Transcript: On my big video where I taught through the issue of divorce and remarriage and what the Bible teaches about it, I got the following question from Tatyana. Tatyana says, “Also, you have in this video said adultery, abandonment, and abuse—lots of ways out of marriage—are exceptions to divorce and remarriage. Why would the disciples be shocked if that’s what Jesus truly said?” Now, what she’s referring to is Matthew chapter 19, verse 10. The disciples are shocked by what Jesus says. Here’s what Jesus says, and then we have to explain, if we’re going to interpret Jesus’s words correctly, why did this shock them, right? This is called interpreting things in context. I do need to explain this; this is a good question. He says to them, here’s Jesus’s teaching: “Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” This is the shocking statement of Jesus. This is the thing that shocks them. And here’s the disciples; here’s their response: The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with a wife, it is better not to marry.” And their response is pretty shocked, right? They’re tripping out on Jesus, saying, “Hey, if I can’t get divorced, then I should just not get married in the first place.” So let’s talk about why they were shocked because, again, my interpretation of what Jesus meant should explain the extreme response of the disciples. Alright, my short answer to this question is yes, my interpretation does explain why the disciples are shocked because in their context, Jesus is removing divorce as the right of a husband, which is pretty much what their view was at the time. They thought a divorce could happen anytime a husband wanted. This was the general view; this was the popular view of the time. It was a prevalent view that in any matter or any cause, divorce could happen at the husband’s discretion. He didn’t need grounds; he could divorce anytime he wanted. That was a normal view. This is what David Instone-Brewer says in his work. He says, “This new groundless divorce was much easier to enact and quickly became the form of divorce used by almost all Jews.” So his suggestion is that the average Jew was believing that you could divorce whenever you wanted without any real grounds, and this is attested to by Philo from before and by Josephus after Christ. So this seems to be a supported view. In Matthew 19, verse 3, we see even more support that this is the thing Jesus is refuting. Matthew 19:3, “And the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking,” and here’s their question, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” Any cause, that’s the key thing. “Any cause—can I get divorced for any reason I want, Jesus?” And he’s like, “No, you can only do it for sexual immorality.” And so, shocker, right? This is shocking. Well, gosh, if that’s the case, then it’s better not to get married. They’re scared of getting trapped in a marriage they’re not happy in, which is a possibility. Part of following God and honoring your vows means that you don’t decide to divorce simply because you’re not happy. That’s a modern view; it’s not a biblical view. I think some modern people would actually respond the same way the disciples did, and they would say, “Hey, I’m shocked too; I don’t want to get married if I can’t get a divorce whenever I decide I want one.” But I want to add to this, and that is to say that my view is not really being represented very well in Tatiana’s original question, and this is something I want to point out because it’s important. According to Tatiana, I’m thinking you can get a divorce for adultery, abandonment, and abuse, and in parentheses, she says, “lots of ways out of a marriage.” I would generally agree: adultery, abandonment—yes, I can make a fairly blanket statement that those are proper causes for divorce and remarriage. There are some considerations you want to have, like are they repentant? Have we offered an opportunity for them to change? Those types of things. But I do think that those are legitimate causes for divorce. And in the case of a Christian who abandoned someone, we need the church to come in and do church discipline, and all those ideals are supposed to be there before we step into the place of divorce. But I am a little bit hesitant to allow myself and my view to be represented as saying abuse equals reason for divorce. And here’s the reason why: I say extreme abuse, extreme abuse that specifically threatens a person’s safety or well-being in a significant fashion. And it has to be significant here, right? It can’t be like trying to increase how hurt you are until you feel like you can get a divorce. So I really just don’t want my view pushed back out there as though everyone’s thinking, “Oh, abuse is okay, wide open, because you can make anything into abuse. Oh, well, I was verbally abused because he called me a bad name, so I can get a divorce now on this.” That is definitely lots of ways out of marriage; I fully agree, but that’s not my view. So that’s extreme abuse, extreme scenarios of abuse that cause danger and harm to the person. That can happen, and I think verbal abuse could potentially be there, but most of the time when I hear verbal abuse, I’m not hearing things that I would consider proper justification for divorce. Yet there are those cases where it’s extreme, and I’m not going to promote the victimization of those people in that scenario. This means that the majority of modern reasons for divorce are still rejected by me and Jesus. Okay then, at least in my understanding of Christ and the biblical teaching on the topic, the majority of those reasons are rejected, and marriage is for life. And some people would still respond the way the disciples did and say, “Look, if you’re going to say that, if it’s that strict, then it’s just better for me not to get married.” And Jesus’s answer to the disciples is his answer to you: “Well, you don’t have to, but guess what? That’s what marriage commitment is. Marriage commitment is for better or worse,” and that’s really important that we understand that, and that we get committed to that, and we don’t take our lack of happiness as justification for us to sin against our spouse. If you don’t want to miss the next video helping you learn how to think biblically about everything, then make sure to subscribe and click that bell.

See original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIYND1XedY