My best friend, after I was born again, was a woman who had been raised Baptist. She married a man whose wife had died. He was looking for a woman to date at their church group, with the intention of possible marriage. He picked out two women to date. And he chose Donna.
At first Donna didn't tell Hal that she was divorced.
Hal fell in love with Donna and married her.
After I met them, I asked Hal, "If you had known Donna was divorced, would you have dated her?" Hal thought about this and then replied, "No ... I don't believe I would have."
(At some point before they married, Donna told Hal she was divorced. Hal married Donna anyway.)
In the days that Hal was a young man, the churches were still teaching that the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, as Jesus says in the Bible.
Mt. 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
I've been a born again Christian since 1975 and I've never heard Matthew 5:32 taught at any church that I have attended.
Both the Catholic and Protestant churches taught against divorce and remarriage, in most cases, in the 1940's, but this doctrine was changed in many of these churches in the future generations.
Edward, king of England, renounced the throne of England in order to marry a divorced woman in 1936. The people in the church of England were being taught against marrying a divorced woman. They would not permit a divorced woman to be queen of England at that time. Now they have eliminated that scripture in their doctrine in England.
Once a man who identified himself as a pastor came to me to talk about his divorce and his desire to remarry.
I asked him if his wife, whom he divorced, was unfaithful. He said no. I told pastor the only scriptural reason for a man to divorce his wife was if she was unfaithful. If the faithful wife remarries after her husband divorces her, she will commit adultery and the husband who divorced the faithful wife will be the "cause" of her adultery, and the man who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. (according to Mt. 5:32)
A few weeks later, this pastor called me and asked me if there had been any change in doctrine concerning divorce and remarriage.
I said to this pastor, "So far as I know, the Bible has not been rewritten."
In the Bible, God's rules differ for men and for women.
In this Podcast, I will share these scriptures showing these differences.
The only thing that matters about this is what God says.
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Matthew 5:32 Jesus says: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
* A faithful wife who is divorced commits adultery if she remarries while her husband lives.
* The husband who divorced a faithful wife will be the cause of her adultery if she remarries.
* The man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
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I Corinthians 7:10-11 And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
I Corinthians 7:39 The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
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Mark 10
3 And HE answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?
4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
10 And in the house HIS disciples asked HIM again of the same matter.
11 And HE saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
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Romans 7
2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
(We do not go by the Law of Moses in the New Testament church, where animals were sacrificed for sins, but we do go by the laws of God as presented in the New Testament Bible.)
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I Corinthians 6 (at the time of sexual intercourse, the two become one flesh)
16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith HE, shall be one flesh.
17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
(Even if you have sex with a prostitute, the two become one flesh.)
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