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Biblical Gender Identity



Site: Jayden12.com › Rock › Gender Identity › Divorce (Mobile) - Full Site

Section: Intro ⋅ Single ⋅ Marriage ⋅ Adultery ⋅ Living Together Not Married ⋅ Prostitution ⋅ Cross Dressing ⋅ Homosexuality ⋅ Animals ⋅ Incest ⋅ Self ⋅ Cycle ⋅ Polygamy ⋅ Divorce ⋅ Abortion ⋅ Adoption ⋅ Style ⋅ General ⋅ Conclusions

Disclaimers:
1. This is a mature topic only intended for people who've at least begun puberty. If you are less than 13 years old then I pray you don't have any reason to concern yourself with this yet, and you should ask a trustworthy adult before reading this. (My Family in the Bible page (here) is meant for all ages.)
2. This summary is not intended for general counseling, it is for those who want to know what the Bible says on this topic, and for those who claim the Bible is silent or says the opposite, plus a little commentary to get us started on what it means and how all this fits in a Biblical worldview.



Divorce
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This isn't "sexual immorality", but is clearly part of inter-gender relations. This is a sensitive topic because it is difficult to tell from afar if a person has divorce in their life because of their own callousness or because they were essentially a victim.

Direct Indirect Worldview

Note, KJV and some other old English translations refer to this as "putting away" a spouse, and even NIV uses this phrase in Ezra 10:19. Malachi and Matthew make it clear that God's opinion on divorce is not good. But please note there are some important twists to this topic, details that completely change the direction of a conversation we might get in depending on the/​your specific scenario. Notice these commands are about the choice of divorce. If your spouse bailed on you, then the scorn God has for divorce isn't meant for you. And notice it never says when we should get divorced. It simply says when it's tolerated (your spouse is either unfaithful or a non-believer who wants out) and by implication when it's not (every other reason we can come up with, including a lack of reason or lack of fault). Jesus clearly said God's preference is that a husband and wife stay so until one of them dies. That means for many (if not most) of us, choosing to divorce is sin. This is why it is so important to make good choices up front, and is one of many reasons why it is so important to know what God has told us in advance (Proverbs 21:9,19).

Let's extrapolate. Choosing to divorce (unless because of the two allowances) is sin. There is no such thing as no-fault divorce because that would mean there is no-fault sin. But by definition sin is a choice. It's entirely possible both parties in a marriage are at fault, but then that would be dual-fault, not no-fault. No-fault divorce is the government saying (at best) we don't have time to sift through the details and provide moral counseling to this poor couple, and we don't care enough to refer them to a church, so to be non-critical and collect our legal fee, we'll just call it no-fault and get them off our back. (This isn't commentary about all judges who grant no-fault divorce, just commentary on the government that tolerates its creation and perpetuation.) Deuteronomy 13:6-11 has another related tangent. This call to execute anyone who intellectually drags a believer away from the faith was one of those commands given to a people who lived in a theocracy (governed directly by God, not by a king, democracy, etc.) and difficult to carry forward to any other nation. But it's an interesting reveal of God's character, and is precedence which makes that much more rich what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:15.

That disclaimer made (and not to be forgotten) in Malachi 2:16 deserves a little more analysis. In the original Hebrew (int) God makes what seems a very strange comment. It is so strange that NIV, ESV, and others translate the whole verse a little weird. In the original, the first half translates more literally to "For that He hates divorce, says Yahweh, God of Israel, for it covers violence with one's garment, says Yahweh of hosts." (Remember Hebrew is a completely different language than English so has different grammar rules.) Two observations:
  • The word for "hate" here is the same word used in
    • The second of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:5/Deuteronomy 5:9)
    • The verse immediately preceding the second most important command in all the law (Leviticus 19:17-18)
    • The story of Amnon and Tamar (2 Samuel 13:15)
    • The climax of the story of Esther (Esther 9:1, 5)
    • A bunch of psalms, including but not limited to Psalm 5:5, 11:5, 31:6, 45:7, 97:10, 101:3, 119:104, 119:113, 119:27-28, 119:163, and 139:21-22
    • And a ton of other references, including but not limited to Proverbs 1:22, 1:28-29, 6:16, 8:13, 8:36, 9:8, 12:1, 13:5, Ecclesiastes 3:8, Isaiah 1:14, 61:8, Jeremiah 44:4-6, Ezekiel 35:5-6, Amos 5:15, and Zechariah 8:16-17
  • The concept of "covers violence with one's garment" is at first strange, but perhaps to "cover with one's garment" could be compared to the modern expression of "sweeping under the rug." In this case we're not talking about hiding dirt but violence. Hiding violence is bad. It means both ignoring evil and permitting it to continue. God seems to be saying when a man divorced his wife he's really ignoring his own wickedness and blaming it on his wife. This doesn't mean all women are innocent, but it does mean it's the man's job to deal with that and manage his household not just get rid of a girl because he's lost interest in or become annoyed with her.
God hating divorce is not an anomaly isolated to one book, one verse, in the Old Testament. It is reinforced directly by Jesus on two occasions recorded in Matthew 19:8-9/​Mark 10:9 and Luke 16:18. Remember that adultery was both in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14/​Deuteronomy 5:18) and a capital crime (Leviticus 20:10).




Last Modified: Saturday, August 03, 2024