Common Christian practices that are not taught in scripture

[Sudsy]

Jesus misspoke to the woman caught in adultery, He should have said, "Neither do I condemn thee, go and marry another".

No, I believe Jesus was talking about an act of adultery. There is nothing said about leaving a marriage and marrying another here. What this text does point out is that the religious Pharisees were throwing the OT scriptures at Jesus that He should stone this woman but instead He said if any of them were without sin to go ahead and stone her. They had to admit none of them were without sin. So, Jesus told her to go and sin no more related to her act of adultery. I believe there is a lesson here for us about condemning others for their sins and a lesson too that God forgives all sin and upon forgiveness gives us a fresh start to go and sin no more.

That's fine, it is possible to 'argue from silence' when all else fails I suppose. I keep coming back to thinking how close we come to the verse in Romans 6.

Looking back at John 4 story of the woman at the well, when she said she had no husband, Jesus said she was correct that her current state was not a married state. She was in a 'live in' state. But prior to this Jesus said she had 5 husbands. We don't know the situations of why she had 5 husbands but Jesus did call them husbands and not men she had lived with and was not married to. I don't think this can easily be dismissed.

I am not sure what that passage proves in these context. Was Jesus praising her life choices? Wasn't He showing her her need?

With regard to this thread's title, one of the practises we are not to engage in, and is more common in some faith groups and individual Christians more than in others, is in condemning others when none of us are without sin. Jesus has pointed out that to see other's sins in a clear way we need to first recognize and deal with our own sinful ways. When we don't, Jesus calls this being a hypocrite. Matthew 7:3-5. My guess is we have all been guilty of this at times in our lives and it is something to be reminded of.

That is true as well, I think both of us could reconsider some of our thinking in this regard. John 3:17 says that Jesus was not sent to condemn but to save. He has no need to condemn us, we are quite capable of doing that for ourselves by the personal responses we make to Jesus and the personal choices we make concerning His teachings.

There has been some talk about Anabaptists as Pharisees, but remember in Matthew 19 it was the Pharisees that Jesus was correcting concerning their view of divorce (for any cause). Not to deny that we Anabaptists can be Pharisaical, but there is more than one flavour of Pharisee.

Amen.

[Ernie]

The NT never has a prohibition on remarriage (for men) at all. It does have prohibitions on frivolous divorces initiated by men.
Of course I believe a congregation can discern how to apply those principles.

But if a man in your church remarries after being a member in your church, you and your church would say that the NT prohibits this, correct? And if a man in your church remarries, you and your church would say that he is in a state of adultery and not just that he committed the act of adultery, correct?

[Josh]

But if a man in your church remarries after being a member in your church, you and your church would say that the NT prohibits this, correct? And if a man in your church remarries, you and your church would say that he is in a state of adultery and not just that he committed the act of adultery, correct?

I'm not sure what membership has to do with it (perhaps there are some misconceptions of our church's approach to marriage).

We would believe that a church member should not be the aggressor in a divorce unless there is a very good reason and the church gives its assent to that first. An example would be a husband who was living as a homosexual/transsexual, intolerably cruel, refused to live with his wife, and ran up debts in his wife's name. Eventually, the church granted that there was no choice but a legal separation or a divorce. (The family court ended up granting an annulment, not a divorce, in this particular case, which was seen as an answer to prayer.) The church's stance is that "... except for sexual immorality" had happened, and that breaks the marriage bond.

No one can remarry without the consent not just of their own congregation, but of many other ministers from other congregations who meet at an annual meeting to review such cases.

you and your church would say that he is in a state of adultery and not just that he committed the act of adultery, correct?

We do not split hairs about such things because, for church members, all marriages are first blessed by the congregation and the church leaders in question before the marriage takes place. A church member would never be able to enter a marriage that would be adulterous.

For people who are not church members who are already married, the congregation reviews their situation before they join as members, and if there are prior marriages, the situation is discerned first at a congregational level, and then at an annual meeting. If the member or members who wish to join seem repentant of past sins, have a proper attitude (not offended, resentful, etc.) towards any past spouses that may be living, and - rather importantly - that the prior marriage bond was broken, then that will be discerned at an annual meeting and they may be accepted as members.

Last Sunday I ran into a former church member who was married and eventually ended up divorced, which, by most accounts, was due to cruelty on his part, although his wife may have had her own struggles and problem areas. He desired to be remarried, but was not approved by the church at the annual meeting, and was instead asked to wait, including to attempt to reconcile with his ex-wife.

Instead he and another church member decided to get married outside of the church, which we would interpret as an act of grave disobedience to the church, which requires immediate expulsion. For whatever reason, they think they did nothing wrong and choose to continue to attend church and otherwise behave like church members. We would be unable to ever bless that union and repentance would require turning away from it. A church member has a responsibility, and the knowledge and agency, not to:

- enter into a marriage they know their congregation and the church does not bless

- respect the church's discernment on whether or not a marriage bond has truly been broken

- never to remarry without both a personal conviction it is acceptable to do so plus strong affirmation from both their congregation and the church at large that they discern this can be done according to Jesus' words in the exception clause

By contrast, two young people who decide to get married at the justice of the peace would simply need to say they are sorry and they could be reaccepted as church members, even though they decided to get married outside of the church.

Someone who decides to remarry whilst a former spouse is living is permanently barred from asking again for permission including for a future remarriage. There have been church members who actually had the nerve to do try to do this.

[Sudsy]

I found this interesting regarding how early Anabaptists understood D&R compared to more recent understandings -

https://dwightgingrich.com/why-anabapti ... 20latter,7.

[Ernie]

Thanks Josh for that detailed explanation!

[Josh]

I found this interesting regarding how early Anabaptists understood D&R compared to more recent understandings -

https://dwightgingrich.com/why-anabapti ... 20latter,7.

Sudsy, that is an excellent write-up and explains well why different groups of Anabaptists are a bit different on these topics now.

[Josh]

Thanks Josh for that detailed explanation!

I would add that whilst this system works well in our church, I would not necessarily claim that other plain Anabaptists need to do the same thing. It would not work well outside of a strong "one church" sort of structure, and specifically, it is of benefit both to Holdemans and to other plain Anabaptists that we do not uncritically accept each other's judgments regarding marriage.

The Apostolic Church functions very similarly to the Holdemans albeit not identically.

Let each of us seek to follow Jesus' teachings the best we know how and to concern ourselves first and foremost with judging within our own local congregations and sister congregations.

"Uncorking" the spectre of worldly divorce & remarriage would be a disaster for any of our groups.