Divorce and Remarriage With God's Blessing

Divorce and Remarriage

With God’s Blessing!

By

Leslie & Melody Abbott

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the New International Version of the Holy Bible.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One Definition of Marriage

Chapter Two Jitters or Symptoms of Real Trouble?

Chapter Three A Scriptural Look at Divorce

Chapter Four Issues to Consider Before a Divorce

Chapter Five Moving On With Your Life

Chapter Six Biblical Justification for Remarriage

Chapter Seven Seeking a New Partner

Chapter Eight Optimizing the Relationship

Chapter Nine Biblical Leadership

Melody's Testimony

Leslie’s Testimony

Bibliography

Dedication

We dedicate this book to all those who have suffered the pain of divorce, and are wondering if it’s okay to get married again. Even though your church fellowship may be sorrowful for you, they often do not know how to provide support. Many people are torn over the subject of remarriage.

Through the pages of this book, you will find much insight into what the scriptures actually say about divorce and remarriage. You will also find a great deal of frank discussion regarding the issues surrounding divorce and remarriage. Above all, you will come to a biblical understanding of why you can be Divorced and Remarried and still enjoy God’s Blessing!

Introduction

Imagine…

On their tenth anniversary, a couple decides to renew their vows. They stand before their church congregation and promise once again to love, honor and cherish one another, to the exclusion of all others, until they are parted by death.

The couple is beautifully dressed. The smell of flowers fills the air. Their three children witness their parents’ promise before God. Everyone goes away smiling and feeling blessed.

Nine years later the wife commits adultery. She is not repentant and she moves out of the home, leaving the children behind. Chaos ensues for months: battles over custody and property; lying and manipulation; and eventually a drawn-out court battle to finalize the divorce.

In the end, the grief-stricken husband asks his errant wife, What about our wedding vows? What about the ten year renewal? What was that?

What was her reply? That was then.

This woman obviously did not have the same definition of vow as her husband!

This is a true story, and there are many more like it.

It seems that many people today have difficulty understanding the implications of taking a marriage vow. In fact, they refer to it as a wedding vow, and seem to forget that many years of marriage follow the few hours of wedding ceremony!

Weddings are dreamy, but the reality of marriage is often a nightmare. Many times, divorce is the result.

Both of us have emerged from the divorce nightmare, allowed our faith to heal us, and moved on in a godly manner to a better future. It has been a long road. It is not always made easier by our continued involvements in the church, but always we are assisted by the grace of Jesus Christ.

We spend a great deal of time on the road driving trucks at this time of our life, and while traveling, talked about our individual experiences as divorcées in the church. We noticed a lot of common ground, and realized that many Christians may have shared the same difficulties.

We felt inspired to write a book with the purpose of helping others avoid as many of the pitfalls as possible and helping them recover from the pitfalls they could not escape. Having no library on hand, we could only rely on the library of our own lives and involvement in the lives of other people.

Some of the information we include may be found elsewhere, some may be entirely new. Some church groups may disagree with our interpretation of the scriptures' teachings. We assure you that we have carefully researched any of the word meanings and studied the scriptures faithfully, to express to you what we sincerely believe to be the truth.

Let no one despise you for seeking the truth for yourself; carefully and prayerfully consider what is presented and reach your own decision about what God is saying through His Word.

Chapter One

Definition of Marriage

Why does the ending of a marriage have such a big impact on us anyway? Why is it any different from changing jobs or moving on to new friendships?

We believe the answers to these questions can be found in scripture. We also believe that one of the main reasons many marriages fail is that people do not understand the proper biblical view of marriage in the first place.

So, in order for us to talk about divorce and remarriage with a proper perspective, shouldn't we start by taking a look at what the Bible says about marriage?

Within the first few pages of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, the record states that God created man with the formation of Adam from the dust of the ground. He gave Adam the opportunity to name the animals and spend time in the Garden of Eden alone.

It was during this time God said, It is not good for man to be alone. Therefore, God put Adam into a deep sleep and removed a rib to create a woman to be his helpmate. Adam named her Eve and declared that she was one flesh with him (Genesis 2:24).

This was the first marriage. The joy in this marriage must have been incredible, because the partners were in paradise together living under perfect conditions, and were looking forward to living eternally in their love.

Soon, however, the scriptures tell us that Adam and Eve fell into sin. With their sin, came the curse, spiritual death, and later, physical death. They would no longer live in the Garden of Eden, and would have to fight for their existence in the wild. Even worse, their blessed love would result in painful birth for Eve and separate duties or roles for both Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:16-19).

As part of the curse, Adam was to have authority over Eve, and Eve was to submit to him. This explains why there is often tension in marriages: each person may have difficulty fulfilling their God-given role.

The husband, more often than not, may think that he is the boss, and that he is to force his wife into submission, resulting in controlling or aggressive behavior toward his partner.

A wife may rebel against her submissive role, thinking it implies that she is somehow inferior to a man. Then again, she may actually buy into this thought pattern and allow herself to be taken advantage of. However, we must remind ourselves that submission is not the same as subjugation and does not give place for a woman to be a doormat.

The role God set out was as a helpmate. Ephesians chapter 5 encourages the wife to submit and encourages the husband to love his wife, but neither partner can force the other to do this -- each must be responsible to fill their own unique role in the marriage.

A good marital foundation depends on love, respect, honesty and faithfulness.

When a couple gets married, they are making a lifelong commitment to one another; they are doing this before God and other witnesses. That should remind us that marriage is a serious venture, a contract, a promise or vow, and one that should not be easily broken.

This brings us to a discussion of what marriage is by secularist ideas, but by biblical definition is not, and that is: common-law relationships.

Common-law Relationships

In John 4:17, 18, Jesus said, You have well said, ‘I have no husband’, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. This makes it obvious that, to God, there is a big difference between marriage and co-habitation.

Based on this scripture, we can safely say that marriage is not a union of convenience, made by private agreement between two people without the benefit of God’s approval. In other words, the common-law relationships recognized by secular society today as equal to marriage are not valid marriages according to Scripture.

Even though some people may feel that they can be married without signing a government certificate or legal document, their unwillingness to sign such a document calls into question their level of true love and commitment. If it really does not matter then why not do it?

For Christians the answer should be simple. We abide by the laws of the land that we live in. If such a license is required in order for us to be legally married then we must comply for God’s sake, and for our conscious sake.

However, we recognize that a piece of paper does not equal a vow or commitment, and that sinful people often make emotional decisions and may have a change of heart at a later time. Having said this, clearly, the vow and long-term commitment makes all the difference in the world.

There is at least anecdotal evidence to suggest that once cohabitants actually do get married, their relationship experiences a real shift in attitude and expectations. This demonstrates that the individuals do recognize, whether consciously or not, that there is a difference between living together and being married.

Many people who suddenly decide to be legally married are motivated by insecurities that are already within the relationship. They have the mistaken notion that legalizing their relationship as a marriage will make things better. There is plenty of evidence to support that a weak foundation will soon crumble no matter how hard we try to reinforce it.

The negative consequences of common-law relationships are many. The most obvious is that the relationship lacks the most important aspect of a true marriage -- commitment.

Even though the partners may claim they are committed to one another, the fact remains that they can walk out at any time with little or no legal ramifications. This leads to many other negative consequences such as insecurity, jealousy, and control. Furthermore, children of such a union are often confused about the nature of adult relationships and may be insecure within their own home.

The evidence also reveals that the flourishing of common-law relationships has paralleled the disintegration of the modern family. We will leave it to researchers to decide what is the cause and effect of these relationships. Suffice to say that co-habitation is not marriage.

At the same time, we recognize that people who have come out of such relationships will experience many of the same issues that a separated or divorced couple does.

Often times, divorced people fall into common-law relationships because of the lengthy process of divorce and/or the unwillingness of the other partner to co-operate. They also may be hoping to escape the difficulties that plagued their first marriage. They soon discover that any relationship can be marked with problems, and that the emotional pain of break-up is the same either way.

When Christian marriages fail, they are just as susceptible to fall into adultery, premature relationships and common-law marriages leading to further emotional pain. (We will discuss this more in-depth in a later chapter.)

One negative aspect of common-law relationships that these separated people disregard is the guilt and/or shame they may feel knowing that their relationship is viewed by God and others as sinful.

The causes of break-up in common-law relationships can be the same as in marriage, and create the same baggage for future mates. Therefore, we would like to suggest that, if you have been through such an experience, you might benefit from this book as well as anyone else.

We would encourage you to examine your heart and life in the light of the Bible, and consider some serious changes that may really benefit your future.

Polygamy

Polygamy comes from the root word poly meaning many, in contrast to the mono of monogamy, which means one partner.

The Bible contains all kinds of examples of polygamy, whereby a man would have a