A Mennonite view of divorce and remarriage

[temporal1]

.. The prime example (in my mind) has already been referred to -
that of the Samaritan woman Jesus met at Jacob's well. He makes what appears to be a purposeful distinction between the husbands she had had before, and the man she has now who is not her husband.

To assume that each of the "husbands" had died goes against the thrust of the story, and would not be anything revealing in terms of the woman's need of the Savior.

i do not understand Jesus's reference to her husbands to be His recognition/acceptance of them, but, as with the current man, He was pointing out this was "all wrong," and she should not return to any of that sort of life.

i don't think the suggestion is each of the "husbands" died, or that would have been a different matter.

was she the original (identified) serial monogamist?

[Bootstrap]

The difference I see deals with the question of whether remarriage under the exception clause is adultery at all, and secondly, if it is, whether it is a continual state of adultery. To make that comparison, wouldn’t you have to assume that the killer is still killing people, the thief still stealing things?

Adultery is always adultery against your spouse. If the exception clause says that you can divorce your spouse, then you aren't supposed to be her spouse any more, so who is the adultery against? If you are married, you have obligations - you need to live together, provide for her, and (according to Jewish law) ensure that the proper conditions are present to make procreation a possibility. It's not just sex - though sex is part of it. If you renege on any of that, you aren't being faithful to your wife.

Adultery is both a state (being "married" to a divorced person) and an action (having sex with them). My point is that in anything else, we join the idea of repenting of sin with forsaking that sin. Since adultery is a state as well as an action, we can't just repent of marrying a divorced person, then continue with life as usual.

I don't think the Bible ever calls adultery a continuous state. I don't think it ever separates sexual faithfulness from the other aspects of marital faithfulness, creating a state where you need to be sexually faithful to someone you cannot be married to.

[Bootstrap]

I'm not so focused on the sexual part. Adultery, whether the relationship is sexual or not, implies being in a relationship with someone who is not your spouse. It's the "not your spouse" part I'm focused on. Why did Jesus say it's adultery? Because the original spouse is still in the equation even if divorce and remarriage have taken place.

Is Jesus really allowing room for polygamy?

The idea that you are somehow still married even if you are legitimately divorced baffles me. Where is this taught in the Bible?

[RZehr]

The prime example (in my mind) has already been referred to - that of the Samaritan woman Jesus met at Jacob's well. He makes what appears to be a purposeful distinction between the husbands she had had before, and the man she has now who is not her husband. To assume that each of the "husbands" had died goes against the thrust of the story, and would not be anything revealing in terms of the woman's need of the Savior.

I've never quite understood how you can be sure of the civil marital status of this woman was.
If the woman was divorced and remarried, I too would tell her that the man she was is with is not her husband. The first husband is her husband. And while I would use the term husband to say that she had 5 husbands, I would in no way be conceding the legitimacy of those marriages.
The term husband is just a everyday term that is being used here.
If this was a homosexual man, and he had 5 husbands, I may use the word husband in the conversation, but that is not an acceptance of the legitimacy of the marriage.

[RZehr]

I'm not so focused on the sexual part. Adultery, whether the relationship is sexual or not, implies being in a relationship with someone who is not your spouse. It's the "not your spouse" part I'm focused on. Why did Jesus say it's adultery? Because the original spouse is still in the equation even if divorce and remarriage have taken place.

Is Jesus really allowing room for polygamy?

The idea that you are somehow still married even if you are legitimately divorced baffles me. Where is this taught in the Bible?

So do you believe same sex marriage is legitimate?

[GaryK]

I'm not so focused on the sexual part. Adultery, whether the relationship is sexual or not, implies being in a relationship with someone who is not your spouse. It's the "not your spouse" part I'm focused on. Why did Jesus say it's adultery? Because the original spouse is still in the equation even if divorce and remarriage have taken place.

Is Jesus really allowing room for polygamy?

The idea that you are somehow still married even if you are legitimately divorced baffles me. Where is this taught in the Bible?

What about if you are illegitimately divorced? Are you still married?

[Wade]

What about the people that Christ is speaking to in these passages?
He is addressing the proud.
I see this very similar to the way he address the Scribes and Pharisees about the woman caught in adultery. He told them:

“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Did Christ want them to stone her? Of course not, that would be inconsistent with God's design. It was man that initiated sin and murder - not God!

So when he says,

"Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

notice the similarity of addressing the proud? Was He saying to go and even divorce? Of course not, that would be inconsistent with God's design and what He just referred to from the beginning. It was man that initiated divorce - not God!

I would be hard pressed to find a divorced person that could say that they were honestly %100 faithful with their eyes while married and is worthy of casting the first stone at his spouse.
Can you say you have been??????????

But one could argue that because they have repented that they are better than his spouse and therefore fit for the exception...
Well, maybe that mindset didn't consider giving there spouse time to repent as they did for me or you and could have likely divorced me or you the instant I or you sinned as well. Using time to justify oneself as worthy to cast the stone is weaker than trying to convince me about millions of years allowing for evidence of anything.

What makes anyone think they deserve that mercy of time that they could have time to repent? Yet that is what God has giving to each of us...
And even if we have repented do we understand the unmerited gift of that forgiveness that we have received? Humbling...
And how could someone even claim that forgiveness while not allowing the time for their spouse the opportunity to seek the Lord as we were once lost too?
Do we have any idea of how unworthy we are and what He has done for us?
Don't we want to share that with others?
Especially share that with loved ones that are lost?

"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:7-8

Repent while their is time...

Follow Him.

[Bootstrap]

The idea that you are somehow still married even if you are legitimately divorced baffles me. Where is this taught in the Bible?

So do you believe same sex marriage is legitimate?

No, but I don't see the relevance. If Jesus said "except for sexual unfaithfulness", I would assume that gay sex is a kind of sexual unfaithfulness too. And if marital faithfulness is to a particular person, my first wife ain't coming back, she thinks she is married even if I don't see it that way, and even if that relationship were to fall apart, there's no way she would return.

I do have a wife to be faithful to. She is married to me, and isn't going anywhere.

[Bootstrap]

The idea that you are somehow still married even if you are legitimately divorced baffles me. Where is this taught in the Bible?

What about if you are illegitimately divorced? Are you still married?

The Bible really doesn't speak specifically to this case. But if each party has remarried, I really do think the Bible tells them to be faithful to their current spouse.

The notion that some marriages don't really count as marriages and can be easily discarded really isn't biblical. And the idea that there are some people who must not return to their first spouse but must remain sexually faithful to their first marriage but avoid being faithful in any other way also isn't biblical.

Even in the sexual domain, "marital faithfulness" means having sex with your spouse and nobody else. It doesn't mean celibacy. Nothing in the Bible teaches about a state where you need to be faithful to someone by not having sex with anyone else but not having sex with them either.

[RZehr]

The idea that you are somehow still married even if you are legitimately divorced baffles me. Where is this taught in the Bible?

So do you believe same sex marriage is legitimate?

No, but I don't see the relevance.

The notion that some marriages don't really count as marriages and can be easily discarded really isn't biblical.

I don't follow the consistency in these statements.