THINGS CHRISTIANS CAN'T TALK ABOUT, Part 3 - DIVORCE

 

Each of these uncomfortable topics in this brief series of articles are uncomfortable because they carry a sense of embarrassment or even shame. But this particular topic also carries a good deal of pain associated with it – in addition to any feelings of embarrassment or shame. This pain may involve a sense of failure, betrayal, rejection, and humiliation. Divorce rarely effects just the two people involved in ending a marriage. Divorce can scar people like little else can. It can scar socially, financially, emotionally, relationally, and even a person’s physical health – and sometimes do so permanently. Today, it seems to me that too few Christian ministers dare to help their congregations to see marriage the way our Maker and Designer intended it to be understood and applied. In discussing the painful and related issue of divorce that most Christians can’t talk about, I hope to inform, inspire, irritate, and incite holy fear and love. As a result it will be my sincere hope that I can ignite a grander, greater, and more gorgeous vision of GOD and His purpose for marriage as a means for human flourishing. And in the process I will hope that I can instil in those who read this to develop a righteous biblical perspective of divorce.

¶ And Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking,
“Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
Matthew 19:3

 

THE PROBLEM WITH A BROKEN UNDERSTANDING OF MARRIAGE

Before we discuss divorce, I need  to establish what marriage is. Over the past five decades the concept of marriage has been radically altered in the public’s understanding. I think it is fair to say that there have been few (if any) periods of human history when the true purpose of marriage has ever been satisfactorily understood. It wasn’t that long ago when marriage was seen by European royal families as a means for establishing strategic allegiances between nations. At other times and places, and for more mundane non-royal motives, marriage was seen as the means of siring as many children as possible to ensure that there would be a sufficient number of sons to help share the load of all the work that had to be done on the family farm. This would have also resulted in a marriage to be more likely between a husband and his much younger wife. Even in some cultures today, marriage involves a husband with many wives (polygamy), and often in those same cultures there is this rather odd practice of ‘mutah marriage’ where a man could enter into a marriage contract for an hour or two!

But none of these practices reflected the true purpose of marriage or of what it was designed for. Throughout history some women who became wives were treated as chattels (as a ‘possession’) and faced the continual threat of shameful divorce from their husband if they did not please him. These have been historic misrepresentations of what GOD intended marriage to be. Yet in our current era rather than correcting our collective understanding of what marriage actually is, there has been a dramatic distortion of what marriage is and its purpose! In the 1970s Australia (and coincidentally – or perhaps, suspiciously) and most other western democracies, changed their divorce laws.

Up until the 1960s, divorce required a reason such as infidelity (‘adultery’). But in the early 1970s when the divorce laws were changed, it no longer required a reason. This became known as no-fault divorce. The result of this change to divorce laws was a largely unforeseen set of outcomes.

1. It produced in the mind of the Australian public (and the western world) that the purpose of marriage was about individual happiness. “People get married to be happy…to live happily ever after.”

2. A husband could leave his wife because he had found another woman who now made him “truly happy” as his new wife.

3. In the mind of the Australian public a marriage was no longer considered a lifelong covenant (despite vowing ‘till death do us part’ and ‘for long as you both shall live’), it was now to be viewed as a contract that came with conditions.

4. Marriage became viewed as a means for legitimate pleasure disconnected from the children conceived as a result of that pleasure.

This seismic aberration of what marriage was intended to be would inevitably lead to a previously inconceivable sacrilege. And as divinely heart-breaking this must have been, it was compounded when those who had entered into holy orders as sacred ministers of GOD’s Spirit-breathed WORD sided with the forces of evil and slandered the One who had gifted marriage and the act-of-marriage to His image bearers and denounced His Word as no longer relevant or applicable.

MARRIAGE AS THE CREATOR OF IT INTENDED

The opening chapters of the Bible introduce the major themes of the Bible (and coincidentally the explanation for why the world is the way it is). And it does all this in just over twenty one hundred words. These themes include: 

(1) God is the Eternal One and the Uncaused First-Cause (Gen. 1:1).

(2) God is the Designer of the universe (Gen. 1:1).

(3) God created earth as a special planet in a special location in the universe where just the right conditions would be present for: (a) water to exist in three states (liquid, gas, solid); (b) it to be at just the right distance from our nearest star to ensure that our planet would not be too radiated but would receive sufficient amount of sunlight and the chemicals necessary for photosynthesis of vegetation; (c) an equatorial belt with snow capped mountains that would store and deliver fresh water seasonally; (d) oceanic volcanoes that would provide a continual source of essential minerals that would form the basis of the food chain for all life on earth to be able to exist; (e) small and large sea life essential to the survival of human life; (f) small and large land-based animals also essential to the survival of human life; (g) a gaseous atmosphere largely comprised of nitrogen that would compound with other gases such as oxygen and carbon-dioxide to form what we now call “air”; (h) a layered stratosphere over this gaseous atmosphere that would protect the inhabitants of earth from gamma-radiation and meteor bombardment;  and, (i) the capacity for beings from the eternal dimension (‘heaven’) to move back and forth from into and out of this dimension.

But most importantly it introduces the following themes: (4) GOD created human beings as either male or female –

¶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea
and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth
and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
¶ So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God [imago Dei] He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

(5) He ordained for them to fruitful and multiply as a married couple through their marriage together and GOD’s gift to them of sexual intimacy. Their marriage would thus serve three – but ultimately four – purposes: (i) sealing their covenant of marriage union (“becoming one”); (ii) experiencing a unique divine gift to brings great physical pleasure and comfort to those who are married; and, (iii) the pro-creation of children as their offspring. In the New Testament we discover that GOD also had another majestic purpose of marriage which is why the Lord Jesus Christ upheld this original vision of marriage when He told the  Pharisees – 

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.”
Matthew 19:4-6

(6) The first man and woman, the progenitors of the human race, disobeyed their Maker and fell from innocence into sin, guilt and shame. This produced a bias (as lawn bowlers refer to it) for all of their descendants to most naturally turn away from their Maker as their God to anything other than Him – especially themselves. What was created by the Maker to be good, beautiful, and a reflection of what was true (the instructions in His Word), now became a world where what was originally created for good was now being misused to become something evil (evil occurs when a good thing is misused for a contrary purpose for which it was not intended).

And it was in the apostolic era that it was revealed that GOD had an even more wonderful purpose for the marriage covenant between a husband and wife –

¶ Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body,
and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ,
so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. ¶ Husbands, love your wives,
as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that He might present the church to Himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it,
just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound,
and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:22-33

– marriage was always intended to be a holy union which served as a sacred picture of the union of the believer to Christ. Thus, the closing book of the Bible reveals the believer’s final destiny to be a holy wedding with Christ. Therefore, sexual intimacy within marriage was also designed as a shadow and foretaste, of the exhilaration, the ecstasy, and the ultimate satisfaction that every believer will enjoy for eternity in knowing and loving Christ.   

 

THE PROBLEM WITH DIVORCE

Once we understand God’s intention for marriage it should become apparent why God then “hates” divorce.

“For I hate divorce!” says the LORD, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”
Malachi 2:16 (NLT)

Yet God understands what it’s like to experience divorce better than most!

They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
He said to them, “Because of your hardness of 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.”
¶ 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.
Matthew 19:7-11

 

THE DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE OF GOD

Before the revelation of marriage as a foreshadowing of the relationship between Christ and His Church was received by the apostles, GOD spoke of His relationship with Israel as being His marriage to them. But when Israel went into civil war and secession into the Northern and Southern kingdoms, from which time GOD spoke of His marriage to Israel as being between Him and two sisters. When the northern kingdom of Ephraim abandoned their covenant with GOD and went after the worship of idols instead, the prophet Jeremiah described them to the Southern Kingdom (“Judah”) as ‘adulterers’ whom GOD had sent away ‘divorced’

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel,
I had sent her away with a decree of divorce.
Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.
Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.
Jeremiah 3:8-9

This breakdown of the LORD’s marriage to Israel was dramatically played out by the prophet Hosea who, would be a “living prophecy” to Israel (both kingdoms) of their unfaithful adultery and their divorce from God. But Hosea revealed that the LORD would re-marry, and this time He would take a wife who would be true and faithful to Him. This was a prophecy about the coming of the Christ who would take a people not identified by nationality, but by their devotion to, and worship of, Christ (Rom. 9:25-26). 

 

RECOVERING FROM DIVORCE

“Because of the hardness of your hearts” Jesus told the pharisees, “God allowed divorce, but…” (Matt. 19:8). In other words, because of the original Fall from innocence relationships with others, especially those we are closest to, are subject sinful actions and attitudes. Divorce should never be a troubled married couple’s immediate reaction. Marriage vows should not be taken and broken lightly. The same apostle who extolled marriage also said that when a non-believing spouse abandons their believing spouse, divorce may result (1 Cor. 7:12, 15). My pastoral counsel is that a divorce should never be entered into so that a spouse may marry another person. That is the case even if there is no other person waiting for a divorce to take place. The wish to divorce so as to fulfil the hope to one day re-marry should never be the motive for a divorce. In fact, this motive may well be seen as the sin of concupiscence.

For those who are, or have, divorced your recovery begins with forgiveness and perhaps also repentance. It is furthered by applying the teaching of Christ in Matthew 6:33. It is hindered if you seek revenge for the hurt your former spouse has inflicted. I want to be very clear though, divorce is not the unforgivable sin – rejection of God’s forgiveness through Christ is. As a church we want to welcome the divorced into our church family. And we especially want everyone to understand why marriage is so sacred and should not be entered into quickly or flippantly. This is why anyone about to get married needs to understand the importance of pastoral preparation before getting married as one of the best ways to avoid their marriage ending in divorce.

 

POSTSCRIPT:
THE BEST WAY FOR A COUPLE TO AVOID DIVORCE

Whenever I prepare a couple for their marriage, after we have dispensed with the formal paperwork, the first thing we discuss is what they think are the most common reasons for any couple to divorce? Their answers are usually correct and include financial pressures, drifting apart, unresolved conflict, infidelity (marital unfaithfulness), and parental pressures. I then explain to them that as we prepare for their upcoming wedding, their wedding will not be my focus. Instead, I tell them, their marriage will be my focus. And to do this we will need just one thing: how to argue. Often times a couple will laugh at this news. (Not so surprising really because I am actually an exceptionally funny guy.) But then I inform that in my opinion they have probably never had an argument in their lives – despite them just a few seconds ago assuring me that they argue “all the time!” I then respond to them that what they have been doing all this time is fighting which is not arguing.

Arguing involves learning how to communicate. Learning how to communicate involves doing two things that do not come naturally to us (especially men). I then point out that all of the reasons that they had just given me earlier (about why couple divorce) were all just symptomatic of a failure to communicate well. Even if you have been married a long time, and you never had any pastoral preparation for your marriage, it’s never too late to seek it.

By sharing these few thoughts I hope that more of us will be prepared to talk about this often uncomfortable topic, and for us as a church to create a safe place for people to do so.

Amen.

Pastor at Large,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

READ PART 4 - DEATH

THINGS THAT CHRISTIANS CAN'T TALK ABOUT, Part 1 - Doubt

 THINGS THAT CHRISTIANS CAN'T TALK ABOUT, Part 1 - Doubt

There are several things that Christian’s can’t talk about — not because Christians are incapable of doing so, nor because they are forbidden from doing so, but because they can’t bring themselves to talk about it. Perhaps this is because when a person is redeemed from their old way of life, all his or her negative aspects are expected to be done away with as result. But this is not everyone’s experience. Sometimes, life gets messy, messed-up, and quite frankly – massively disappointing for some. Thus, believers who are supposed to ‘have it all figured out’, feel they can’t talk about: their doubts, their depression, their fear of death, and their marriages that are at risk of divorce. Their reluctance to do so could be because they might be thought of by other Christians as “weak”. But sadly, this reluctance to talk about their struggles with someone they trust only tends to compound their struggles. As a pastor it troubles me to see believers struggle like this. So, I would like to pastorally share some thoughts about this taboo topic of doubt in what will be part 1 in this short series of pastor’s desk articles of four taboo topics that Christians can’t talk about.

 

DEFINING FAITH

“I’ve been having lots of doubts lately.”
“You just need more faith!”

Unfortunately this kind of problem<>solution conversation happens way too often. It reveals two bigger problems. Firstly, it fails to appreciate that there are different kinds of doubt; and, secondly, it seems to misunderstand what faith is and the role it plays in dealing with doubt. Consider how this conversation might have gone – 

“I’ve been having lots of doubts lately.”
“How so?”
“I keep praying and God doesn’t seem to be answering my prayers.”
”Anything else?”
“Well yes. It’s got me wondering whether I’m really saved or not. After all, if I was really saved then God would answer all my prayers, wouldn’t He!”
“How do you know that God is not answering your prayers?”
“Because what I’ve been praying for hasn’t happened yet.”
“I see. Sometimes even those people in the Bible went through what you’ve been going through – with unanswered prayers and doubts about whether God really loved them – and I think that what you’ve been experiencing is pretty normal for most believers. Do you remember what happened to John the Baptist after he baptised Jesus when he saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and then heard the booming voice of the Father from heaven?”
“Yes. He was later locked up in jail and then sent messengers to Jesus asking if He was really the Messiah.”
“That’s right. His prayers had not been answered and he was perhaps wondering whether God loved him anymore.”

Not every admission of doubt should be treated with a dismissal such as “You need more faith!” Let’s look at the two problems this kind of dismissal reveals.

1. THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF DOUBT

¶ Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him,
“Are You the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  And Jesus answered them,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.
And blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.”
¶ As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing?
Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written,
“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way before you.’
¶ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.
Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Matthew 11:2-11

John the Baptist’s doubt was circumstantial (his circumstances where negative). He was imprisoned and was probably despondent. But even at that low point, he remedied his doubt by asking for reasons to keep believing. Jesus did not condemn him for having doubts. In fact, he paid John the Baptiser the highest compliment (Matt. 11:11). Some doubts need a pastoral response that provides reassurance.

2. THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF FAITH

Some people regard faith as ‘believing things that cannot be proven’. There are, of course, some things that I believe for which I cannot prove are true. For example, I believe in the proposition that: my wife loves me. I feel that I have good reasons for believing this is true. But I can’t support my faith in this proposition with mathematics or a piece of objective evidence. All I have to rest my faith on the belief that my wife loves me is my thirty-seven-year friendship with Kim in which I have observed her self-sacrificing for my happiness and welfare; and, her daily testimony when she tells me, “I love you.” Faith can be based on what we have experienced when it aligns with supporting evidence.

I have faith about some things that I have never seen. I have never physically seen Jerusalem. But I have faith that it exists. Of course I have seen photographs and film footage of it, but there is a risk I am prepared to take in the work of photographers and journalists that they are being truthful. Added to this visual evidence, I also have the eye-witness testimonies of people in whom I trust who have actually been to Jerusalem. Faith can be grounded in the eye-witness testimonies of those who are trustworthy.

Therefore, genuine faith is grounded not just in personal experiences but in experiences that are supported by the observable and consistent evidence of reliable witnesses – including yourself. This means that faith is “trusting the evidence”. This is why Jesus rebuked Thomas the apostle for his refusal to believe the testimony of those he knew could be trusted-

¶ Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them,
“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails,
and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
¶ Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.
Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
“Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see My hands;
and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said to him,
“Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
John 20:25-29

 

DEFINING ‘DOUBT’

John the Baptist’s doubt was a cry for reassurance. Thomas’s doubt was a rejection of those whom he had known were trustworthy. But there is also false doubt where someone ceases to have faith – not because there are no longer good reasons to believe or good reasons to disbelieve, but because a person no longer wants it to be true. Paul refers to two of his former colleagues who “rejected and shipwrecked” their faith because they became more attracted to the enticement of what may have been sexual sin-

holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith,
among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
First Timothy 1:19-20

Yet, there is a kind of genuine doubt that comes from a lack of awareness of appropriate evidence. This kind of doubt requires evidences and good reasons for believing (1Peter 3:15-16).

Then there is a kind of doubt that is actually a spiritual attack which Paul describes as “the flaming darts of the evil one” in Ephesians 6:16 where the enemy lures the child of God away from the source of their spiritual strength – 

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith,
with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
Ephesians 6:16

This kind of doubt requires being reminded of what God’s Word says. This is why the enemy seeks to keep the child of God from reading the Bible, hearing and experiencing the preaching of God’s Word with God’s people, and sharing with other believers in their small group.

Every believer is going to be subject to doubts. Some genuine doubts might sincerely question God, His Word, and His love. Some other doubts may be masking a battle with temptation to gratify sinful desires. But there is a healthy way to deal with both of these kinds of doubts.

 

DEALING WITH DOUBT

Doubt is normal. Questions that arise from having doubts nearly always have a reasonable answer. Hopefully by now you have heard me say that if you are battling with, or not battling with, your doubts, you should talk with a fellow believer in whom you trust. If you are run-down and battling with illness or injury in which you are physically vulnerable, then let you small group know about it so that they can pray for and with you. The other week I spoke with someone in this situation and they shared just how difficult it was to read their bible each day and to pray. As I spoke with them over the phone and did two things. I shared with them what I had read in my Bible that day and how it had effected me. Then I asked If I could pray for them and did so. Sometimes when we are run-down we need the strength of another believer to have the grace to continue to stand (1 Peter 4:10). This is why our small groups, and interactions with our brothers and sisters in Christ each Sunday after our worship service is so invaluable.

Sharing your troubling doubts with another believer in whom you trust is not something you should feel you can’t talk about. And if you are someone who does have someone share the battle they are having doubts, then remember the exchange between John the Baptist’s messengers and Jesus, and how Christ had responded to them, and be gentle.  

¶ As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
Romans 14:1

As I approach the sixth decade of following Christ and growing in my understanding of God’s Word, I am now more convinced than ever before that for every intellectual objection to GOD and His Word there is a reasonable answer supporting our belief in the God of the Bible and Bible itself. If you have any doubts about this, let’s have a talk.

Pastor at Large,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

READ PART 2, DEALING WITH DEPRESSION