Divorce

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I think the strongest case against divorce is to look at what marriage symbolizes. God uses imagery to help us understand our relationship with Him. We relate to Him as children to a parent or as servants to a master. We understand these relationships because we experience them every day on earth. There is no greater image of our relationship with God than that of a husband and wife. Of all the parallels that are drawn in scripture, this is the one that gets the most attention and the one that comes the closest to reflecting what our relationship with God was designed to be.

God says He will never leave us or forsake us, and scripture is filled with His continual pursuit of His chosen people (despite their desertion and unfaithfulness). For a husband or wife to divorce their spouse, flies in the face of all that marriage is supposed to signify.

I find it interesting that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the occasion when the Pharisees questioned Jesus about divorce, but Matthew is the only one who mentions the exception for maritial unfaithfulness. Clearly, while Jesus made this allowance, the thing that really stuck out was His emphatic insistence that husbands and wives should never separate (“what God has joined together, let man not separate”).

When it comes to “what’s done is done, can I get remarried?” I think there are a couple of slippery slopes to be avoided. One is the idea that as long as the other party gets remarried, and therefore “becomes unfaithful,” you are therefore free. This would open the door to marry and divorce willy-nilly provided you always make sure your ex gets remarried first. It also places a great deal of importance on timing; ie., who was unfaithful first. It essentially means two people can take the exact same actions, but one of them is guilty of adultery and the other gets off scot free. This clearly is not what God had in mind. I think the allowance for divorce in the case of marital unfaithfulness is restricted to when it occurs in the context of the marital relationship. I don’t think it is a “way out” for two people who have severed their relationship, regardless of whether they are technically (either legally or in God’s eyes) still married or not.

I also think the “lust = adultery = just cause for divorce” concept is a slippery slope. When Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 that lust is equivalent to committing adultery, the word for adultery is moicheuo?. In Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, the word for unfaithfulness or fornication is porneia. Even without looking at the Greek words, I would have a problem with this concept because it again opens up a huge “loophole” to allow unhappy people to get out of their marriage, and I don’t believe that’s what God had in mind.

Does that mean someone who made a mistake and married the wrong person, or made a mistake and got divorced when they should have stayed married is doomed to suffer the consequences for the rest of their life? Well, at the risk of sounding harsh, I definitely think it’s a viewpoint that should be considered. Nowhere does God promise to remove the consequences of our own sin, or even the sin of others. He is more concerned with our holiness than He is with our happiness. The truth of the matter is, we are most likely to be happy when we are holy.

Here are links to scriptures that talk about divorce and scholarly articles on the subject:

Nave’s Topical Bible

Torrey’s Topical Handbook

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Divorce in the OT

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Divorce in the NT

Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary

Chick Tracts

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I like the idea of putting Bible doctrine and gospel messages in comic book style tracts. I haven’t read all of the Chick tracts, but I assume there are some that I could give to someone without any qualms. However, there are also some that I would never give to anyone. “Angels?” (about Christian rock) and “The Attack” (about the KJV Bible) are two that are utterly ridiculous.

All (or at least a lot) of the tracts can be read at www.chick.com. I looked at one about Mormonism, and all the claims are footnoted. Anyone who cares to investigate the claims can go to the LDS sources to see if they are taken out of context or come from legitimate LDS authorities or just random LDS adherants.

Let’s look at a couple specifics of The Attack.

He calls the Alexandrian Manuscripts “satanic.” You can argue that they aren’t as accurate, but to call them “satanic” is ridiculous. He says the Alexandrian Manuscripts “down-play the diety of Christ, the virgin birth, salvation by grace through faith, etc.” This is a bogus claim. The only way to support this claim is by taking isolated verses and comparing them to the KJV, with the assumption that if it doesn’t match the KJV it’s corrupted. This is circular reasoning. Every translation of the Bible I have seen affirms the diety of Christ, the virgin birth, salvation by grace through faith, etc.

He claims that the NASB “denies the virgin birth” by changing Luke 2:33. First off, the NASB doesn’t “change” anything. They simply translated the Greek word “pate?r.” If you want to argue that the word was changed in the version of the Greek manuscript they used, fine, but don’t blame the NASB translators for the change. It’s also false to say the NASB denies the virgin birth. If they were going to do that, they would also have changed Isaiah 7:14 (“a virgin will be with child and bear a son”), Matthew 1:18 (“before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit”), Matthew 1:23 (“the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son”), Matthew 1:25 (“but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son”), and others. If you want to be picky about calling Joseph Jesus’ father, let’s see what the KJV has in Luke 2:48. Mary says to Jesus, “thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” Mind you, this is the KJV, and Mary obviously knows that Jesus is not Joseph’s biological son, and yet she calls Joseph his “father.”

He goes on to accuse other Bible versions of being “corrupted” and “tampering” with Scripture for leaving out the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7. He doesn’t bother to tell you that of the 8 Greek manuscripts that have these words, it was written in the margin by a later hand on four of them. That doesn’t speak well to it’s authenticity. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/comma.html)

Now that I think about it, his willingness to twist the truth and spread misinformation would cause me to have some qualms about handing out even some of the tracts that have only good content. I wouldn’t want someone to think that Chick Publications was a trusted authority on Biblical issues and be misled by some of their outlandish teachings.

I don’t mind someone defending the KJV as the “best” translation, but when they attack any other translation as satanic, they go overboard and lose their credibility.

Two Wolves

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This modern-day parable was posted on bibleforums.org:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on
inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between 2 “wolves” inside us
all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,greed, arrogance,
self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and
ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather:”Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

A well-meaning individual replied that the story was not biblical. I submit that it can be interpreted biblically.

This story, the origins of which are unknown (possibly invented by a preacher as an illustration), is not unbiblical. The full context of what Paul said in Romans 7 helps us see that.

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Bible Translations

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Translation philosophy

Bible translations commonly adopt primarily one of two philosophies for determining the correct English translation of the Hebrew or Greek text. The first is “formal equivalence” or “word-for-word.” Here the translator takes each Hebrew or Greek word and attempts to translate it into the equivalent English word. An alternative approach is “dynamic equivalence” or “thought-for-thought.” In this case, the translator first attempts to determine the meaning of a complete phrase in the original language, then picks the English words that best convey the same meaning. The translators of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (and perhaps other translations) have opted to use “optimal equivalence” which might be explained as “as literal as possible, as free as necessary.”

I like the idea of “optimal equivalency.” The way I would phrase it is, “word-for-word as much as possible, unless it produces confusion.” I tried to think of an example where a word-for-word translation would create confusion, and although it’s not a great example, consider the following scenario: let’s say I’m translating the phrase “la bota negra” from Spanish to English. I look up each word in the Spanish-English dictionary, and I see that la=the, bota=boot, and negra=black. So the literal English translation would be “the boot black.” According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a boot-black is “a person who cleans and polishes shoes for a living.” However, anyone familiar with Spanish knows that the modifier (adjective) comes after the noun, whereas in English we put the modifier in front of the noun, so the correct English translation would be “the black boot.” This would be a case where a truly literal word-for-word translation would be a bad idea. Then, of course, sometimes a truly literal word-for-word translation isn’t even possible, because there is no one-to-one correspondance of the Greek or Hebrew word with an English word.

There’s also the issue that what is clear to one person might be confusing to someone else. Something that might be easily understood by an English major might be quite confusing to someone who struggled to graduate highschool. In that case, there is certainly a place for a variety of translations at different reading levels. Unfortunately, simplifying a translation can also require sacrificing some accuracy sometimes.

What if the original language is confusing? Should the translator take his best stab at the intended meaning, or leave it ambiguous so the reader can take it either way? This is a judgement call that the translator has to make, in part depending on how much confidence he has in his ability to interpret the true intent of the passage.

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Unfairness

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If you do a web search on “where is God when it hurts” you will find a book by Philip Yancey by this title, as well as some other articles and dicussions of this topic. Here’s one page in particular that is relevant: http://www.gotquestions.org/btgp.html

There is a verse in the Bible, 2 Peter 3:9, that says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.” If I could have my own book of the Bible, I might have a verse that said, “The Lord is not unfair in dealing with people, as some understand unfairness.”

To illustrate this concept, Jesus tells a story in Matthew 20 about a man who hired some workers to work in his vineyard. At the beginning of the day, he hired some men and agreed to pay them a typical days wage. At various times throughout the day, he went out and hired more workers. The last few workers he hired were hired only an hour before quitting time. Then, at the end of the day, he paid all his workers a full days wage, even the ones who had only worked part of the day. The workers who started first thing in the morning were upset, because they thought they should get more than the workers who only worked part of the day. The owner of the vineyard told them, “Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take it and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be angry because I am kind?”

Another story in the Bible that illustrates how God operates is the story of Job. Job was “blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared (obeyed) God and stayed away from evil.” God even bragged about Job to Satan. “The LORD asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth–a man of complete integrity. He fears (obeys) God and will have nothing to do with evil.” Satan replies that the only reason Job is so obedient is because God has blessed him greatly. “Take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” So God said, “All right, you may test him. Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” Later, after Job has remained faithful to God, Satan wants to up the stakes. “Take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!” So God allows Satan to go even further. “All right, do with him as you please. But spare his life.” Although Job never curses God, he does begin to ask, “Why me, God?” At the end of the book, God goes on for four chapters asking Job all sorts of questions that Job cannot answer, really putting Job in his place. Finally Job says, “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You ask, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I. And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me.” Then God restored Job’s fortunes and blessed him even more than ever. Was God fair to Job? Would it have been fair of God if he hadn’t restored Job’s fortunes? (hint: the answer to both questions is “yes”)

One more verse: Matthew 5:45. “He (God) causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Not everything that happens in life is a function of whether we “deserve it” or not.

In reality, everyone has sinned against God and deserves immediate destruction. It would be perfectly fair and just of God to let the ravages of sin completely destroy us. However, in His wisdom, in ways that we do not understand, He extends grace at certain times to certain people.

Originally posted 8/3/2005 on bibleforums.org