This is in response to those of you who state that you categorically will not date/marry someone who has been divorced.
In about 100 years time (and forward!) we can discuss this face to face with love for one another, both of us with a much wiser understanding and I know that not everything is clear cut this side of the pearly gates (including a person's heart, fear and motivation)! None of us will be married then (even the ones happily married now!), but we shall ALL be His Bride! My question is concerning this stance while we are still here on earth (when we marry mere mortals)...
While I do not dismiss your right to ANY preference you wish, I note that often your stance is followed by a statement about 'a faith not tested cannot be trusted' and believing in 'the school of hard knocks'. May I put forth to you that SOME people who are divorced have lived this exactly! For some, divorce is for impatient and selfish reasons, true, but that is not a blanket truth about everyone who is divorced.
For instance, I married a man who was in training for the ministry. He quit within a month after we got married (I was 20) and over the next 8 years had 12 affairs and slept with two hookers. He was verbally and physically abusive and snubbed our daughter to the point of affecting her own spiritual view of our Heavenly Father. I have since then raised her on my own, teaching her to trust in God for everything including peace and happiness. I was a virgin when I got married and I have not slept with another man in all these years.
I don't believe that God has dismissed me because I divorced. I don't believe that He has said, "You can lie, steal, murder, gossip, be a drunk, sleep with someone outside of marriage, choose the world instead of Me and I will forgive you and give you a second chance,... but divorce and - though I will let you into heaven at the end of your natural life - you will be a living example all your days to everyone and I will despise you!"
He has blessed me in SO many ways since that painful and degrading period of my life... how could that even possibly be true? He LOVES me!! He has called me His Bride!! :yay:
I know not all stories of divorce are the same, but it is not the unforgivable sin. I'm just saying that God can redeem anyone. Please don't dismiss someone because of something they graduated from in the school of hard knocks! Glorify God together with them, as your Brother or Sister! He has taken that which was discarded and redeemed it for His kingdom!
8 Jesus replied, �Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.� Matthew 19 NIV
Then according to His Holy scripture, if I were to remarry I would not be commiting adultry. I did not divorce for the hardness of my heart but for (multiple and on going) infidelity.
if you married before you were saved, your spouse could choose to leave you because you now hold to Christian values. If so, you are free as if you weren't married.
1Corinthians7:15 "But if the unbelieving depart, Let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases; but God hath called us to peace."
What if you divorced before you were a Christian?
I would guess that those who hold too closely to the concept that God cannot forgive us for divorce...whatever the circumstances...is probably too legalistic anyways.
I don't know if the reasons refered in the Bible are exhaustive. For instance is a "house of peace" a justification as well?
Myself I never intend to ever get divorced, but for those that would be quick denounce this off the bat, this also includes battery and so on. Is battery a justification? It is not biblically explicit that is so. If my daughter - God willing I have one, was being repeatedly assualted I would certainly step in.
One approach in New Zealand that has been taken in cases of battery, is to get all the male relatives, extended included and turn up and take the lady.
I'm not sure what "take the lady" means...do you mean rescue her?
You see, this is where living in Christian community comes into play. Biblically, it does not make specific allowance for divorce for this issue, though being safe is essential to human life. Infidelity is a breaking of the vows to keep yourself only for your mate, as Christ is faithful to us. In a proper Christian community, such a battering husband (or wife) would be held accountable and 'retrained' so to speak to live in peace with their spouse and to handle anger properly. There are scripture verses that speak to older married people to take the younger married ones under their wings and teach them how to handle conflict... like a mentoring program.
None of it is easy and it all takes an amazing amount of Grace!
Abuse (physical, emotional) would be grounds for separation. Unfortunately, the chances of an abuser being 'cured' is very low. I believe that God would release one from the bonds of marriage for abuse.
Jesus still spoke to the woman who had been married 5 times and was living in sin.
David committed adultery, then murder, then married Bathsheba...and God considered him a man after His heart!
God didn't really intend for us to sin...but He knew we would so He had a plan of salvation. While God doesn't change, the circumstances of life do.
I will admit to avoiding divorcees, not because I count it sin by itself, but because my experiences with dating and Life are limited, and I would be ill-matched to someone who has experienced so much of it. I would consider a person near my age who divorced before being saved, or for no reason of his own. However, if this person initiated divorce under anything but extreme circumstances (such as ongoing infidelity and much abuse), I would have to call into question his feelings about the matter: why he divorced. It is not something that I can take lightly.
Joy, I must admit, we are at two different spots in our life journey! Someone who has been divorced at your age draws many big questions. Someone who has not yet been married at my age also draws many big questions!
