The Preacher's Diary

1. The Living Book

The Bible is a strange living book, with its fathomless wells of puzzles.  No matter how many times you have read it, you never finish reading it.  Sometimes you come upon a freshness as if you had never read the passage before.

 

2. Of Symmetrical Paradoxes

In Acts 12, for example, I find an intriguing symmetry. It opens and closes with similar and contrasting actions.  It opens with one death and closes with another. It opens with the Church apparently vanquished; it closes with the same Church in triumph.  It opens with Herod the killer gaining grounds, from one mischief against James to the next against Peter; it closes with him stopped, then the further reversal of fates in the speedy advance of the same Church that he had sought to stop.  It opens with Herod being hailed, which urged him on; it closes with Herod being hailed, but that became his obituary.  That wicked king seemed to love the praise of men.  It fired him on, and it fired him down.

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21. The Dangers of Truth

Should we not teach baptism by immersion because some mischievous baptizer might drown the innocent?  Should we never fly because planes sometimes crash?  Should we throw away all electronic communication devices because some careless person abused the use of them for pornographic purposes?  Should we be angry at mirrors because they could be brutally blunt? Should we ban wives from kitchen knives because some aggrieved wife once upon a time used a kitchen knife to bloodily tell her stupid man that there could be a limit to enduring abuses?  Should we flee the Bible because some mischievous preacher led a few astray with distorted interpretations of it?  Should truth never be told because some unwary fellow might abuse it someday somehow?

That error is popular does not make it right.  At the risk of seeming to be making an argument for careless divorce, the balance should be provided.  In the face of rigid ancient opinions apparently founded on the scriptures, sincere but inaccurate opinions for that matter, providing a different

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 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

Acts 9:6.

Sometimes, it is shown what we must do.  Sometimes, it is told.  Unfortunately, often, we would rather be shown than be told, so, like a good camera regrettably focused on the wrong thing, we miss a message while looking intently when we should have been listening carefully.

Once upon a time, God was speaking to Prophet Jeremiah, then said to him, “Next, you shall be shown, not just told,” and the prophet moved to the studio where he was to be shown (Jeremiah 18:1-3).  On the contrary, to John the Apostle, while listening, it was said, “Come up hither, and I will shew thee things …” (Revelation 4:1).

While Saul was on his way to waste the followers of Jesus, he had a life-transforming encounter.  He heard the great voice of God; he had a privileged dialogue with God.  However, when it came to the most crucial question he had asked, about God’s plan for his life, rather than answer him directly, God said, “Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee …”  If that had been me, I would have protested, saying, “Lord, what can any mortal tell me better than what You can say to me here and now?  You are already speaking to me, so go on, say it all, now.  To wait to hear from a mere mortal when I have such access to You, is needless delay.”

God was saying to Saul, in other words, that the specific detail he had requested would be transmitted to him through a third party, a human vessel.  That would mean that, even when we have all the access to God, even in matters as important as what we “must do,” He does not always communicate with us by a single channel, because some things are better said and heard through the voice of other men, maybe so that there is a witness that we were told (Acts 13:1-3).

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On my way home yesterday, a burden came upon me.  As it often happens at such moments, my pleasure was gone from me.  I continued home slowly, in no mood for words with anyone for what I sensed in my soul.  I heard no voice this time in my ears nor saw a vision.  I can only say, like Paul, “I perceive … hurt and much damage,” and it was so (Acts 27:10).  Prophet Ezekiel reports, “I was among the captives by the river of Chebar … and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel 1:1).  Sometimes He comes upon you in a public place; sometimes in the sanctuary.  After all, “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof” (Psalm 24:1).

A cloud is thickening over the land, soon to burst in more bloody rains.   As Peter went to pray while awaiting his lunch, he had a trance of food from heaven (Acts 10:10-13).  God was speaking to a hungry man in the language of food.  The feelings of hunger in the flesh were merely the earthly sensations of the heavenly signals; it was earth picking up the urgency from the realms of the spirit; it was the body of the righteous man trying to interpret a message from the spirit realm. That is happening now

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21. Desertion

Apart from death by one partner, Paul provides another possible ground for remarriage after a divorce.  If one partner should choose to depart from the marriage for fundamental differences in spiritual perspectives, the other was freed from the marriage obligation, as two cannot “walk together, except they be agreed” (Amos 3:3).  Paul says, “in such cases,” the other is “not under bondage” anymore to the marriage, implying that the person is ‘free’ to remarry (1 Corinthians 7:15).

That passage does not say, “WHEN the unbeliever departs,” but “IF,” which means that although such departures should not be the rule, they are a possibility.  Whereas in 1 Corinthians 7:15 Paul addresses himself to the believer in the condition where his or her unbelieving partner might strongly wish to depart, in the verses before, he shows that even the believer might be obliged to make the same decision of departing or putting away, in the same circumstances of a relationship with an unyielding and implacable ‘unbeliever’ (1 Corinthians 7:12).  In other words, in the given circumstances, not only the unbeliever but also the believer could be the initiator or the departer “in such cases” where mutual peace is threatened.  All the same, he appeals to the believer that such drastic steps should not be hastily taken, because they might become the means of salvation to their partner.  He makes it clear that it is a possibility, although not a guarantee.  Some have stayed and saved the other at last, so also have others been lost trying to save the other.  In the end, they lost themselves and lost the other too, saving none (1 Corinthians 7:12-14).

12 Here I want to add some suggestions of my own. These are not direct commands from the Lord, but they seem right to me: If a Christian has a wife who is not a Christian, but [by her actions and general lifestyle] she wants to stay with him anyway, he must not leave her or divorce her. 13 And if a Christian woman has a husband who isn’t a Christian, and HE wants her to stay with him, she must not leave him. 14 For perhaps the husband who isn’t a Christian may become a Christian with the help of his Christian wife. And the wife who isn’t a Christian may become a Christian with the help of her Christian husband. Otherwise, if the family separates, the children might never come to know the Lord; whereas a united family may, in God’s plan, result in the children’s salvation.

15 But if the husband or wife who isn’t a Christian is eager to leave, it is permitted. In such cases the Christian husband or wife should not insist that the other stay, for God wants his children to live in peace and harmony (1 Corinthians 7:12-15, The Living Bible).

According to verse 12, the Christian can do either of two things: “leave her or divorce her,” given the stated conditions.  He can leave, or she can leave.  Again, the fact that the husband may “put away” or the wife may “leave him” (vv. 11-13) says more about roles and rights in the marriage, about powers and places, about who ‘has’ where, to be able to do what.  They both have the power to leave, but only one has the power to put away what he brought in, implying authority and powers in the space from which he puts away, but that is a different topic.

 

22. The Unbeliever

Certain interpreters are persuaded that 1 Corinthians 7:12-15 addresses only the case where one partner becomes a Christian and the other is not; where the not-yet-believer (or non-believer) opposes the now-believer’s new faith and decides to end the marriage by leaving or sending the other out.  That argument does not take the full context into consideration, so it is not a perfect position.

Just as any one of two unbelieving partners can become a Christian, any one of two believing partners can become an unbeliever, unless we are to say that a believer is never likely to backslide.  Paul addresses himself to the Christian partner because the believer is more reasonably disposed to Scriptural counsel, to which the other might be vehemently disinclined and therefore unprepared for that kind of help.  In other words, where one partner is staunchly unreachable with scriptural truth (whether they go to church or not), that partner qualifies as an unbeliever, and may not be restrained or compelled to stay.  To insist that they stay could be at the risk of the very crises against which Paul advises when he says, “God wants his children to live in peace and harmony.”  That is to say that some peace may only be achieved not by the continuing theologically forceful cohabitation of two combatants but by the exclusion of one.  The equation for such a peace, therefore, is not believer + unbeliever (at all costs), but believer – unbeliever = peace.  Paul advises the Christian to take the option that makes for peace; peace to themselves and to the other, by letting them go, and in the process freeing themselves also from the painful belligerent bond.  That means that proper and godly peace sometimes could mean the removal of the volatile element (the enemy of peace) from the conjugal equation, because every kind of combination does not make for peace.

Does ‘unbeliever’ mean someone whose name is not in the church register?  No.  Can a Christian qualify as an unbeliever in certain relational respects?  Yes.  For example, Jesus said that if there was a breach between two brothers (note, brothers), the godly of the two should reach out to make peace.  If that effort should fail to achieve reconciliation, the peace-seeking brother should proceed to take a witness or two and make a second move.  If that should also fail, he should involve the church, that is, the larger community, thus increasing the company of witnesses.  Any ‘brother’ who remains adamant after all the escalated entreaties for peace, becomes “an heathen man and a publican” while he might still retain the religious or relational tag of a ‘brother’ (Matthew 18:15-17).  So, can a brother or sister, by their attitude, scripturally qualify as an unbeliever?  According to Jesus, yes.   In other words, being a believer or unbeliever is much more than a religious tag or some church membership.

Some have argued, “He/she was not an unbeliever when you married, therefore this clause does not apply to you.  Stay until one of you is dead.”  That is faulty logic.  Paul’s point is, two people agreed to start a journey, which got to a point where one party is prepared to sink the boat unless they go or are allowed to go, because they are unwilling to accept a new state in the relationship.  Rather than sink the boat, Paul says, let them go, or you can go.  The point is not about how or where they started but where they had got to, and the vehement position of the other or oneself.

In Acts 5:3, Pastor Peter publicly confronted a church member thus: “Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie?”  That was a ‘brother’ in title, with his name apparently on the church roll, but with the throne of Satan in his heart, to the point of his becoming a fearless public liar – even in church.  He died by the strong anointing on the service that day.  Was that still a brother indeed?  By the nature and circumstances of his death, can we say that he went to heaven, being a ‘congregational’ brother?

Being an unbeliever of any kind is bad, but, according to Paul, there is something much “worse” than becoming an unbeliever, even “worse than an infidel,” who has altogether “denied the faith,” that is, when a professed believer lives as certain negligent lifestyle that disposes their family to danger through avoidable lack (1 Timothy 5:8).  So, a Christian in name can become an unbeliever in conduct, or even worse; they can qualify in spiritual terms even as an “infidel,” who has denied the faith.  Therefore, ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ are mere titles where lifestyle does not match creed.  To that extent, 1 Corinthians 7:15 would refer to much more than someone who does not profess faith.

In the context of Paul’s counsels in that passage, a sinner who is committed enough to the sanctity of marriage to the point of willing to remain, and working to remain with their partner, despite a change in religious perspectives, is more righteous than a ferocious church-member partner who can no longer be kept, who resolves vehemently to depart or manipulates events to achieve that end.  In other words, it takes a certain kind of ‘unbelieverness’ to work against the marriage and seek to end it.  The underlying principle is that it is better to be at peace without a toxic person like that, than keep them by force of a religious or cultural creed and risk perennial wars in the home, in the name of a marriage that is not.  The marital relationship should be held together by love, mutual commitment, and fear of God, rather than by fear of cultural and other sanctions, even though, sometimes, such traditions and beliefs have mediated long enough to save a marriage until the partners were maturer for love and commitment to steer their ship the rest of the way.

This is probably the uncomfortable balance that is lacking.  Sacred as marriage is, important as it is for partners to be encouraged to patiently bear one another in love, grave as divorce has been in several cases, it is spiritually and relationally unhelpful to insist on one good extreme of a truth to the tragic detriment, in some cases, of those being guided by that truth.  Paul states that sometimes the precious pearl of peace is not to be sacrificed at the altar of an ungrateful swine who could turn around to devour the other, making them the unfortunate victims of their own goodwill (Matthew 7:6).  Peace is not to be negotiated, not with who is unprepared for it.

If we read that passage again, Paul does not prescribe that any must stay or go in the cantankerous condition where one insists that they would go, or where the other feels unsafe enough to wish to go.  He leaves the decision to the discretion of the parties, making a concession to their personal choice. He says, however, that it’s a choice that should not be hastily made, but a possible choice all the same, with its probabilities and implications.  Properly in these matters, wisdom does not force a decision on either of the parties.  It shows them the implications, gives them the options, and leaves them to make the choice, lest when crises should come afterwards, an Adam would blame God for making him the victim of a choice that was made for him without consulting him – “It was the woman YOU gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it” (Genesis 3:12, New Living Translation).  A third party does not ‘agree’ for two others to “walk together.”  It is the two that are intent on the mutual ‘walk’ that should so agree with themselves – “… except THEY be agreed” (Amos 3:3).  They can only be guided in the process.

It cannot be denied that patience and perseverance have won many a partner after a long godly endurance, but it does not also deny that some have shortened their lives in regrettable ways for staying when they should have fled, often because they wished to please other opinions.  Jesus called us to be prepared to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake, but He also warned, “when they persecute you in this city, flee ….”  In other words, use your initiative to save your life when you can, rather than hope foolishly for a ‘vindicating’ spectacular intervention by some heavenly chariot of fire when you could have used your legs to do the same (Matthew 5:10; 10:23).  All deaths do not glorify God.  Some persecution is for righteousness’ sake; some is regrettable destruction from a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

 

23. Paul’s Self-contradictions?

If our interpretations of Paul’s clauses so far are as we have presented them, was he contradicting himself in such passages as Romans 7:1-3 where he quotes the Master’s teaching on the subject, as offered in Matthew and Mark and Luke, that one partner cannot have a justifiable remarriage after a divorce, while the other partner is still alive?  How could Paul say to the Romans that a remarriage while the other partner is still alive could be tantamount to adultery, yet provide grounds to the Corinthians for that to occur in other cases?  I wondered about that myself, and came to the resolution that one condition was the ideal situation being presented, as Jesus declared it; the others were the options where the ideal was unmet.

For instance, to “sin not,” is the ideal Christian counsel, yet because sometimes even the strong falls, but should get back again to their feet and continue the race, we are told, “If any man sin…” (1 John 2:1).  Was the apostle not thus contradicting himself?  Why should he say in one place, “sin not,” and in another, “If we confess our sins…” (1 John 1:9)?   Was he expecting us to be sinning, after telling us to not sin?   When he says, “If we confess OUR sins” (including the speaker), was he not implying that his other exhortation for the Christian to “sin not” was unrealistic, and thus self-contradictory?   No.  Both writers were making a distinction between the ideal, yet recognising the unfortunate possibility that mortals might sometimes fall in aiming at that ideal, but should not stop there.

From The Preacher’s diary, 

July 20, 2021. 

• A link to the e-book version of these posts shall be provided in the last three ‘Parts’ of this series.
• A collection of all remarks to these posts (received online/offline) shall be the last ‘Part’ of the series.

If the posts from The Preacher have been a blessing to you, please share the blessing.  Help us to reach more, and kindly also leave your comments in the provided section.

NOTE:

We shall take a brief pause from the present posts, to avoid information overload. At Part 10 now, it is our perception that readers need time to better interact with the message so far presented.  Besides, other readers need time to catch up.

Whereas, hitherto, the posts have been every other day, with the remaining section (Part 11-18), we shall increase the interval to five days or less, so that the meat be properly chewed.  Thanks.

The Preacher

Watch out for:

• Obeying Paul or Christ?
• Resolving The Samaritan Puzzle
• The Old Testament of Jesus
• God Hates Divorce
• Hardness of Heart
• What God has Joined Together

 

19.  Between Divorce and Putting Away

Deuteronomy 24:1 presents the process of a legal divorce, three clear steps to a proper divorce between a man and his wife:

When a man takes a wife, and marries her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorce, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house (Deuteronomy 24:1, World English Bible).

For the process to be complete and the divorce technically valid, based on the preceding marital breach (porneia, `ervah, etc.) warranting the process,

• “he shall write her a bill of divorce” – legal documentation
• “and give it in her hand” – witness, evidence, consent or concession of the other
• “and send her out of his house” – physical separation

The “bill of divorce” in her hand was the legal or official document on the dissolution of the union between the two; it was the evidence that there was a valid divorce; it was the woman’s license to be

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FIVE HUSBANDS AND TWO MEN: Christian Divorce and Re-Marriage?

(Part 8 of 18)

 

17. The Perspectives of the Gospels

Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees on divorce and remarriage is recorded only in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (Matthew 19:1-10; Mark 10:1-12).  St Luke’s Gospel provides no context to the declaration it makes.  It states in just one verse: “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery” (Luke 16: 18).   It also makes no mention of the exception clause that Jesus gave, based on marital infidelities.  It makes no mention of the wife’s equal powers to seek the same redress.

The book of Mark, like Matthew, provides a context to the discussion as arising from a query by the Pharisees.  The account in Mark well matches that in Matthew, except for two details: 1) it omits the fact that “fornication” could be grounds for divorce, and 2) it states the possibility that the woman also can put away.

It is noteworthy that both Mark and Luke were secondary reporters, who were not eye- and ear-witnesses of their reports, not having been disciples of Jesus (2 Peter 1:16; 1 John 1:1-4).  Even though that does not

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16. Revision or Reinstatement?

Some Bible teachers are of the view that, in answering the Pharisees on the question of divorce, Jesus re-instituted the ‘original order,’ for the two to be one flesh without the option of divorce at all.  The evidence of Scripture, however, is that He revised the old order, and that was not the only instance of His doing so. In His first sermon, generally called the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), for example, Jesus declared several times, “It hath been said … But I say; …. It hath been said … But I say ….”

For instance, whereas the traditional ‘definition’ of adultery was a sexual act between a married person and someone who is not their spouse, Jesus revised it to include lustful looks and thoughts (Matthew 5:27-28).  Murder used to be defined as the act of killing somebody, but Jesus revised the concept to include causeless anger with a brother (Matthew 5:21-22).  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth: that used to be the law, the Scripture; but Jesus revised that, too, saying, “But I say unto you … resist not evil” (Matthew 5:38-39).  In Matthew chapter 5 alone, that revisionary phrase, “But I say unto you …,” occurs as many as six times

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14. What “Uncleanness”?

The Hebrew word rendered as “uncleanness” in that passage is `ervah, which is sometimes translated euphemistically as “nakedness” and sometimes as “uncleanness.”  In Leviticus 18:6-19, the word occurs repeatedly, warning that one should not (sexually) ‘uncover’ the “nakedness” (`ervah) of one’s daughter or daughter-in-law or stepmother or aunt or granddaughter, etc.  The figurative usage of that word as a reference to sexual uncleanness is clearer in such passages as Leviticus 20:17, which states that “a man” should not uncover or “see” the nakedness (`ervah) of his sister, his daughter, or his niece.  Leviticus 20:18 uses the word in a way that more clearly connects the reference to sexual relations: “if a man shall lie with a woman … and shall uncover her nakedness…” – `ervah.  People uncover their nakedness or that of their partner to

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10. Was it a Parable?

If the encounter with the woman of Samaria had been a parable, we might have had theological pathways to ease the puzzle, but it was a real-life encounter with an actual woman who had had FIVE HUSBANDS – one, two, three, four, and five!  It was a real encounter with an actual woman at an authentic location witnessed by all twelve disciples of Jesus as well as the villagers, especially the men whom she invited to “come see.” 

If the story had been of a man who had had five wives, we might also have bothered differently, even in that New Testament passage.  What did Jesus mean in Matthew 5:32 about legitimate divorce strictly on grounds of fornication, that did not seem to apply in John 4:18 with the Samaritan woman and her five legitimate ex-husbands and five apparently legitimate divorces from each of them?

If it had been a disciple or a Pharisee who had called those men “husbands,” one would have

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