Dealing with Divorce as a Christian (Video)

This post provides Christian divorce support for Christians dealing with divorce. This short piece and the video (below) are presented by Attorney RL Johnson, a Christian, civil trial who has litigated over 100 divorces.

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Does Jesus Hate Divorce?

Many couples object to divorce on the ground that Jesus hates divorce. As an offer of proof, Christians usually cite Matthew 19:9:

Christians also cite Mark 10:11-12:

For additional support for their objection to divorce, some Christians cite 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 where the Apostle Paul instructs that:

These statements, properly understood, are illuminated by their ancient context: In ancient Rome, marriage was a public and a sacred duty, the primary motive and justification for which seemed to be to become a father.[1] However, under Jewish law, marriage was mandated by Genesis 2:24, which says:

However, under Jewish law, that is Deuteronomy 24, divorce was permissible “if then [a wife] finds no favor in [her husband’s] eyes because he has found some indecency in her[.]” Id. Indeed, the two prominent schools of thought were to the House of Hillel scholars (who believed in divorce for any cause) and the House of Shammai scholars (who believed in divorce only in case of adultery).[2]

Consequently, this debate compelled the Pharisees to test Jesus by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” - Mt. 19:3. They argued that, if this was illegal in God’s eye, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” - Mt. 19:7. To which Jesus concluded: “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.”[3] Matthew 19:8-9.

Thus, as Biblical scholar Dr. David Instone-Brewer points out in his books Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible and Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, the 'Any Cause' divorce was invented by some Pharisees who divided up the phrase "a cause of indecency" (Dt. 24.1) into two grounds for divorce: "indecency" (the Greek term for which is porneia, which they interpreted as ‘Adultery’) and "a cause" (that is, ‘Any Cause’).

Jesus said the phrase could not be split up and that it meant "nothing except porneia". Although almost everyone was using this new type of divorce, Jesus told them that it was invalid, so remarriage was adulterous because they were still married.

So, the takeaway is this:

Jesus instructs that a couple should stay married as indeed God was a witness at the wedding. However, He also recognized that when there’s a real hardness of hearts the parties may need a divorce.

ENDNOTES

 [1] “Marriage in Roman Law.” Yale Law Journal XVI, no. 5 (March 1907): 309.
 
 [2] The House of Hillel (Beit Hillel) and House of Shammai (Beit Shammai) were, among Jewish scholars, two schools of thought during the period of tannaim, named after the sages Hillel and Shammai (of the last century BCE and the early 1st century CE) who founded them. Beit Shammai held that a man may only divorce his wife for a serious transgression, but Beit Hillel allowed divorce for even trivial offenses, such as burning a meal [Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 90a].
 
 [3] Cf. The Gospel according to Mark, which recounts the event as follows: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus answered, “What did Moses command you?” the Pharisees replied, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:2-9.

 [i] A Christian Lawyer's Perspective on Divorce | Bible study