A Mennonite view of divorce and remarriage

[Wade]

Wade, what are you saying? Are you saying that since all men are sinners, they deserve it and are guilty if their wives cheat on them, divorce them, and abandon them?

I don't think Jesus said anywhere that everyone is automatically guilty (in marriage); indeed, he gave an exception to someone who divorces his wife for sexual immorality.

And in the case of Bootstrap and myself, we didn't divorce our wives. They divorced us and decided to have affairs with other people, and marry other people. We don't have any control over what they do. Both of us sought reconciliation.

I am not saying we deserve that.
Nor am I saying that everybody is automatically guilty but rather to anyone who think they are not - cast the first stone at their spouse or ex-spouse.

We are giving a choice to be overcome or to be overcomers.

Like salvation being a continual state and not a once saved always saved. How should we view our reconciliation in relation to its continuation and how we then relate that to others?

[temporal1]

From Page 11: deserves careful study

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 [their] 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 [there] is time...
Follow Him.

there is the matter of discerning the Holy Spirit, which breathes life into the written word, not the other way around. human reasoning is less-than.
2 Corinthians 3:6
http://biblehub.com/2_corinthians/3-6.htm

[GaryK]

Adultery is always adultery against your spouse, marital unfaithfulness.

Luke 16:18 NKJV 18 "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Who is the adultery against in this verse? Isn't it against one's spouse? Yet a divorce and remarriage has already occurred. So is Jesus holding such a person accountable to two spouses? Please note that I'm not addressing the exception clause here. I'm thinking of illegitimate divorces. I don't see it at all consistent that one can be illegitimately divorced yet legitimately married to someone else.

If you cannot practice marital faithfulness because your spouse is gone and doesn't want that, that changes things. This is why adultery (according to Jesus) and abandonment (according to Paul) are the two exceptions - they each make marital faithfulness impossible because of the other person's choice, not yours.

And yet the above verse in essence is saying the abandoned/innocent woman who is divorced from her husband cannot get remarried because anyone who marries her commits adultery. Do you read it differently.

I personally know numerous women who there husbands have either abandoned them or divorced them and they remained faithful to their marriage and celibate. So I wouldn't say marital faithfulness is impossible.

[Ernie]

However the fact remains that almost any modern church that has accepted your view is only a generation from experiencing divorce and remarriage at nearly the same level as society around them. And some of us cannot accept that that is in fact what God has in mind for followers of his.

I'm not at all convinced that preventing people legitimately divorced from remarrying is the best way to do that.

Do you have any examples from history to show that allowing the legitimately divorced to remarry has been a good thing for society or for the church? To me, this is the elephant in the room that Protestants, Catholics, and and Mainstream Anabaptists don't want to talk about.

I wish we could talk about the elephant in the room of how tolerating divorce and remarriage would ruin our Plain communities, but without having to twist and stretch scripture to do so.

I'd be all for this!

I don't like when people make deductions from scripture to support their desires to remarry (and postulate their thoughts in a way that doesn't acknowledge that what they believe is not found in scripture, but is simply their speculations/deductions), neither do I like when people make deductions from scripture about what repentance and restitution is supposed to look like in divorce or remarriage situation (and postulate their thoughts in a way that doesn't acknowledge that what they believe is not found in scripture, but is simply their speculations/deductions.)
This needs to stop.
The "allowance for remarriage following divorce folks" will never convince the CAs if they keep doing this, and the CAs will never convince those who want to allow the divorced to remarry.

If the CAs want to convince the world of their position, they need to stop trying to build their case from a strictly exegetical standpoint, and rather make their case from a simple reading of scripture, coupled with a historical narrative of what it takes to build societies who intend to demonstrate what it would look like if everybody obeyed the King.

I don't think CA world will ever be inclined to listen to "mainstreamers" as long as mainstreamers don't have thriving societies of remarried folks and as long as mainstreamers keep positing their deductions as being scriptural truth. As long as mainstreamers spend more time looking for loopholes and exceptions instead of promoting what God intended from the beginning and promoting what Jesus attempted to fulfill or restore with his new Kingdom teaching, CAs will not be open to listening to them.

Someone has said that the difference between the early Anabaptists and the Reformers is that the early Anabaptists came to the scriptures with the attitude of, "Whatever the scripture tells us to do, we want to do it."
The Reformers came to the scripture with the attitude of, "We shouldn't do anything the scripture says we may not do."
It seems to me that this difference is huge and that both perspectives are still well and alive today in the Western world, even though they are no longer limited to the afore mentioned movements.

[temporal1]

.. I personally know numerous women who there husbands have either abandoned them or divorced them and they remained faithful to their marriage and celibate.

So I wouldn't say marital faithfulness is impossible.

men do this, also.
our contemporary world actually makes this choice logistically much easier today than in history.
in earlier times, life was far more difficult, fewer options, esp for women, but also for men.

so, to reject faithfulness and celibacy today really does represent personal desire more than it did in prior times. i.e., our will, not caring so much about God's Will.

having said that, not all who remain alone and celibate today are doing so as a commitment to God's Will. today, i read, different folks/young people are choosing single life out of greed or fear or convenience.

this is not the same as intentional commitment to God-at-center.

Jesus spoke about the better way being to not marry, but to follow Him.
so, when a marriage seems to fail .. that door Jesus offered, can reopen!

"seems to fail," are important words.
as Wade was speaking to, above, things may appear hopeless (in all human reasoning) .. but this has nothing to do with allowing for God's Will and God's Time. this requires faith and obedience.

it's breath-taking how radically things can change - when it's God's Will to change them!

making broad statements like, "this will never happen," removes God's Will, the Holy Spirit, from the mix .. which is unwise. it's not even possible.

imho, humans should not have use of words like "never." we speak of which we know nothing.

lastly, i do not see CM's making demands on anyone to follow their beliefs, align with their church membership rules. this is important. it's choice.

it's a choice i would like to see made more available in the world.
no one has to be conservative Anabaptist to honor these views on marriage-divorce-remarriage.
Truth cannot be held captive! it's available to each one, through Jesus Christ.

i believe much misery could be avoided if these understandings were known from young, rather than only learned post-disaster. many do not learn, even then.

they just hurt and hurt, never grasping why.
the world tells them they are right, they are justified, but, they are puzzled when hurt remains.

[Bootstrap]

Adultery is always adultery against your spouse, marital unfaithfulness.

Luke 16:18 NKJV 18 "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Who is the adultery against in this verse? Isn't it against one's spouse? Yet a divorce and remarriage has already occurred. So is Jesus holding such a person accountable to two spouses? Please note that I'm not addressing the exception clause here. I'm thinking of illegitimate divorces. I don't see it at all consistent that one can be illegitimately divorced yet legitimately married to someone else.

I agree with you here - there is no clean answer for that. Having pledged yourself twice, you really are accountable to two spouses, and you cannot be faithful to both. I can't give anyone an easy answer to this. I don't trust the simple black-and-white answers some people give. I don't think choosing to be unfaithful to both by withdrawing from the second marriage is really a solution.

There are lots of times that good pastoral discernment, walking together in prayer, is what you really need most. Theology only goes so far. And if you have to choose which of two people to be faithful to, there are some pragmatic questions - has the original spouse married again, or said they aren't interested in reconciling? If so, being faithful to your current spouse is a whole lot more likely to succeed.

In all of this, I really do think that being faithful to your marriage is the guiding principle. If you have put yourself in a situation where you are responsible to two spouses, I think it's generally better to be faithful to one than to be faithful to none.

[GaryK]

Adultery is always adultery against your spouse, marital unfaithfulness.

Luke 16:18 NKJV 18 "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Who is the adultery against in this verse? Isn't it against one's spouse? Yet a divorce and remarriage has already occurred. So is Jesus holding such a person accountable to two spouses? Please note that I'm not addressing the exception clause here. I'm thinking of illegitimate divorces. I don't see it at all consistent that one can be illegitimately divorced yet legitimately married to someone else.

I agree with you here - there is no clean answer for that. Having pledged yourself twice, you really are accountable to two spouses, and you cannot be faithful to both. I can't give anyone an easy answer to this. I don't trust the simple black-and-white answers some people give. I don't think choosing to be unfaithful to both by withdrawing from the second marriage is really a solution.

There are lots of times that good pastoral discernment, walking together in prayer, is what you really need most. Theology only goes so far. And if you have to choose which of two people to be faithful to, there are some pragmatic questions - has the original spouse married again, or said they aren't interested in reconciling? If so, being faithful to your current spouse is a whole lot more likely to succeed.

In all of this, I really do think that being faithful to your marriage is the guiding principle. If you have put yourself in a situation where you are responsible to two spouses, I think it's generally better to be faithful to one than to be faithful to none.

While I can't understand how you can come to such conclusions from scripture I appreciate your honesty here. However, I have a question. Every time there are sexual relations in the 2nd "marriage" would you conclude that adultery against the first spouse is taking place? If it is, then doesn't this fall into Paul's category of the adulterers that will not be in the KOG? This all in the context of illegitimate divorces.

[Bootstrap]

If you cannot practice marital faithfulness because your spouse is gone and doesn't want that, that changes things. This is why adultery (according to Jesus) and abandonment (according to Paul) are the two exceptions - they each make marital faithfulness impossible because of the other person's choice, not yours.

And yet the above verse in essence is saying the abandoned/innocent woman who is divorced from her husband cannot get remarried because anyone who marries her commits adultery. Do you read it differently.

I personally know numerous women who there husbands have either abandoned them or divorced them and they remained faithful to their marriage and celibate. So I wouldn't say marital faithfulness is impossible.

Let me slow way down and look at these passages more carefully. I don't think this is as neat and clean as some people suggest, and I don't think the Bible gives us a systematic ethics for this. So let's examine these verses and just observe for a bit.

Curiously, the New Testament does not accuse such a woman marries again, but it does assign guilt to other people. Here are the verses that have that kind of clause (Matthew 19 also has such a clause in the KJV, where it is worded the same as Matthew 5:32).

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.

Here, guilt is assigned to the man who put her away, and to the man who married her, but not to the woman herself. At the very least, that's interesting. And Jesus pretty much assumes that the woman will marry again - which makes sense, since in that culture, a woman without a husband was in a very hard spot if she did not.

Luke assigns blame to the man who marries her:

Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Mark does not talk about a wife who is an "innocent spouse", he lays blame on the spouse who divorces the other:

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

Any thoughts about why this is?

[Wade]

I'd like to try one more time of what I was getting at with my last posts and why it is so important to realize the audience Jesus was speaking to. We know he spoke to the Pharisees mostly in parables and that He was actual bringing things to their attention to convict them - never to give them an exception to carry on with their unfaithfulness to God.

It has been said on here recently that Christian's are not sinless but rather sin less. So by what I understand that would mean each time we sin we are being unfaithful or committing spiritual adultery against God. And since this happens but yet we don't give up on our Christian walk but repent and keep growing:
Does God take us back when we are unfaithful (commit adultery) against Him?

Matthew 6:15 "But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

Matthew 7:2+12 "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.... Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."

If we don't give opportunity for our spouses to come back after unfaithfulness, will God measure the same out to us when we sin against Him?
I believe so, but that is just my take.
Peace.

[Bootstrap]

While I can't understand how you can come to such conclusions from scripture I appreciate your honesty here.

To get the full picture of how I see it, I would have to write some thing at least as extensive as what Lester wrote in the original post. I may do that some day, right now I'm trying to graciously move on to other topics so this doesn't become a full time job ;->

However, I have a question. Every time there are sexual relations in the 2nd "marriage" would you conclude that adultery against the first spouse is taking place? If it is, then doesn't this fall into Paul's category of the adulterers that will not be in the KOG? This all in the context of illegitimate divorces.

I really don't think Jesus was talking primarily about sex. Marrying another is unfaithfulness to the first marriage whether or not there is sex in the second. But once that has happened, what is the best way to be faithful to at least one marriage? I think being faithful to a marriage requires more than sex. It includes living together, providing and caring for each other, etc., in addition to sex.

I really don't see any examples of being faithful to a marriage but not being married in the Bible. That's strange to me, and I think it would be strange to the writers of the New Testament. Nobody is ever asked to do that in the New Testament.