Is it biblical?
Let's say someone divorces due to unfaithfulness of their partner. Can they re-marry, or no?
Thanks!
I'll give two main positions on the manner.
The first is the 'traditional view'. This is a view that you can find a lot of quotes from different individuals- St. so and so affirmed it. Greek Orthodox are a little looser about allowing the divorced and remarried in.
So the interpretation rests on Mark 10 and the equivalent passage in Luke. Matthew 19 is a parallel passage. When asked if a man may put away his wife for every cause, Jesus referred to two shall be one flesh. They asked why Moses commanded to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away. Jesus said to them that Moses for the hardness of your hearts allowed you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so.
Then Jesus said that whoever puts away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marries another commits adultery, and he that marries her that is divorced commits adultery.
The Mark version has different details. In Mark's version, the disciples ask Him about this in the house, and he says that whoever puts away his wife commits adultery against her and she who puts away her husband she commits adultery against him.
Judaism doesn't really allow wives to divorce husbands but Herodias had done this with her first husband, possibly, using the chief priests to do so.
One traditional view argument is that Jesus said this statement above with 'except it be for fornication' to the Pharisees, but stated it again without 'the exception clause' in the house talking to His disciples, because it was theirs to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, and so this is how Christians should handle the issue.
Another issue is that it seems like 'epi' was added to the exception clause in later manuscripts, and that Erasmus, who compiled a New Testament text from other manuscripts, called the Textus Receptus, which was influential during the Reformation (though he remained Roman Catholic). Without it, the phrase says 'me porneia', 'not fornication', which is a little less clear that it means 'except it be for fornication' and is a bit vaguer.
The typical historical Protestant interpretation allowed for divorce in the case of fornication.
In the case of the believer married to the unbeliever, Paul says to let the unbeliever depart, so some Protestants allow for remarriage in that case as well. Paul stated this as his opinion, not something he had a commandment of the Lord about.
And of course over time, this has expanded as divorce has become more socially accepted since the sexual revolution, so there are people applying the passage about one married to an unbeliever to Christian couples. And many accept abuse as, not just a cause to separate, but also as a grounds for remarriage. Then there are those who expand 'abuse' beyond physical abuse to verbal and emotional or financial abuse. A World Health Organization survey on interpartner violence is so vague that a man who doesn't give his wife money for a Gucci purse could be lumped in with wife beaters.
There are plenty of individuals who go to church and just divorce without much regard for the teachings of Christ, or even hear teaching encouraging or permitting it from the pulpit. Many churches do not practice church discipline at all and kind of ignore people going through difficult situations or who are outright sinning. And with the megachurch trend, it is very easy to get lost in a sea of faces.
