| by Laura Lee (Bismarck, North Dakota) |
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| Matthew 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. The two words that jump out at me in this scripture are “fornication and adultery”. Most people think they know what those two words are talking about, however, do we? The Bible, God’s word defines the words that are used. Let us take a look first at how the Bible defines “fornication”. FORNICATION In the Old Testament, there are five scriptures in the King James Bible that use the word “fornication”, they are 2 Chronicles 21:11, Isaiah 23:17, Ezekiel 16:15, 26, 29. If you read the entire chapters of 2 Chronicles 21, Isaiah 23, and Ezekiel 16, you will find that the Old Testament definition of fornication is in the context of idolatry. All 3 of these chapters are talking about idolatry and what it includes. In the New Testament, in Matthew 19:9 the word for fornication in the Greek is “porneia” and is found in that exact form 6 more times. In 1 Corinthians 5:1 it is used in context of sexual sin, incest. Next is 1 Corinthians 6:13, and if you read this entire chapter, it is in context of sin in general. In 2 Corinthians 12:21, the context is speaking of unrepented sins. Galatians 5:19, is again speaking of sin in general and if you read the entire chapter it is speaking of both the fruits of the spirit and the fruits of the flesh (or sin in general). Again, in Ephesians 5:3, the word is used in context of sin in general and is directed at saints in general. In Revelation 19:2 the word “fornication”, “porneia” is being used in the context of idolatry. In Galatians 5:19-21 it says: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication (porneia), uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Colossians 3:5 tells us what idolatry is: …fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 2 Kings 21:21-22 says: And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them: And he forsook the LORD God of his fathers and walked not in the way of the LORD. So, by these scriptures, we can know what the Bible definition of fornication is, it is sin, and sin is idolatry, and it is a lifestyle. Matthew 15:18-20: But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19 and you are bought for a price, 1 Corinthians 6:20, and your body is not your own. Both your body and your spirit are God’s. If your lifestyle is to lust after other gods (idols), this comes from the heart and is spiritual as well as physical and is called fornication or the worship of idols. There are several lists of behaviors in the Bible which could be called sin lists or lists of idols, and fornication is idolatry. Colossians 3:5. Strong’s Concordance under fornication #4202 & #4203 even lists fornication to mean idolatry in the Greek. How did we miss this, and why have we held so many women and children in bondage through marriage, telling them they can only leave Egypt for sexual sin (how we looked at fornication)? We have a society and it’s within the Church of God also, a mindset that if people know a woman is being beaten by her husband they call her stupid for staying in it, and when she tries to get out they not only won’t help her, but they tell her she can only leave for sexual sin, so if there is no sexual sin, she can never marry again because she will be committing adultery and cause the other person also to commit adultery. WHAT DOES A FORNICATOR LOOK LIKE? Study Esau: Hebrews 12:16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. ADULTERY Matthew 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication (idolatry), and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. “Adultery”, in Strong’s Concordance in the Hebrew-Old Testament is #5003 and means to “Apostatize”. #3431, #3429, and #3430 in the Greek-New Testament all refer to #3432 which means “Apostate”. In Webster’s Dictionary “Apostasy” means: an abandoning of what one believed in, as a faith, political party, principles, etc. “Apostate” means to revolt, standoff. “Apostatize” means: to be an apostate; abandon one’s faith, political party, etc. This can also mean emotional divorce from your mate. This Apostasy may even mean you are still in the marriage, physically, but you just plain old don’t have a marriage relationship of any kind. Apostasy can include both physical and spiritual things. What does God say about adultery? Proverbs 6:32: But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. Jeremiah 5:7: How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy children have forsaken me and sworn by them that are not gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlot’s houses. Jeremiah 7:9: Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Ba’al, and walk after other gods whom ye know not. Ezekiel 23:37: That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery; and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them. 2 Peter 2:14-15: Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bo’sor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; Revelation 2:21-23: And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death: and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. There are many more scriptures throughout the Bible about adultery, that you can also look up, but it looks like the definition of adultery according to God is apostasy, or abandonment of His way (God’s Way). It is a departing from God’s way and going the way of Satan. Can people in the Church of God commit adultery or abandonment? You bet they can. If your lifestyle consists of any of the things which are listed on God’s sin lists, you are committing adultery. So next time you thumb your nose at a divorced person who is doing the best they can to do things God’s way, please look at yourself first, because if you are lying to your wife, stealing from friends, smoking, drinking to excess, treating your wife as garbage and as a lower life form than the family pet, you are committing fornication (idolatry) and because you are departing from God’s way by doing these things, it is adultery (apostasy). (Read the entire Chapter of Jeremiah 3.) The twisting of these Bible scriptures has been to long used as a way for men and even women sometimes not to take responsibility for their own actions against others, especially their own brides whom they are to cherish. God divorced Israel for adultery (abandonment of His ways). (Again, read the entire Chapter of Jeremiah 3.) Their adulteries were their sinful lifestyles which they did not want to give up. Their sin was fornication (idolatry), which according to the Bible, not only included their worship of molten images, but also those things they did not want to give up in their lifestyles, which could and did definitely include sexual sin, but it also included their lusting from the heart after things like lying, drinking, etc. etc. etc. Here is an example of fornication. My second husband was a drinker. He loved to drink. He was also Mr. Macho man; I never saw him cry except once. I was yet recovering from a back injury which was caused from a beating I had taken at his hand 2 years before this incident. He had stopped drinking for over a year but decided to take it up again one day. He came into our apartment, with a bottle of 30 proof rock gut wine, and offered me a glass and of course, it looked like he had already had at least one and was going for another. I saw that bottle in his hand and I knew, that when the bottle came back into our house, so do the beatings he used to inflict. I knew I would not survive another beating at his hand, I was not and am still not fully recovered from the last one he inflicted on me. I looked him straight in the eye, and I said, “You will have to choose between me or your drinking.” That is the first time I ever saw the Mr. Macho man cry real tears. He was crying as he gathered his stuff and took his bottle and left. The next time I saw him was after he filed for divorce and came back to get some more of his things. That was fornication (idolatry), he loved his drinking (idol), more than his wife (relationship, marriage, joining). He committed adultery (apostasy, abandonment) when he left. MATTHEW 19:9 & MATTHEW 5:32 The church has used these to hold people in bondage indefinitely, and it is my opinion that we stop doing this, as these scriptures when you dissect them, do not mean what people have been taught they mean. Please do not believe me, study it yourself. In Matthew 19:9, for instance, in the Greek, the last part is not even there, and many Bibles don’t put it in. In Matthew 19:9 as it is written in the King James Bible, you have a “him, him, her” thing and in Matthew 5:32, you have a “him, her, her” thing, which is important to understanding these verses. In Matthew 19:9 the word “commit” implies an intentional action, where in Matthew 5:32, the word “causeth” implies either an intentional or a non-intentional action. In Matthew 5:32, the Greek word which was translated as fornication is “logouporneias”, and since it only appears in that form one time in the entire Bible, there is some dispute as to what this word really means. Also, in Matthew 5:32, the word adultery used in the King James Bible, is used twice here and is translated from two different Greek words, into the same English word. Matthew 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication (idolatry), and (he who puts her away for something other than idolatry, and) shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away (for idolatry) doth commit adultery. (The last part of this scripture does not even appear in the Greek and some versions of the Bible, do not even put it in there.) This would sort of blow the idea that if one spouse is free to remarry, so too is the other one no matter what they did. As I understand corporation church culture, once a group of ministers chooses to say God loosed one person from the marriage, then it means that both are free to remarry again. So, in other words, if one person is unbound from the marriage, because of fraud (lying, deception), or for adultery (sexual sin or abandonment) the other person is freed by the ministry also to go and do it all over again. It never did sound right to me. Once a person knows the definition of fornication and adultery, one can see that God does hold at least one person accountable for the divorce, and it may or may not be the person who actually physically filed for divorce and left the marriage. It is impossible to have a relationship with an unrepentant person–or any person who is unwilling to change their own destructive behaviors into good behaviors for the good of the relationship. Matthew 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication (idolatry), (will) causeth her to commit adultery (apostatize, not being a family, not joined): and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced (for idolatry), committeth adultery. REPENTANCE Matthew 3:8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance… Matthew 9:13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy, and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Luke 15:7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Acts 26:20 …that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. These scriptures show that true repentance of our sinful behaviors require that of doing works and these works will produce fruit. In our relationships with each other, just saying you are sorry does not cut it. We can say we are sorry to someone forever if we want to, but if we do not change our behaviors towards that person, we will get nowhere in having a right relationship with that other person. Many men, and probably even some women, use scriptures to especially beat up on their mates. Matthew 19:9, and Matthew 5:32, have actually been used by many men, both in the church and out to keep women and children from leaving very destructive relationships. When I study these scriptures, it looks to me like men and women are each accountable for their own behaviors and if a man or a woman is hard hearted (unrepentant), stiff necked (unrepentant), and going down the path of destruction, God does not require that men or women stay in these situations and stay in bondage. Just for the record, I am not recommending divorce at the drop of a hat, because God does not like divorce, and neither do women. God wants very much for us to work on our marriages. However, if only one person is working on the relationship, and the other person is totally refusing to work on anything, there may come a point in time when it would be more destructive to stay than to leave. Sometimes whether to leave a marriage or not is a very hard thing. Myself being a woman and having gone through it, I can tell you I would not recommend divorce unless there is no other way. MARRIAGE Up until now, I have been rather lenient on men, so now I’m going to start on you, and what your responsibilities are within the marriage relationship. Men are the head of the house, and men are over the wife as Christ is head of the church. What does this mean to you men? Does it mean you beat your family sheep and lambs into submission under you, and whatever you say goes? Men all around the world love this next scripture. Ephesians 5:22: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands… For some reason men forget to read the entire scripture. We should start in Ephesians 5:21: Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: … Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Men, Christ has set you in a leadership role. Christ has not set you up in a boss role to be telling your wife what to do every chance you get. Christ has not set you up in a dictatorship role over your wife, so that you can oppress her and keep her from reaching her full potential, because you are beating her once a week or more. Christ has given you a special calling, with a lot of responsibility. Christ holds you responsible for the wellbeing of your family. God holds men 100% responsible for the wellbeing of their families. I am actually glad I’m a girl, because that is a lot of responsibility when one sits down and thinks about it. Men you are responsible to provide for your families, spend time with your families, and guide them through life’s ups and downs in a loving way, as Christ would do it. Submitting to each other is to be done by both husband and wife, and a better term would be, to work together for the good of the family. Now, you men and women may or may not have noticed a couple of other things in the above scripture. Christ commands women to submit to their own husbands, and as I already stated, submitting is working together for the good of the family. Women are not required to take either abuse or orders from men outside their immediate families, or in their immediate families either. This is not to say that you cannot help other families or other men. It just means they do not have license to boss you around because you are a woman. This may not even be a problem many women have, but I have seen it, and it is not pretty. The other part of this goes like this men. Christ has given you a job that requires you to lead (guide by your example) your wife, as Christ leads the church. That means you are to guide in a Christ like manner, and not as Satan leads. There is a very large difference in those two paths. If a husband is trying to lead in a Christ like manner and makes a few mistakes along the way, that is one thing, at least he has a repentant attitude, and is working on himself. However, if a man, lies or deceives his wife on a regular basis, if he is never home, if he puts others and his job above his marriage relationship, if he is out partying every night, if he gets drunk on a regular basis, etc. etc. etc. If this is your lifestyle to follow Baal, and you do not want to give it up, and if you don’t think you need to, not only apologize to your wife, but also repent (change your behaviors), then I suggest that you get out your concordance and check to see what all the things are that God holds you responsible for, because you are in the leadership spot. If you lead your wife and family down the path of destruction, you are accountable to God for that. The other thing is, that God does not hold your wife and family burdened and bound to live their lives in your sewer. Just as God divorced Israel, for an unrepentant lifestyle (hardness of heart), God does allow divorce among His people for the same reason, and by God’s own word, people who leave a marriage for this reason are free to remarry. Read Matthew 19:3-8, Christ did not change the reason for divorce. All Christ said here, was that it was meant from the beginning for man to only have one mate, but because of the hardness of your hearts (unrepentant sin as a lifestyle), God allowed divorce. Unrepentant sin (hardness of heart), lifestyle, would include any reason listed on the sin lists (idol lists). God did not in his word confine divorce only to sexual sin, as so many want to do, in order to not take responsibility for their own deviant lifestyles. (Read 1 Corinthians 6:13-18) Wives are very relational, they want to be loved and cared for and God does command husbands to love their wives, understand their wives, and husbands are also very much responsible for their wife’s happiness. Now I know guys, these things may not seem fair to you, after getting sermon after sermon on how to control the wife and family, but face it guys, does that control thing really work? Because wives are relational, they are not quite as quick as men sometimes are to leave their homes and start all over again. Women have a tendency to work on the relationship with their husbands even long after they have perceived, it isn’t going anywhere. So, guys if your wife leaves because she now feels freer to because of this article, do not blame me, because I was not the one who was in your house, you were. You as the leader, and head of your home are 100% responsible for the guiding and caring of your families, and if you do not want to clean up your life, God does give His permission for her to get out, and she is justified by scripture to do so. I purposely have not given you all the scriptures that pertain to men, because it is my opinion that you should look at what God says about your role under Christ yourself. So, study men! (This article has been updated and re-printed from “The Church of God Messenger” May/June 2001—Issue No. 3.) |
| Iron Sharpening Iron In regard to: Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage Article by Laura Lee Comments by James Steinle (Swanville, Minnesota) |
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| A friend sent me your newsletter of April 3, 2021, and it looks interesting. I read through your study Laura on Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage and found it well thought out and validated. Good job. Besides myself, my wife would also like to receive your newsletter. |
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