Greatest Hits: Is It OK to Get Divorced?

Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

J.D. Greear

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Show Notes:

* The answer to this question comes from the lips of Jesus, the most compassionate person ever to live.
* Marriage is a covenant you make with your spouse before God. God created it in Genesis 2 as a union where two literally become one, and death is the only thing that can dissolve that covenant (with a couple of death-related exceptions which we'll talk about).
* So, is it ever OK to divorce? Jesus says in Matthew 19 that you can do it in the case of adultery. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, is going to expand that to say desertion by an unbeliever. Why are those exceptions?
* The logic is very important. In the case of both desertion/abandonment and adultery, they both kill the covenant. That's why I called them "death-related" exceptions earlier.
* So, you say, what about the case of abuse? Or what if the spouse is involved in some illegal activity that they refuse to stop and it's putting our family at risk?
* First, if you are in an abusive situation, you need to get yourself to a place of safety immediately. Talk to your church, let them help, or if you're not feeling safe reach out to the Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE.
* Second, I would argue that the logic of Paul and Jesus' exceptions applies also to divorce in the case of a spouse who is doing something that makes them unable to be lived with and puts the family in danger. Creating in abusive environment also kills the marriage covenant, and you are no longer bound to it.

Lean not on your ability as a parent; lean on God’s grace as the hope for your child.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody. I am Matt Love.
0:11.5	And I am, J.D. Greer today because as you know, if you've been listening to the last few episodes, we are counting down the most listened to episodes in the history of this podcast.
0:22.1	We've been doing this podcast for six years now over six years.
0:26.0	Crazy.
0:26.4	Lots of episodes.
0:27.1	Lots of great questions.
0:28.5	So we're taking a break from new episodes.
0:30.9	Just go back through some of the best ones.
0:32.4	The ones that you guys like the most, the ones that were most listened to.
0:35.2	And a few years ago, Pastor J.D.
0:37.2	went through a
0:37.7	family and relationship series on the podcast, and this question comes from that series. So this
0:42.5	week's topic, is it okay to get divorced? You've probably heard some answers to this question before, or you just have some thoughts
0:58.7	running around your head about what this looks like as a believer, but Jady is going to
1:02.6	go a bit deeper into the theology behind his answer.
1:07.2	Well, Matt, that is an important question, and one, I think a lot of people are scared to ask because they think that really, you know, they see the Bible as something, you know, just like this book of rules and laws. And they're almost given by an impersonal force. You know, the answer to that question comes right from the lips of Jesus, the most compassionate person ever to live. He got to ask this in Matthew 19 by a group of Pharisees. And the short answer is, he said,
1:31.4	no, it's not okay to get divorced. He said, if you get divorced for any other reason, and hear me out, okay,
1:36.7	if you get divorced for any other reason, except sexual immorality. And we'll talk in a minute why he made that exception and what that means. He says if you get divorced for any other reason, then you're committing an adultery with the
1:47.6	person that you get remarried to after you get divorced.
1:50.8	And that's because marriage, as he understood it and as he taught it, is a covenant that
1:55.7	is dissolvable only by death, a covenant created by God, which is why married couples that are getting married say
2:02.8	till death do us part. God created it in Genesis 2 as to be a lifelong union where two literally
	...

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