rate, husbands and wives are to be regarded as more truly happy if by mutual consent, they are able to abstain from all carnal intercourse with each other. Whether they do this only after they've procreated children, or whether they are foregoing the joy of earthly offspring, they are not disobeying. That priest, which forbids the dismissal of a wife for a husband, does not put away his wife if he lives with her according to the spirit, but not according to the flesh, except that marriage is a flesh union. Like you take away all of that, you've cut out a really important part of what marriage actually is. Um, Augustine, uh, he actually took Matthew 532, where Jesus has his exception clause to be permission to divorce, but not permission to remarry under any condition except death. And I think that's unsustainable.

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Now, let me summarize here. We see in the first century, when the letters of the epistles of Paul are written, there's already asceticism that he's fighting against and this sort of low view of marriage. And, um, then we see it developing in the church fathers when they say things that clearly contradict what scripture teaches on the topic of marriage. We also see the trajectory later on. Go down the road a few hundred years. And we see the results of that trajectory in the Roman Catholic Church requiring celibacy among spiritual leaders or priests. Can't even get married. And I know there's different rights and all that kind of thing, but there is a rule in the Roman catholic church about priests having to be single, and that's a pretty big deal. Um, and completely unbiblical.

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So we even go further than that. Let me give you an example of some writers in the church fathers. Again, this is why I'm not going to let the church fathers tell me what to think on this topic. Um, I care about what they say, but they clearly conflict with scripture on the very issue that we're talking about. So I don't have to take, um, them over what seems to be the clear teaching of the text. So some of the church fathers, they actually refused to allow remarriage, even if your spouse died, which.

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How can you argue that? Right? Romans seven, one corinthians seven. How can you argue that you're not free if they die? Athenagoras Tertullian and clement of Alexandria did this. I'll quote a couple of them here. Athenagoris in 177 AD. That's really early, he said the following, for he who deprives himself of his first wife, even though she be dead, is a cloaked adulterer resisting the hand of God and dissolving the strictest union of flesh with flesh. Athenagoras taught that even if your spouse died, you couldn't get remarried. This completely contradicts the Bible. And it was second century. This is very early Tertullian in the, uh, third century, early third century, writing around 211 to 215. Now, he conflicts with himself Tertullian. Early on, he discourages remarriage after the death of a spouse, but he allows it. But later on, he goes more strict, and he says this. Um, therefore, if those whom God has conjoined, man shall not separate by divorce, it is equally congruent that those whom God is separated by death, man is not to conjoin by marriage. The joining of the separation will be just as contrary to God's will as would have been the separation of the conjunction. In other words, he would take it as a sign if your spouse died, as a sign that God was purposely making you single and wanted you to stay single forever. Now, Paul, when he writes, uh, in the pastoral epistles, he actually says, if widows are young, they ought to get married.

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Did Tertullian care that Paul said this? I don't know. I don't have to figure out what's going on with Tertullian and his wacky head in this particular situation, I can just say he's not representing a clear understanding of scripture. He's got other influences, and those are influences I don't want.

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Finally, the church fathers, by and large, seem ignorant of the jewish debate that was going on between the hillelites and the Shemaites. And, uh, that gives us the backdrop of Jesus is saying, and helps us understand why there are more exceptions than what they realize. Um, everybody pretty much agrees with that. So that's why the early church fathers, um, having a unanimity on the topic is not that impressive to me. The unanimous isn't quite as strong as people pointed out to be. But also, their actual teaching is not based on scripture. Uh, in many cases, it's based upon other things and disagrees with clear teachings of scripture.

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Let's do another. What about. What about this? Malachi 216 God says, I hate divorce. Doesn't that mean you can't get divorced? Like, isn't that all the information you need?

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Malachi 216. Since I didn't cover this passage, I thought I should talk about it here. For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts, so guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless. Now, what you'll notice here is that this is the verse that says God hates divorce, but it doesn't have the phrase God hates divorce. Well, here's the new king James version, and many versions put it this way, right? M God hates divorce. The problem is that in the Hebrew, the phrase hate isn't God hates divorce. But it doesn't seem like God is the one who's doing the hating. And this, just so you know, one scholar said, this is literally the hardest verse in the Bible to translate, because the hebrew construction is just really difficult to deal with. The ESV translates it in a way that, now, I shouldn't be the one deciding how it should be translated, but at least from what I've read and studied and I've spent hours and hours on just malachi 216 I'm inclined to think the ESV got it right. The hate is being done by the husband, right? The man who does not love his wife but divorces her. Um, the idea of hate and divorce are coupled a lot in ancient near eastern texts. The man he hated and divorced, he hated and divorced. Even in deuteronomy 24, the man hated and divorced. And so hate seems to mean unjustified divorce. And that may be exactly what Malachi 216 is saying, that you divorced her because you didn't love her. Lack of love on your part was the reason for your divorce. And that may be actually what God's speaking about. But at any rate, even if you take, uh, the more common understanding of Malachi 216 that God hates divorce, I would say that I agree. God does hate divorce. Does that mean that all divorce, under all circumstances, is invalid? Well, then how did God divorce Israel? We have lots of reasons we've already given to reject that. It would just be a general truth. God hates divorce. It would not necessarily mean all divorces are therefore wrong. Nor, um, could it mean that if you're going to take all of scripture, what about those who will abuse the exceptions that I'm giving and wrongly divorce? What about those who will abuse those exceptions and wrongly divorce?

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I'll, uh, be really frank with you. I totally am worried about this myself. As I teach on this topic, I'm thinking probably more people will take this data and abuse it, misuse it to justify their own desire for a divorce than the number of people that will take it and use it properly because they ought to get a divorce. And it's right.

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That grieves my heart.

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The truth is, there is no way for me to teach this in a way that it won't be abused by people who will follow their hearts wherever they want. There's just no way to do it. But I'm not going to victimize everyone else in order to prevent those people from doing what they're going to do anyways. They're going to do it with or without justification. They're going to find the teacher and the leader and the pastor and the thing to tell them the thing they want to hear so they can do the thing they want to do.

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Um, and that's on them, not me. Um, you should ask yourself this. Have I truly done everything I can to restore this marriage? Have I truly dealt with my own issues first? And I say, please see my videos specifically to the husband and specifically to the wife in the video description, and consider that this is really big. If you're blind to your own issues and you magnify their issues, of course you think everything you do is justified.

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Do you want a way out, or would you prefer to have restoration? Um, we'll help you see if you're judging carefully, if you're abusing this rule, or, um, if you have a really justified divorce right now. Do you want a way out. Or if you had the option to restore, boy, they repent, and you guys restore the relationship, would you be like, yes, I want that. If your answer is no, I hope they don't. There's a heart issue to pray through before you make a decision.

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It's likely that most people who think they're an exception are not. It's quite possible. Um, it's just my opinion, but, uh, I do think it's true. I've talked to women who've divorced a husband and, uh, said, God told me to divorce them. And I look at the situation, I go, I really don't believe that. But they say, I'm at peace. I'm at peace. But you look at their life and you go, oh, uh, you're obviously not.

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I'm sorry.

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That happens a lot. That happens a lot. But I've also seen other things. I've seen restoration. I've seen people have their lives restored. And I've seen there are some women who, especially women, to be honest, but men, too, who get freed from an enslaved relationship because of the freedoms that we get in these principles that we're learning here today.

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So, yeah, I'm worried about abuses, too.

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What, uh, about alcoholism, gambling, drug use. How do we apply these principles to that? Alcoholism, gambling, drug use. I think the question is, how bad is it, honestly? Uh, your husband's an alcoholic. That doesn't mean you can divorce him automatically. Is it dangerous to life or health? Is there significant scenario going on? It would have to be kind of extreme. But I just want to say, how bad is it? What's really going on? Um, the gambling. It's costing us our livelihood. We're losing our home. Okay, well, this is a health and safety concern, right? And so there may be a reason to be separating from him. Get your own bank account, that kind of thing, these things. Uh, every situation is unique. Drug use. Uh, the question is, how bad is it and what impact is it having on our lives? And I think that you should go through that process. Check yourself first. Seek restoration, rebuke. Bring other believers if you have to, separate, and then they still will not repent, and you can treat them as an unbeliever, then a divorce can be justified.

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What about a marriage that was entered sinfully? Should you break up a marriage? If you are in a marriage right now and you're like, I shouldn't have got married to that person. That was an immoral act.

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I think your answer is no, you should not stop that marriage. You shouldn't break it. Up. It might have been wrong to do, but guess what it is. It's a marriage. It's a marriage. And to divorce now, in the name of the holiness of your first marriage, to divorce the second one, it's contradictory, and I'll give you a few of the reasons for this. Um, Jesus, um, with the woman at the well, he affirmed that her five previous husbands were in fact husbands. She's had five husbands. So he seems to affirm, again, I mentioned this before, the legitimacy of second, 3rd, fourth, and even fifth marriages. He seems to affirm that Jesus, again, when he talked about not getting divorced, he says, let not man take apart, separate what God has joined together. He didn't say cannot, it cannot happen. Um, he acknowledged that marrying another was an actual possibility. If you marry another, you commit adultery. It's actually marriage, though. Like, that's the word he used for it. Everybody would assume that it was a real marriage. Another point I want to mention, and I think this is actually pretty significant, is that we would actually expect the Bible to have to break up lots of marriages if this was the teaching, right, when Paul's bringing his radical teachings about marriage into one corinthians seven, why doesn't he say, if you're in the middle of a second marriage and your first spouse is still alive, separate and go be reconciled with them? He never says that. His instruction to whoever you're married to is to just stay married. So where we would expect Paul to mention it, he doesn't. And his instructions on face value would tell you in your second, 3rd, 4th, 5th marriage, to just stay married. I think silence in Paul gives weight to accepting those marriages. In the Old Testament, second marriages were seen as legitimate. Deuteronomy 24, um, wrongful o's were still binding. This is an interesting point. Uh, John Piper actually brings this up.

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Joshua made a wrongful treaty with the gibeonites, but God still called him to honor the treaty. This is in Joshua nine. The bottom line is this. It's a covenant God said not to make, but God required them to keep it after they made it. That is a wrongful marriage. It was wrong for you to do that. That was even an adulterous act when you got married. But guess what? You're married now. Honor that covenant and now redeem, um, it in the Lord.

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Now, David Pawson, um, I want to mention by name, because his teaching is both in video form and in book form, and I've checked out both of them, read his book and everything he teaches, that if you have divorced and remarried and you are still in the second marriage and your first spouse is still alive. You are not only, uh, existing in a marriage you shouldn't have, you are in active, constant adultery every day of your life, and you are not going to heaven when you die, like you will go to hell because of this rebellion against God. This is David Pawson's teaching. It's extreme, and I was, like, shocked when I heard it. Um, so he argues a second marriage is not only an adulterous act initially, but it remains continual adultery for the duration of the marriage. How does he do this? He bases it off of a verb tense in Luke 1618.

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Let's walk through it here. Uh, it says, everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. And he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. Now, according to David Pawson, according to him. I'll, um, just read it to you. This is on page 43 of his book. Remarriage is adultery unless. And he says, um. Furthermore, the tense of the verb for committing adultery is the present continuous, which means to go on doing something. Some have tried to say that only the initial act of remarriage and its first physical union is adultery, but Jesus is including all subsequent intercourse. To put it bluntly, remarriage after divorce is bigamy in God's eyes.

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Um, this is the strongest possible terms. David, uh, Pawson talks about a man he met who was in a second marriage and asked him about it. And he told the man he had to pick between heaven and that second marriage because he couldn't have both.

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Um, this to me, I love his piety, his commitment to the Lord, but it's just wrong. And I thank God it's wrong. Um, but at any rate, let's talk about this.

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Possum, um, says that the greek word for commits adultery is in the present continuous greek. Now, this is. I don't know how well David possum knows Greek. Um, but present continuous is probably the wrong description. A better description is present. We all agree with present. Right? But it's the mood of the term. When you're parsing out a greek verb, the mood of the term is indicative, not continuous. Indicative is not the same as continuous. And I'll give you some reasons to think why that's the case. Um, generally speaking, when a greek verb is used in the present indicative sense, as it is here in Luke 1618, it does not mean that the action is going on into the future forever and always. That's not the case. Robertson, who, um, in fact, I have an article in the description below you can read on this whole topic. I'm just going to give you one quote and then we'll move on. But Robertson notes that the most frequent use of the present indicative is in the descriptive present, the simple statement of fact with no specific reference to continuity. The iterative present, which is what Pawsana wants to suggest it is involving repetition, is not so frequent. Um, there's an article gets into great detail on this. It's actually way too complicated for this 1213 hours long video I'm doing to add that as well. But the article is down there. The reality is that present, um, indicative is not enough to say that the future marriage is a continual act of adultery. You need additional arguments for that in the text, and they give examples of texts that don't even make sense when you think that's what the present indicative means. So anyway, I encourage you to check that out. Um, David Pawson is way out on a limb in his declaration that people are not saved if they have a second marriage. Here's my view for what it's worth. The second marriage, if it was an unjustified remarriage, if it was an adulterous act, then it breaks the first marriage. Finally.

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Um, this is actually consistent with deuteronomy 24. The woman couldn't go back to the first husband after the second one, right? That there is a breaking of that marriage. You have divorce with adultery now, and so now the new marriage takes precedence. It is a marriage, even if it started wrong, it's a marriage and it should be preserved. I thought that would actually be pretty important for me to cover David Instone Brewer's work by itself in this survey, since I'm not actually agreeing with his case and using it. But it is a very impactful work. Um, his book, divorce and remarriage in the Bible, the social and literary context, that's the name of his book. It came out in 2002 and it's having a huge impact. There's a lot of people that are on board with David and Stone Brewer's view. I spent a lot of time, I mean, so many hours looking at his work and reading reviews and scholarly papers and all this kind of stuff to try to figure out if I shared that view or not. In the end, I find that he has tons of great insights and I did use many of his insights and his access to primary sources that he gives you is really good. But I don't agree with his central argument. And so for that reason, um, you may just want to skip this section. That's fine. There's a video map down below, as I've mentioned several times. But this is my response to David in Stone Brewer's work, in particular. Um, forgive me if I don't, uh, give it the rigor that it deserves. Uh, I'm certainly trying. And the thing is, his case is long and drawn out, and I'm trying to summarize it, which is always a challenge. But basically, David, in Stone Brewer, his case is like a five link chain. And if every link in the chain is intact, then his conclusion works. But if any of the links aren't intact, if any one of the links fails, then his conclusion also fails. And we can still find exceptions, but we don't find him the way he does. And that would be my view. Um, so let me give you the five links, and then we'll talk about after that, after I make his case, so you can understand it. Then we'll talk about issues with those links. It's based on Exodus, chapter 21, verses ten and eleven.

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In Stone Brewer, his actual argument goes something like this. That exodus 21, verses ten and eleven, it gives three additional grounds for divorce beyond sexual immorality. Now, um, I've argued for grounds like extreme abuse, driving your spouse away. Those were all grounds for, um, divorce. Uh, but David and Stone Brewer is going to use these two verses to establish additional grounds. So he says, if, uh, the scripture says here, if he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. Those three things, food, clothing and marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing without payment of money. This is speaking here about a servant, a woman who is a servant, who's a hired servant, but she's been married to the man, so she's elevated to the role of wife. Well, he marries a second wife. If he diminishes, she has a case for divorce. If he gets rid of her food, clothing or marital rights. David, um, makes a case for this being material needs, food and clothing and marital rights, referring to emotional neglect, including, um, sexual neglect. So that's his first link. Um, he's going to say that then the Jews of Jesus's time, they would take this exodus 21, and they would interpret it this way, hey, if the slave woman can go free for those three reasons, then certainly the free woman can. Hey, if a free woman can go free, then certainly a man can go free. And this is what David calls Dr. In stone brewer calls it the argument from the lesser to the greater. And he says, the rabbis would have all viewed it this way. And it's like when Paul says, if you don't muzzle an ox, then you don't starve the minister of the gospel. It's like arguing from the lesser of the greater. Hey, if it's true of a slave woman, if she has these rights, then certainly everybody does.

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Now he's going to say that all the Jews. His second link in the chain. All the Jews believe this especially and particularly, and most importantly, the school of Shemai. The Shemaites, in the debate with the hillelites, they thought that not only sexual immorality or unchastity was grounds for divorce, but so was lack of material or emotional, sexual, um, um, treatment of your spouse.

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His third link in the chain is this. And all these links are, I think, are essential for his case to get through. His third link is that in the recorded debate in the Mishnah, the debate I put up earlier for you between the hellelites and the shimmyites. I'm going to go and bring it up again.

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That's not it.

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Um, they don't talk about these other reasons for divorce. They don't even mention them. And the reason why, um, those three things, basically material or emotional neglect, marital neglect, that those things are not included in this debate is because they all were assumed. The shamanites assumed them, the hillelites assumed them.

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And then they're just debating deuteronomy 24, right? They're not talking about what they already agree on. Then the fourth link in the chain, number four, is that if the school of Shimai allowed for divorce for Exodus 21, then Jesus, who sounds a lot like them, probably did, too. So then we have Jesus. It's just assumed because of his culture and time that he also held those views. Then the fifth link in the chain, the final chain, which it does have to have every link, is that instone. Um, Brewer is going to go through all the different texts in the New Testament to try to read them and to conform them with the idea that everyone reading and writing these texts is assuming that, uh, material or emotional neglect is grounds for divorce. So as far as my analysis, to the best of my ability, um, having spent a lot of time on the topic, I think that there are problems with link number two, link number four, and link number five with David and Stone brewer's case. Let me just walk through them real quick. Uh, link number two is the question, do the Shimaites really hold the school of Shimai? Do they really hold to these Exodus 21 based exceptions. And I think here, the problem with the link here is that there's just insufficient data on my reading of David and Stonebrewer's book. It seems like we have enough reason to question this. I'll give you three points on that. Um, one, though, it seems that many Jews did use those things from Exodus 21. They used those types of things as justification for divorce. It isn't clear that the school of Shemai held that view.

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Number two, info from the Mishnah that we do have about marriage and divorce is often hard to trace back to the early first century, and even harder to put into the opinions of the school of Shemai. Much of the stuff in the mishnah comes from after 70 ad. And according to Instone Brewer, by that time, the school of Shemai was, quote, all but wiped out.

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So it's not enough to say in the Mishnah they use exodus 21 exceptions for divorce. Um, and therefore, the school of Shimai held that view. In reality, in the Mishnah, them saying that doesn't put it on the lips of the school of Shimai, unless in the Mishnah it says, the school of Shemai says, dot, dot, dot. And that leads to the third problem with link number two, which is this. The actual quotes from the school of Shemai in Stone brewer's book and in the Talmud. And I read big chunks of the Talmud to kind of help me come to this conclusion. They don't give us reason to think that they actually held to Exodus 21 based exceptions. I'm not saying they absolutely didn't, but it doesn't give us grounds for saying they did hold those views. When you read about Shemai, specifically his school. I don't get that. Um, and I'm not the only one who said this. One of the scholars who was reviewing David and Stonebrewer's work actually pointed this out. Um, I read so many reviews of his stuff, I made the mistake of not saving that one in particular. But they pointed out the same thing. They said, look, you're reading too much into the school of Shemai. We can't affirm link two very confidently that the shemites really held to these exodus 21 based exceptions. Um, now, maybe I'm wrong there. That's my current position on that view. If I'm wrong, this doesn't change my case against the stone brewer that much. Against his case, not him personally, seems like a great guy. Um, the fourth link, and one that I have an exception with is. Does Jesus really side with the Shemaites in such a way as to make us think he agrees with their other views that he's not talking about? So let's suppose the Shimites did think these exodus 21 exceptions were a thing. Does Jesus side with them in such a way to think Jesus agrees with that, too. And here I'm going to say, I don't think so. I think the answer is no. Jesus actually disagrees with Shemai in some important areas. For one, he doesn't think, um, any matter divorces, the hill alight, any matter divorce, that those are valid even if achieved by a court. This is not a shemaite view. At, like, look, you know, the Shemaites, according to instagram, Brewer would marry someone who was divorced through a hell of a school or hella light court. But this is not the case with, you know, you were divorced wrongly. Your remarriage is adultery. That's not something that the Shemaites would have agreed with. It seems, um, two, Jesus doesn't appeal to deuteronomy or Exodus to establish his principle. What we're doing is we're saying that, hey, um, in another passage in the law of Moses, there's more justifications for adultery. So then Jesus would have affirmed that. Or for adultery, for divorce and remarriage. Excuse me, but, uh, Jesus actually sidesteps the issue of what Moses permitted, and he gives us a priority of Genesis one and two, showing that the permission in deuteronomy 24 was not a justification. I think that we can project Jesus's statement about deuteronomy to Exodus 21. It seems that it was. Even if it was permission in Exodus 21, it doesn't mean it's justification. So it seems wrong to base exceptions on rabbinic use of exodus passages when Jesus comes against using the law of Moses as justification for divorce in the first place. If we assume Jesus is consistent, he might respond to Exodus 21 the same way he responded to deuteronomy 24 as, in my view, he's not interpreting deuteronomy 24. He's just offering a ruling of his own. Um, that is based upon maybe God having divorced Israel for adultery.

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If, um, that's the case, then it's not based upon how we interpret Exodus 21 or deuteronomy 24. That's not to say that Jesus's rule can't have any exceptions at all. That's not what I'm saying. Obviously, I've given several. It's just that we don't get them by importing Exodus 21 into the background of Jesus's statements and opinions. And then finally, the last link that I would disagree with David and Stone Brewer on is link five.

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Link five. The idea that take this view and read it consistently with the statements of the New Testament, by saying, oh, in the background, they're affirming three more reasons for divorce that they're not mentioning. And there are specific reasons. I don't think that that's the case.

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So this is the same reason, by the way, I reject the no remarriage view. I don't think you can marry it with scripture. Very well. Let me give you one example from, uh, in Stone Brewer's book.

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So his treatment of first corinthians, chapter seven, verse three. I'm going to read it to you now. Hold on. I'll put the verse up for you. First, keep in mind, for his final link to work, he has to take all this theory about Jesus and then say, and when you read the New Testament texts, even if it's not explicit in there, at least it won't conflict with what I'm saying. Um, well, I think, unfortunately, I think it does. Um, but first corinthians seven three shows that there's just not a very good handling, I think, of the text in this case, at this later stage of him developing his argument. One corinthians seven three says the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. Now, let me quote David and Stone Brewer from his book. He says, this present study and a few others have also pointed out the affirmation of the grounds for divorce in Exodus 21 ten through eleven by the use of that text in one corinthians seven three.

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Now, here's where I get lost. Um, I don't think that Paul is using Exodus 21 in one corinthians seven three. It does say the wife should give, you know, we should give each other our conjugal rights. It does say that.

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And that concept is in Exodus 21. That's true. But is he using Exodus 21? Not only that, David and Stone Brewer doesn't just say there's a connection between one corinthians seven three and Exodus 21. He says, um, that he's pointing out, quote, the affirmation of the grounds for divorce in Exodus 21. So he's taking one corinthians seven three as kind of like a way of saying, see? And you can divorce if they don't give you your conjugal rights. And I don't think that that fits one corinthians seven at all. It seems like total isegesis to me. So this is a really crucial point. And it's under supported in David and Stone Brewer's case. I think that the fifth link doesn't actually work.

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Yeah. Now, Jimmy got for a caveat. I do think it's, um, dangerous. That dangerous neglect of material needs or extreme emotional abuse can be grounds for divorce. I just don't use David and Stone Brewer's theory to get there. That's not my way of getting there. And when he gets there, he gets there with a lot more flexibility in when you can divorce than I would. So there's my quick. I mean, all that took a little bit, but it's actually my very quick analysis of his stuff. There's so much more in every issue, and it's actually a fascinating book, and I've linked it below and you guys can check it out if you like. Next question. Should a pastor marry someone who's wrongly divorced? Um, as a pastor, I think that the right answer is no. I think you should not marry someone who is wrongly divorced. Now, maybe they were wrongly divorced, and then subsequent things have happened in the intermediate period where now the divorce is like, legitimate. Uh, morally legitimate, that's one thing. But I mean, who's currently wrongly divorced? Um, I think the answer is absolutely not. I think that our calling for them is that they get rid of any other relationships. They get their life right with the Lord in every way, and then they try to seek for restoration if possible. If it was an invalid divorce reason, they're still morally obligated to their spouse. That was one of our first principles.

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Also, there's a huge danger, Christian. You're thinking about marrying somebody who was unjustifiably divorced and choosing now to marry another person. Like, you're probably going to divorce them too, or they'll divorce you. The same unresolved issues that have them rooted in bitterness and unforgiveness with their previous spouse are going to crop up in your marriage, almost guaranteed. This is a real dangerous situation. Um, if there's been repentance and honest attempts to restore, and the other person will not allow for restoration, then they're in the first corinthians 715 situation, then, okay, they're free, and they may now get married. And of course, as a pastor, there's a concern that someone's just lying to me. What if they're tricking me and they don't have justified divorce? Um, I'm not a cop. I'm not just going to assume everyone's guilty to prove their guilt. Like, that's an interrogation technique. As a pastor, that's not really the right direction to go. Um, that deceit is on them, not on you as a pastor. So if you have reason to think that the divorce is legitimate, then you can do the marriage, in my opinion, for what it's worth. Um, now what I want to do is a quick summary of all of the 15 biblical principles, and then I want to add principle 16 to it. So here are all of them on the screen. I'm just going to read through them because, boy, oh boy. In the 75 hours long video that you are currently watching, um, it's easy to get lost in the mix. These are the principles modified appropriately. Um, marriage is a union that God created, therefore we should keep it together. Number two, divorce as a general rule is wrong and should not be done. Three, divorce that is unjustified coupled with remarriage is adultery divorce. Number four, divorce that is unjustified doesn't end the moral obligation of the marriage. That means that you need to go back and seek reconciliation.

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Number five, sexual sin can justify a divorce. Number six, sexual sin can also justify a remarriage. Number seven, staying single to better serve the Lord is a good option.

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Number eight, if your spouse dies, you are free to marry another, something a lot of Church fathers actually rejected. Number nine, are you the cause of unjustified divorce? Stay single or be reconciled. That's one corinthians seven. Number ten, if an unbeliever wants to depart, then the believer is free from the marriage and free to remarry.

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Eleven, Jesus's rule may have exceptions not explicitly mentioned. Therefore, we can be open to unique circumstances, and this includes all the weirdness of life and stuff that you never thought of and didn't even know could happen until you heard a story.

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Number twelve, the rule for unbelievers. From one corinthians seven, principle number ten. The rule for unbelievers can be applied to proclaim believers if they can be biblically treated as unbelievers, meaning they won't listen to Jesus or the church.

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13, radical danger or harm justifies separation and possibly divorce.

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Um, I think it's a process, but yeah, it would eventually justify divorce and it would be on the person because they are the one who drove you out. So the separation is on them, not you. 14, any behavior causing proper separation can, if reconciliations refused by the offender's continued acts, properly lead to divorce because this is in effect the same as the one. Corinthians 715. Scenario number 15. Anyone properly free from a marriage is also free to remarry if they choose. And number 16, christians should unilaterally fulfill. This is my last principle for us, and it's my final thought I want to give you. Christians should unilaterally fulfill our calling to serve Christ through fully obeying God's commands to husbands and or wives.

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Unilateral. You know what that means? You do it when they don't. That's your calling. That is your calling as a Christian.

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Exceptions exist, but they are abused. That's true. Um, Jesus's extreme statements get to the heart of the issue. What God is doing together. Man should not separate. You should seek to follow Christ. And I again point you to my teaching on to husbands and wives individually. I really recommend. I had a couple tell me that it saved their marriage, uh, when they watched those videos, and I hope that it would bless yours. But this last principle that christians should unilaterally, I'll put it up here, unilaterally fulfill our calling to serve Christ through obeying God's commands to husbands or wives. It means you change first, breaking the cardinal rule of american marriages. You change first. You do not require them to be good for you, to be right with God. No Christian will think clearly, no Christian will think clearly about divorce until they've given over to the lordship of Christ in their marriage. That's where you start right now. I encourage you to pray, to seek the Lord to honor Christ with that marriage so that if you have a divorce, it is, um, truly, uh, appropriate and proper.

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There are bad reasons for divorce, and I want to kind of add this at the end here. Here's some bad reasons to get a divorce. I'm not happy. I hate them. We've grown apart. I'm bitter. I'm just over them, and I won't change. They have repented, but I will not forgive them. Or God told me it's okay, even though it doesn't seem like it's okay to anybody who knows the Bible, God is not going to contradict himself. I'll take scripture over your impressions, and you should, too. Those are obviously bad reasons for a divorce. So my conviction is that the fullness of the teaching of scripture on this topic gives us a fuller understanding. That gives us, um, the rule as well as the ability to have exceptions that are legitimate with compassion and to pick up the messy pieces of our lives and follow Christ, um, moving forward. I think all of scripture speaks to it, which is why I've made a 300 hours video to talk about all of scripture on it. You have questions, I get it. There's things I didn't cover. There's things maybe I got wrong or didn't explain well enough. Ask your questions again, I remind you, put them in the comments. Vote up the ones that you agree with that you're like, yes, answer that and I will make a follow up video just answering your questions and pushback. I will do that. And if I'm wrong on something and I discover it, I'll admit it in that video very happily. Um, after that, I'm going to do a final third video on marriage and divorce and remarriage. And it's going to be a short video, the video you wish I would have made just now, right, where it's just real short. Boom, boom, boom. Simple teaching. I'm not going to do a debate, just a straightforward teaching as quick as I can handle it. Going through the topic, I think that between those three videos, I should answer this question well enough that at least, um, uh, no one can say I wasn't thorough.

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So that's about it. We hope you've enjoyed this, uh, 7000 hours long video, and I hope that it's been a blessing to you and that it's helped equip you for your own life and to help others through the struggles that they're dealing with. God bless.