It feels like if I had $1 for every time someone has told me about being hurt by a church, specifically in regards to divorce, I’d be driving a brand new vehicle instead of my 20 year old truck. Just this Sunday I heard this yet again, and it happened at a church I have attended, although not during a season I attended there. Marriage and divorce are two of the most misunderstood concepts in our world, and in the church.
The stories I’ve encountered in every church I’ve ministered, and in every community I have lived in are heartbreaking. They include people who left the church because they were shamed by their community of faith as their marriage ended.
Some were abused and battered women told by church leaders to remain married to their husband.
Some were ministers who were summarily fired because they faced marriage problems.
Some non-believers who were very interested in learning about Jesus were afraid to enter a church and learn because they believed they were unwelcome due to their divorced status.
Even a couple happily married for decades who were told by their church leaders that they should divorce even though their marriage was healthy because they had both been married previously. Apparently in the minds of that church, two divorces were better than one.
Sadly, I could continue sharing many more of these same types of encounters that both believers, and non-believers have encountered from the church. As one person told me, “It seems like divorce is the unpardonable sin.” Shockingly, it’s not even a sin.
In the coming weeks and months, I hope to begin writing again specifically to address the gross misrepresentation of Biblical divorce. But I have to start from one undeniable Biblical fact that most Christians have no idea of.
Our God is divorced.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the Bible together.
3:6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done. You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods. 3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. 3:8 She also saw that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods. 3:9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone. 3:10 In spite of all this, Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” says the LORD. 3:11 Then the LORD said to me, “Under the circumstances, wayward Israel could even be considered less guilty than unfaithful Judah.
Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005), Je 3:6–11.
Do you catch what the LORD is saying? He was married to Israel, and Israel was unfaithful. So the LORD divorced Israel.
Our God is divorced.
If your beliefs about divorce don’t allow room for God himself being divorced, your beliefs are not biblical.
There is much to unpack in Jeremiah, but that’s enough for one post. What I want us to realize is simply this: divorce is not a sin. Divorce often occurs as the result of sin, but divorce is not sin. This is how the LORD himself can have a divorce from Israel while remaining sinless.
Divorce is sometimes necessary. Divorce is always painful. Divorce is not nescessarily sinful.
Living in the Word 