Granddaddy,
Concerning Mathew 19:3-9… please tell me you have an explanation for it, particularly verse 9. That seems as plain as a field in Kansas…
JD3
=========
Hi there. Thank you for the question!
Here is Matthew 19:3-9:
3. And the Pharisees came up to him, tempting him, and saying to him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
4. But he answered and said to them, “Haven’t you read that He who made them in the beginning ‘made them male and female’?
5. And then He said, ‘For this reason shall a man forsake his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one body.’
6. Therefore, they are no longer two, but one body. So then, what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7. They said to him, “Why, then, did Moses command the husband to give her a certificate of separation, and divorce her?”
8. He said to them, “Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but in the beginning, it wasn’t like that.
9. And I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another woman is committing adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman is committing adultery.”
The key to understanding that portion of Scripture is in verse 6: “what GOD has joined together”. What Jesus said in verse 9 applies only to that. Sinners and backsliders marry all the time, and God had nothing to do with it. Sometimes, it is a good thing for such a marriage to end. Those people only went through a ceremony during which a man declared them to be married. That does not make it so. But if and when God puts a marriage together, what Jesus said in verse 9 applies – every time.
What a good thing it is for you to be asking such questions! Thank you.
Granddaddy