Over the last decades, divorce rates have skyrocketed. With them have come second (and third and fourth and fifth) marriages, mingled families, and immense pain and confusion. With many new couples failing to make it through even five years of marriage, and many more divorcing after ten or twenty years, the questions surrounding divorce, remarriage, and family are incredibly pertinent and important.
Though cultural tides ebb and flow, though emotions run high on the matter, faithful Christians and churches must ultimately ask: What does God say about marriage, divorce and remarriage? These are important concerns in the lives of the members of the church: Should I marry him? Should I divorce her? He’s left me; can I now remarry? The answers to these questions have lifelong consequences that play out in the lives of individuals, families. and churches.
In the posts that follow, we lay out a clear, Biblical theology of divorce and remarriage, and then map out some practical applications of that theology.
Divorce and Remarriage: What God Says
- Theological Foundations [Part 1]: divorce is always sinful, and whoever seeks a divorce and then remarries commits adultery.
- Theological Foundations [Part 2]: even an innocent party in a divorce is guilty of adultery if he or she remarries. Remarriage is allowed only for those whose spouses have died.
- Practicalities [Part 1]: a Biblical view of separation and reconciliation. What should those who have already remarried do? How should we interact with friends who have remarried?
- Practicalities [Part 2]: Even if a divorcée's spouse has remarried, remarriage is impermissible. Churches should discipline unrepentant members who divorce, as well as those who remarry; unrepentant men and women who remarried may not become members.
- Practicalities [Part 3]: May previously divorced and remarried men be elders in the church?
- Divorce and Remarriage: A Permanence View—by Daryl Wingerd, Jim Elliff, Jim Chrisman, and Steve Burchett: a review of a book that covers the same topic, addressing the issues in even deeper detail than we did.