Monthly Archives: December 2023

Today there was a debate which reminded me of something…

Those who make an idol of marriage tend to stubbornly refuse to admit that sometimes abuse is so horrible that the spouse must flee from the home in order to protect her own life.

To them, divorce is the worst thing a person can do.
(Cue John Piper’s horrible statement about a wife “perhaps enduring being smacked around for an evening”).

But then it seems as if they grow a bit of a conscience and have a vague feeling of unease. The truth of the brutality of the depths of abuse tend to make us uncomfortable. You start to think that perhaps your tribe or your church or your people are a bit better than other tribes and other people and then the ugly reality of sin rears its head. It sometimes hits you hard upside the head to hear what evil things humans can do to those they profess to love.

And so when you are hit upside the head, but you cannot give up the “God hates divorce” mantra, you come up with something silly like “Sometimes separation is necessary, but divorce is never an option. Separate until he repents and then…” but really does it matter at this point?

So a couple of things.

First, separation is never a viable option in the scripture. You are either divorced or married. If you are married, live in love and respect and mutual honor and dignity. Love one another and put the other one first. When the covenant is broken and the situation has become treacherous, it is better to divorce than to live in hatred (See Malachi 2). For God would have us free, rather than in bondage to misery, death and hatred (1 Corinthians 7)

Speaking of 1 Corinthians, chapter 7 is speaking of a specific situation. Paul is showing the church how to apply the universal principle of godly love in a godless and cruel culture. It has nothing to do with a 21st century woman married to a son of Belial. That is the reason God gave us divorce to begin with.

Second, the idea seems to be that by separation the abuser will see the errors of his ways and repent. This belief is hopelessly naive and ultimately tempting God. I wrote about this here.

So the abused spouse is expected to remain alone, drive herself into poverty, and live in continuous fear of harm rather than accept the remedy that God has provided, simply because some preacher somewhere said that God hates divorce.

I’m not buying it, and it isn’t actually taught in the scripture.

When the law prescribes death for the adulterer, it is showing us how hateful it is in the eyes of God for the covenant of marriage to be broken. But it isn’t the one sinned against that was culpable. It was the one who broke the covenant.

Whether that covenant was broken through sexual sin, degradation, reviling, depravation of food, sleep, safety, or other actions of hate, God has provided a remedy for the one who has been sinned against (Exodus 21:9-10)

Because he hates her, let him send her away, says the Lord God of Israel. (Malachi 2:16)

Hope this helps.