5:31-32 | Divorce
The Old Way of Divorce
Deuteronomy 24:1-4
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We know less than we would want to
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The only real treatment we find is in Deut. 24:1-4
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Doesn't tell us when divorce is legal, it's just assumed
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He could divorce for some indecency
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We have no idea what that would be
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Possibly inability to have children, or some ritual impurity
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Not adultery since that would be punishable by divorce
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The second husband simply hates her
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Must be given a certificate of divorce
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Protected her form the charge of adultery
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Proved she was eligible for remarriage
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Could never return to the first husband
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Even if the second husband divorces her
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This prevented casual divorces and the exchanging of wives
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How This Was Interpreted Up Till Jesus
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Shammai
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The smaller, more conservative view
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Emphasized found some indecency
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Defined as adultery, and for no other reason
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Hillel
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The larger, more permitting view
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Emphasized any indecency
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Could divorce for spoiling meals
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Common practices
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One Rabbi Akiba taught you could divorce if you found a better looking woman
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Josephus was three times married | Divorced because he was not pleased with her behavior
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The New Way
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Three scenarios contained in a single verse
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A divorce without sexual immorality
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A marriage to a woman who had been divorced for sexual immorality
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A divorce caused by sexual immorality
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Divorced for ungodly reasons
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He makes her commit adultery
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It is assumed that she remarries in this instance. She is not sinning if the husband wrongly divorces her. She only sins by wrongfully entering into a relationship with another man.
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We can't abandon our spouses just because they've abandoned us
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Marrying the divorced
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If they were not divorced properly, then no divorce ever occurred
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By doing so we are entering into a marriage that never ended and are committing adultery
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Divorced for sexual immorality
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This is the only exception in divorce
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Sexual immorality being strictly defined as sex outside the marriage relationship
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That "one flesh" has been torn apart and joined to another | 1 Corinthians 6:18
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What's the Big Deal?
God Hates Divorce
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Malachi 2:16
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He hates divorce
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Faithfulness is a defining characteristic of God, and should be of us
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He only allowed it for a time because of the hardness of hearts
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It goes against his original purpose
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That the two become one flesh - Divorcing is like cutting off your own arm
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They are joined together - Yet we throw our spouses away
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Divorce is not the solution, it is the last option
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We shouldn't read this trying to find out how we can finally divorce each other
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God 'divorced' Israel in Hosea but only after doing everything to bring them back
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God Wants Us to Understand Our Relationship to Him as a Marriage | Ephesians 5:22-33
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Paul intertwines the concept of marriage relationships with our relationship to Jesus
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Husband is head, as Christ is head
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Wives submit, as the church does to Christ
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Husbands are to love, as Christ loved
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Concludes with a Genesis quotation
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Paul isn't just reminding us of good marriage advice
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This is something that needs deeper thinking, and applies to Christ and the church
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We should understand God's relationship with us as a marriage
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We are now a part of his body - one flesh
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Just as woman was man's helper, God is described as our helper
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He wants us to hold onto him as much as he holds to us
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When we go divorcing one another, what does that say about our relationship to God?
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If a man is not faithful to his wife, can he be faithful to anything?
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We are to see our relationship with God in our marriages
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Nothing should ever come between and separate us from our faithfulness
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