What Biblical REASONS does the scripture give for divorce? What other passages add to or correct what Jesus stated? Moses said you can divorce because of your hardened hearts but in the beginning it was not so..GOD...
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I don't understand...when Jesus stated that we are to love our enemies and forgive...do you justify hating someone? If not, why not? Just because Jesus said it, doesn't make it LAW does it?
So is 'hardness of the heart'.
Yep...the same way Jesus and Paul's words regarding divorce and remarriage 'mean something else'...
Mankind hates the narrow message of scripture regarding marriage, divorce and remarriage for the very reason Jesus pointed to..the hardness of the heart..
We could discuss all the motives for justification but it's irrelevant...either we really do adhere to scripture or we don't.
The Biblical expectation of divorce and remarriage is tough..that's why the disciples responded the way they did...it's better to not marry at all..Jesus let them know that that is a choice to be a eunuch and it not a viable choice for some..
Today no one responds to that passage with, 'It's better not to marry!' Mainly because it's taught very differently today.
We should adhere to scripture. There are however several ways we should not adhere to scripture. Simply adhering to it according to the letter is one of the ways we should not adhere to it.
2 Cor 3:6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Haven't you learned a thing from that passage ?
Absolutely...I learned that what God tells us He gave Jesus do, die so that we could be enabled to do it....that He never asks of us what can't be done if we rely and obey HIM by faith.
So how does one adhere to love their enemies? The same way one adheres to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it..by faithful submission and obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. How does one fail? By allowing their hearts to be hardened...
If the church would return to teaching what Jesus said and what Paul said as THE truth accompanied with the reality that God's great love never fails and that we can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us and that His Spirit of wisdom and revelation can work miracles if we yield in faith..they would see far more marriages miraculously restored and far less children lost..
If the letter kills then how is it that the Spirit is going to give you life enabling you to follow scripture according to the letter so that the letter can then kill you again ?
Love your enemies...that is 'letter'.
That letter reveals our need...kills.
Paul said the scripture came and I died...truth reveals our need of HIM...Once the Spirit makes that truth alive we don't die again...we live that truth manifesting that life...the letter kills the flesh and the Spirit gives the life...the life being His empowerment to be as He is...
Love your enemies reveals our hate and our fear and our selfishness...The Spirit enables us to love our enemies bring life...transformation..
You can have the last word..I yield the floor..
The letter kills the flesh ? It does not say that. To the contrary it calls the ministry of the old covenant the ministry of death and condemnation, referencing back to the ministry of the letter which is what the law was about :
7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones
9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory
The old covenant ministry of the law, the letter and condemnation did not "kill the flesh". To the contrary, it vivified sin in the flesh so that the flesh became very much alive in sin and instead the person died in that sin, per Romans 7.
Romans 7:6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
The fact that "we do not serve in the old way of the letter" demonstrates already that the letter does not kill the flesh, why do away with something useful ?