1 Corinthians 7 pt2 – Marriage and Divorce
When is Divorce permissible in God’s eyes? Jesus had to deal with that question from the religious community He belonged to; and it was one of the first pastoral issues that emerged in the religious community He founded: the Church. The Apostle Paul is able to refer back to Jesus’ teaching as He addressed this issue for husbands and wives who shared faith in Jesus. For those whose spouses did not follow Jesus, Paul had no explicit teaching of Jesus to refer to, but with wisdom from the Holy Spirit he pastorally guides the Christians at Corinth in ways that continue to speak to us today. In the same way that Jesus did in His situation (eg: Matthew 19), Paul helps us to avoid the extremes of making divorce either too difficult or too accessible. By denying the possibility of divorce we leave no way out of marriages destroyed by “hardness of heart” as Jesus explained. But in making divorce too accessible, marriage was allowed to become self-serving and disposable, completely distorting the picture of God it was created to be. Marriages struggling with sin – which is all of them – can beautifully demonstrate the Gospel and its transforming power when we do marriage God’s way with God’s help.
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