Jesus, Divorce and Remarriage by Gordon Wenham

 

Jesus, Divorce and Remarriage by Gordon Wenham is a nice very summarized look at this controversial topic.  A concise, examination at what God's Word teaches us about how we Christians are to look on divorce, remarriage, and of course, marriage itself. It doesn't really deal with modern Christian views on divorce, as the goal of this little book is to focus on what Jesus taught about divorce and remarriage and what the popular views were at that time.  

Now, though  informative background information regarding the contemporary views of the people Jesus is talking to is interesting, the most interesting parts to me were where the Biblical texts are focused on.  Jesus' teachings in particular (In Matthew 5, 19, and in the other Gospels).Wenham makes you really look at what Jesus is saying, getting past the clutter of our preconceived notions of what He must, in our view, be saying.  We see that Jesus goes after terms like "murder" and "adultery"  reveals what these concepts really entail;  what really amounts to "murder" or "adultery" before God. The people, even the scholars of the day didn't really understand.  The book points out that, in defending the life-long union of marriage, Jesus doesn't say that the term "divorce" should be removed from the vocabulary, or that it doesn't exist, what He basically does is say to the religious leaders that 'divorce' doesn't mean what they thought it meant, and that the act of the divorce itself can be considered an act of adultery by God.  By pointing the religious leaders back to the beginning of Creation, the original design, ("In the beginning God created them male and female…what God has joined together let not man separate") He reminds them that Marriage was to be lifelong, the man and woman are really are no longer two, but one flesh in God's eyes. 

The religious leaders seem to take Jesus' pointing back to the beginning as an attack on the validity/concept of "divorce" altogether.   They bring up the law, that Moses allowed them to write a certificate of divorce.  But as Wenham says, "Jesus is not fazed by their appeal to the law. He argues that the need for a law on divorce proved their sinfulness, not their piety." And then Jesus tells them that marriage to a divorced person is adultery.  It is noted that He essentially tells these people that their thought that the one flesh union is ended by legal divorce and/or physical separation is completely wrong. "…The divorced couple, though separated from each other, are still related to each other in the one-flesh union".   

Apparently, though marital adultery is the 'adultery' of 'marriage', it is not the ending of a marriage; adultery doesn't put the man and wife asunder before God, rather it introduces someone else into the marriage who should not be included. Jesus didn't say that Moses permitted divorce because the marriage had been ended, before God, by whatever the wife did, rather He said that divorce was permitted because their hearts were hard. By implication, the marriage before God was actually still intact, but men didn't want live with that reality.  So divorce was allowed, but Jesus clarifies that the only time divorce isn't considered adultery (before God) is if there has been sexual infidelity (which clarification is the so-called 'exception clause' that takes place in divorce/remarriage discussions).  But Jesus does not give an "exception clause" to anyone marrying any divorced person.  Thus, though it is not always adultery to divorce/deliberately leave your spouse, it is always adultery to marry a divorcee (divorced for whatever reason).

Now, as with, pretty much, any book I read, there were some statements made in the book that I wasn't sure about.  I'll just bring up one:  Wenham brings up a question, which I'll paraphrase here: how many times should one forgive one's spouse?  What if they keep lying about their repentance?  Should one separate/legally divorce from them? What apparently some early Christians thought that one ought to divorce one's spouse (though not remarry) if they committed adultery, but if they repented they should accept them back. "…if the guilty party repents, the other party must welcome the restoration of the marriage. But there should be a limit on the number of times the innocent party is expected to forgive the unfaithful spouse; while Jesus spoke of seventy-times seven, Hermes(an early church leader) reckoned once should be the limit." Wenham seems to agree with Hermes that there should be a limit of some sort. And I understand the practical dilemma. But (I'm just going to think 'out-loud' here. not take a definitive stance) if forgiving once, or even ten times, is the limit for forgiveness of a person for a specific sin, then wasn't Jesus statement about forgiving seventy-times seven nonsensicall? At least seventy-times seven, though it is shocking to us, makes mathematical sense in one's mind; but if Jesus didn’t mean what He clearly said then that makes His statement irrelevant in the long run, merely a shocking statement without substance. God demonstrates forgiveness Himself to believers: How many sins do we think that has God forgiven us? One? One BIG one? Several? I would think much more than 70 times seven. So perhaps He even redefined the common view of 'forgiveness'? Clarified what it really looks like. Shocking us even there!  

Now, as Wenham rightly brings out, there is the BIG point that as Christians we are told in God's Word that we are to disassociate from professing Christians who are living ungodly lives and refusing repentance (1 Cor 5, and I understand that a whole church body should do that in such a case, but I kind of wonder if it would be absolutely imperative, say for a wife, to divorce her professing Christian husband who is living in sin. But I think that one might presume, based on how connected the couple is before God in marriage (pretty much becoming one person), that a spouse might be treated somewhat differently. Yes, if a professing Christian husband is committing adultery, and refuses to repent, then the church body should exercise church discipline/separation from that him as a body.  Yes, apparently, Biblically the offended wife may choose to separate as well, as that seems to be allowed based on Jesus' clarification that separation from a sexually unfaithful spouse would not be adultery. But I'm wondering if it obligatory on the faithful spouse's part to divorce? You have a few texts from the Bible we might take hints from: one is the person who is married to an unbeliever (1 Cor 7). Now, how much more 'spiritually' separated can you be from your marriage partner than having a spouse who is spiritually lost?  But interestingly, if the unbeliever consents to live with the believer that apparently allowed.  And then, perhaps more specifically to the point, you have Paul (apparently speaking for the Lord - "not I but the Lord") saying that couples should not divorce, but if they do, they are to remain unmarried or else be reconciled (Still 1 Cor 7).  

And then you have 1 Peter 3 which talks about how a wife is to respond if her husband is "disobedient to the Word", so he is apparently a professing Christian (it would seem strange to designate an unbeliever by that description as his being 'disobedient' would seem like a given). It doesn't say how he is disobedient to the Word. That statement is probably deliberately vague: 'disobedient to the Word'. That covers quite a lot of sins, and kind of seem like, "just fill in the blank", and yet Peter says that the wife is supposed to win him over without a word by her submissive behavior (1 Pet 3), not by separating from him, or even lecturing him from the Word. And then, husbands are supposed to love their wives like Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25), so would there ever be a point where Christ would refuse the church coming back to Him in repentance? So how should a husband act toward his wife who commits adultery many times and yet comes back sorrowful and repentant? Because of verses like those, I'm not so sure that divorce is obligatory on the part of the offended/faithful spouse, though church discipline may need to be administered by the church body.

Things like the above may be practical things we'll have to work through (perhaps, we should just cross that bridge when we come to it?). But we need to get down to what the text actually says and work from there, regardless of our practical difficulties. And Wenham does a good job at just looking at what Jesus says, not letting fears of what He might be saying cloud our vision.  Wenham states: "it is clear that Jesus is putting forward a more demanding ethic than his hearers had ever known previously.  Their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees…."  What Jesus is saying truly is initially shocking.   Jesus is essentially telling both contemporary 'sides' (Wenham explains those) of the divorce remarriage issue that they didn't understand marriage at all.  Just as His clarification that what amounts to 'lust' and 'murder' before God is truly startling and beyond self-righteous mankind's expectations, His clarification of "marriage" is just as startling.  I'll end with one more quote from the book that pretty much sums all up: "At no point does he (Jesus) concede that they may have a point. Marriage is permanent, full stop. So Jesus challenges all who want to follow him to embrace the principle of no remarriage after divorce. 'Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.'(Matt 19:12)".   

Many thanks to the folks at Lexham Press for sending me a free review copy of this book! My review did not have to be favorable.

My rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

So Close to Home by Michael J. Tougias and Alison O'Leary

So Close to Home by Michael J. Tougias and Alison O'Leary is a riveting account of the amazing, providential survival and reunion of a family after the ship they are travelling on was torpedoed by a German submarine. 

In 1942, the Downs Family, consisting of Ray and Ina Downs and two of their children, Lucille and Sonny Downs (their oldest son Terry was already in the U.S.), were making their way back to the United States from an eleven month stay in Columbia where Ray had taken a job with the United Fruit Company.  They began their journey home on a ship called the Heredia.

Their trip home was drastically interrupted. The night before they were to land at New Orleans, two torpedoes hit the ship.  The Downs' almost make it out onto the deck of this ship together but are separated by a lurch of the ship causing a surge of water to engulf them.  Ray is washed back inside the ship, while Ina, Lucille and Sonny are swept to various places on the decks and in the water, all find themselves separated from the rest of their family.

Ray is reunited with Sonny after a short while, Lucille is helped by the Second Mate of the Heredia while Ina struggles to survive on her own.  They all have encounters with sharks and suffer from long exposure to the elements.  All of them have to deal with their fears for each other, wondering whether the rest of their family is still alive and they all try to keep their composure during their ordeal.  Even little Sonny tries to be tough like his dad and succeeds in not breaking down.  The Downs' family ends up happily reunited, all of them amazed and grateful that they survived. 

Heavily intermixed with the story of the Downs family story are the accounts of several U-boat Captains and their crews, including that of the Captain of the U-boat that sank the Heredia.  The authors interweave these accounts by jumping off many  incidents in the Downs' story to lead into history and facts about German submarines, their crews and other ships they sank.  I found it very interesting that, unlike the Japanese, many German Submarine Captains were kind and friendly to survivors of ships that they sank.   The most amazing one is probably the account of the sinking of the ship called the Laconia which carried many civilians.  The Captain of the U-boat who sunk her surfaced and took on many survivors, helped any injured, and ended up obtaining help from other German U-boats who also took on survivors and all of them towed several lifeboats in their wake and helped to repair lifeboats.

I'm going give a couple of negative comments here: First, I just want to note that book had some foul language, but it is easy enough to scribble out and to skip over (I've been reading it out-loud to some of my siblings).  Sometimes I don't want to know what people said exactly the way it was said, even if it is actually history.

Second, I was saddened to find that, though Ray and Ina Downs' seemed to be professing Christians, they ended up divorcing later in life. If they hadn't been Christians I wouldn't have thought much of it.  But they were professing Christians, and as such they could have shown the kind of unconditional love toward each other that God showed toward them. That was not a good example of a Christian marriage, that they loved each other conditionally rather than unconditionally.  It is quite disheartening to think that they had the stamina to survive a ship's sinking, almost being drowned or eaten by sharks and yet they didn't have the stamina to choose to keep loving each other despite each other's flaws and keep their marriage covenant.  Perhaps I am getting too preachy here, but that was just really sad to find out. 

But all in all, I liked the book.   It was a very fascinating account of the sinking of the Heredia with lots of background history and information interwoven throughout the book.  It was very surprising to find how much German U-boat activity was happening in the Gulf of Mexico.  I had no idea that U-boats came SO close to the U.S.!  Looking at the map just inside the front cover of the book one can get a picture of just how close they got.  Some U-boats even gave potential German saboteurs a lift to our shores!  I learned quite a bit of extra World War II history.

Many thanks to the folks at Pegasus Books for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)!

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com and also on other retail sites

NLT Guys Slimline Holy Bible

The NLT Guys Slimline Holy Bible is nicely bound, very slim and lightweight. The cover has some of the 'leather-touch' material that feels very nice (not that boys will care that much), and the bright blue lines intermixed with the black should make it very easy to spot if misplaced and also catches the attention which would hopefully be a reminder for young guys to read it each day.   The letter font on the inside is small but not too small, I found it quite easy to read.  At the back of the book, Bible includes a dictionary/concordance, a list of suggested memory verses on various topics, a Bible reading plan and of course the usual maps of the Holy land and Europe.

The translation itself is very readable, the translation notes say that they were trying for a mix of formal equivalence and dynamic, I think this translation leans a bit more to the latter, a 'thought for thought' type of translation which then necessarily has some heavily imposed biased interpretation on certain texts.  I'll give a couple of related texts as an example,   Matthew 19:9: "….whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery - unless his wife has been unfaithful"  and 1 Corinthians 7:15, "But if the husband or wife who isn't a believer insists on leaving, let them go.  In such cases the believing husband or wife is no longer bound to the other…"   Both of these verses evince a bias on the part of the translator.  In the Matthew text they make the 'exception clause' permit remarriage rather than just a separation of the couple, and in the Corinthians text they make it sound as though the couple are no longer bound to one another in marriage (in God's eyes) rather than using the simple statement, "no longer bound." Which statement does not give the impression that the marriage is done in God's eyes.  I do not see how people don't see the problem with the 'remarriage allowed' interpretation (which in my view is an eisegetical interpretation not an exegetical one). When you think about it for a moment you realize that if a marriage is ended in God's eyes by adultery or separation then the couple CANNOT forgive one another and stay married - they MUST legally divorce and separate if the marriage is finished before God, otherwise the couple would be living together out of wedlock (in God's eyes) even if they are not legally divorced.  Legal divorce was permitted by Moses because of the hard hearts of the people, but Christ came to give us NEW hearts.  Remarriage after legal divorce should not be an option in a Christians eyes because they have a new heart, not a hard heart and if they must be separated from their spouse then they should be willing to live a celibate life for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 19:11-12, 1 Cor. 7:10-11).  I know it's hard to accept but we should not reject or accept what we like in God's Word simply because "it's not fair" or "I don't feel that God would allow that".  Our feelings and our idea of fairness are not the authority, God is, and His Word is our standard, not ourselves. So, as you see, I think this translation is a bit too biased/not literal enough.  *Cough* sorry for rambling on, I just had to get that out and it's been on my mind because we're hitting the topic at my church.

I also didn't understand why some traditional words like, "Justification" were changed to "made right with God" but others, like the word "tongues" in 1 Corinthians 14 were kept instead of changed to "different languages".  It just seemed rather inconsistent.   'There were several translations of verses that I liked and thought did a pretty good job of carrying the original idea of the passages over into modern English but overall I think that they could have done a better job, (the ICB seems to be more consistent in that area).

Overall the translation is okay (maybe a little too clear/modern/explicit a translation in some parts- especially for kids) though I strongly prefer the NASB.

Many thanks to the folks at the Tyndale Blog Network for sending me a free review copy of this Bible (My review did not have to be favorable)

NIV Zondervan Study Bible

When first received my copy of the NIV Zondervan Study Bible in the mail, my first impression was amazement over its size and weight, it is HUGE!  It is quite impressive on the inside as well, the text of the  NIV is laid out in a one column format instead of the usual 2 columns.  The cross references are placed on the side of the column and study notes on the bottom.  I loved the charts throughout, especially in the OT which included charts summing up what was in certain sacrifices and offerings, and charts on the Lord's appointed festivals, census results, Levite Numbers and responsibilities…etc.  Very helpful.  There were many photographs of Biblical areas throughout, and also pictures of various archeological finds having to do with many biblical events and people.  Those are quite fascinating and interesting.  

Many of the study notes seem quite intricate and useful and exegetical.  Several of the pages are quite packed with notes.  There were various scholars writing the study notes for each individual book of the Bible and you can see the negatives and positives to that.  For instance, I was pleasantly surprised (shocked may be the better term) that the person who did the study notes in 1 Corinthians actually took the literal view of chapter 7, where Paul repeats, affirms and perhaps expounds upon, the Lord's command,  "To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord):  A wife must not separate from her husband.  But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.  And a husband must not divorce his wife." 1 Cor. 7:10-11  The writer of the study notes comments:   vs. 11"...There are only two options for a divorced woman: (1) remain unmarried or (2) reconcile with her husband.  a husband must not divorce his wife.  Just as a woman must not divorce her husband; again Paul formulates no exception." Vs. 15, 'Let it be so.'   when a non-Christian spouse divorces a Christian spouse, the Christian cannot do anything about it.  not bound in such circumstances.  it is often suggested that this allows a deserted Christian spouse to remarry since the Christian is not 'bound' to the marriage that has been dissolved.  This interpretation is not plausible:  (1) In v. 11 Paul prohibits remarriage in cases where divorce has taken place. (2) The Greek verb does not mean 'bound'; it means 'enslaved' or 'under bondage.' (3) The thrust of the context is maintaining marriage.  (4) Paul speaks of 'freedom' for a new marriage only in cases when the spouse has died (v. 39; Rom 7:1-3).  If a non-Christian spouse leaves the marriage, the Christian spouse is not responsible for the divorce.  Christian spouses may not initiate divorce from non-Christian  spouses on religious grounds..."  But then where you turn to Christ's comments on divorce and remarriage in Matthew 7 and 19 you find the usual view espoused  (dissolution of a marriage before God in the case of adultery)by whomever wrote the study notes. 

 But now I must talk about the negative aspects of this Bible.  One is not so bad, but some may find it quite inconvenient, and that is that the font is (or seems to me) quite small, and that is aggravated by the fact that it is difficult to lift the book closer to one's face to take a closer look  because it is so heavy.  But if they made the font any bigger the Bible's overall size would be impractical and it would probably end up having to be treated like some old gigantic Bibles of the past where would you just designate a place for it to be left open on its own stand as it would be difficult to transport.

 

The second negative was that the person(s) who wrote the study notes on Genesis did not come down firmly on a literal 24 hour day creation.  For instance in the introduction to Genesis it is stated that, "The question of the age of the earth is not automatically resolved with the use of the seven days in 1:1-2:3.  In 2:4, Moses uses the same Hebrew word for 'day' to summarize all the work of creation…Of course, this does not mean that the term 'day' cannot refer to a 24-hour day in the seven days of creation.  But it may also serve other purposes."    And therefore of course, they also do not firmly promote a global flood in Genesis 6-7 but leave it open to the possibility of its being a regional flood.

 

The third negative is that the Bible has at least a few engravings, paintings and other forms of art picturing unclothed people.  I'll mention three of them  here: First there was a picture of a naked Adam and Eve holding a few tiny conveniently placed leaves…I don't get why they don't at least depict them in the clothing of leaves they had tried to make, or why don't they picture them when God clothed them with animal skins?  Why depict the father and mother of all mankind in what is now their shame???  It is STILL their SHAME, why is it okay for their offspring to have pictures of them in that state???????I don't understand that at all.  And then there was an engraving or something  showing  circumcision being performed on men and it was completely unnecessary, I didn't need to see that.   And lastly there was a painting in the introduction to Psalms that showed unclothed and scantily clothed Egyptian women musicians, the only connection to the Psalms was that they were musicians.   Why? Why choose that one?  I don't care if they are ancient archaeological finds and are considered 'a work of art', I don't care how old it is,  there are bad/immoral works of art from history just as there are bad works of 'art' today!  I don't understand how a person can think that pictures depicting naked people are justified to have in a Bible, rather I see it as an affront and a contradiction to the teachings of the Bible itself.  Think of Christ's statement:  "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. "(Mat 5:27-28 ASV).  What if a picture was placed beside it showing a lewdly dressed woman with the caption "ancient depiction of a prostitute", wouldn't that seem a little (sarcasm) contradictory? 

I'm sorry to have to be so negative but I simply had to say something.  I would have rated the study Bible higher if it hadn't been for the bad pictures. 

  

I received a free review copy of this book from the Booklook blogger program in exchange for my review which did not have to be favorable.