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Divorce and remarriage have become common place in America.  Thus, more and more Christians are having to deal with difficult questions about adultery, marital discontent and second marriages.  With regularity I get questions about various scenarios via email, letters, phone calls or someone in the foyer saying “Have you got a minute, I need to ask about something?”  Let me set forth a few ideas that I think can answer just about most any of those questions about marriage, divorce and remarriage.  Try them carefully and see if they don’t help you.

First, the problem isn’t that the Bible is not clear about divorcing and remarrying.  The problem is we don’t much like what the Bible clearly says.  Matthew 19:9 isn’t that complicated or difficult to understand: “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”  It is not my intent to act as if every thorny problem can be quickly solved by a simple reading of this text.  There are marriage and divorce situations that get so gnarly and tangled up that one despairs to sort it all out and decide who has the right to do what.  That said, in all honesty, most marriage and divorce situations we encounter involve nothing more than one mate getting tired of the other and so he or she went out and got someone else.  After all the explaining is over, the Bible says that is wrong.  Period.  We don’t like it but let’s not try to pretend we can’t understand it.  Perhaps it’s fair to add that any time we read a text, don’t like what it plainly says, and so start trying to figure out why it doens’t mean what it surely seems to mean we are going to come to no good end.

Second, few seem to want to grapple with what repentance requires.  If we were to baptize a prostitute we would tell her she must stop her immoral profession.  If adultery is immoral why would we not tell an adulterous couple to do the same?  Is it because such brings terribly unpleasant consequences for them?  Is that solid reasoning from the scriptures and conviction or just by what seems “fair” or “how it ought to be to me?”  Don’t just rule out immediately that God would even think of ever breaking up a home.  Read Ezra 10.  Wrong relationships have to be ended when people truly repent.

Third, homosexuality is a sexual sin too.  Whatever we tell adulterers homosexuals will be quick to grab and use.  If we can figure out a way that Joe and Suzy can remain in their adulterous marriage (yes, you can live in adultery, see Col. 3:5, 7) won’t Bill and Bob be able to use the same reasoning to remain in homosexuality?  Why not?  This is not to reason from consequence, but instead to point out that our teaching must be consistent.  Many false views of marriage and divorce can quickly be exposed when homosexuals are inserted into the scenario that attempts to justify adultery.  Somehow we manage to overlook things for Joe and Suzy but when two adulterers become two homosexuals we seem to see sin much more clearly.

I am not naive enough to believe that these three simple ideas will answer every question about marriage, divorce and remarriage.  A million questions may be put to rest here, but there are probably a million more still ready to be asked.  Yet in truth these basic appeals to scripture will answer many, many scenarios and troubles.  Let us determine we will deal honestly with the scripture even when such makes difficult demands upon those who have flaunted God’s will for their lives and marriages.