Question:
There is still another question. With the three Bros. mentioned…, none of them are previously married, their wives were. My Pastors say that does not disqualify them. We are going over a new constitution in our church and divorce came up. The constitution reads… Their argument is that if a husband cheats on his wife (adultery) and they divorce, the wife is free to marry again, she is “loosed” calling the relationship dead, because in the Old Test. the man would have been stoned to death. The relationship of two divorced people is far from over if there is children are involved. I know several people, including those mentioned that have “yours, mine, and ours syndrome.” So do the rules of Timothy and Titus apply on both sides of the fence? Was Joseph going to give Mary a death sentence when he said that he was going to “put her away quietly” when he found out that she was with child? I have not researched it yet, but was stoning adulterer’s, only if caught in the act? ( Mary Magdalene ) Can only the man end the marriage? I can not find any instance in the scripture of the women putting away the man.
Answer:
Yes, that is a common excuse for a man still entering the ministry, “It was my wife that was divorced…” But notice carefully Matthew 19:9, which says, “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.”
So not only the man who divorces his wife and remarries commits adultery, but the man also commits adultery if he marries a wife who has been previously divorced. It is the same thing in God’s eyes, either way the divorce happens — it is adultery (on the part of both of them) when a remarriage takes place if either person has a living husband or wife. A man is not qualified to be a pastor or a deacon if he marries a divorced woman who has a living husband.
Joseph was going to quietly divorce Mary. Matthew 1:18,19 says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.” The phrase “put away” is divorce terminology in the Bible. Jeremiah 3:8 says, “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had PUT HER AWAY, and given her a BILL OF DIVORCE…”
Joseph did have the legal recourse of making Mary a “public example,” which would have meant that she would have been publicly stoned. Deuteronomy 22:13-21 says, “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.”
The Bible seems to indicate in I Corinthians 7:10-13 that a woman could get a divorce decreed, because it says to her, “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. But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” It is talking to the woman and telling her not to leave her husband; but if she does anyway, it warns her to not remarry.
We are living in a troubling day, when even Independent Baptists are saying that divorce and remarriage is okay. If you hold to what the Bible teaches, you are going to be in the minority, wherever you go.