And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.~~ Jeremiah 3:8
All my years in the church taught me quite a bit. It taught more bad than good unfortunately. I was 24 with three children, and just lost a baby. Two of my kids were deathly ill requiring me to be in the emergency room 3 nights a week, multiple weekly doctor visits, breathing machines and bottle upon bottle of medications. My husband at the time ran home to his mommy every other month for a month or two. That wasn’t the bad part. That was the good times. When he was home, there was a constant barrage of mental abuse towards the kids and me. I grew up with mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I tried for the sake of Christianity and the church to hold on and pray it through.
Late one night while on a personal prayer vigil I decided that if God intended my kids to be abused then maybe he wasn’t who I wanted for a god. Certainly, my God would not want me to keep my kids in this situation. I decided on a divorce and 2 days after telling my husband my decision he had me served the papers.
I struggled so hard for fear that I was letting God, the church and Christianity down because I was unable to uphold the scriptures. The one that comes to mind is ‘God hates divorce’.
That was 23 years ago. Wow. I am almost twice as old. Twice as wise? Not so much! But here I am going through an unwanted divorce. Again, in my spirit or flesh I want to find the scriptures that will tell me easily if God will be eternally mad at me, if I will lose my rewards, or if he will ever talk to me again. Geez, how many times can a person go through this divorce process in a life without being disowned or something?
I started a Google search for biblical answer to ‘God’ and ‘divorce’ and funny thing what I bumped into. God divorced Israel! What!?? Oh, I am sure I heard that taught somewhere in my almost 3 decades of Christianity but it certainly was not one of those loud, get in your face messages the preachers wanted you to take notes, get the CD and remember for your life. No not this one!
Now my Christian friends are reminding me that God in fact did not divorce Israel but that he was just giving her an ultimatum. So being the diligent person that I am, I went to the Greek. I am not trying to bring on opposition, rather I NEED to be able to discern for myself what the scriptures say and mean for myself apart from all my well-meaning Christian friends and pastors thoughts.
Greek for ‘bill of divorce’: bill= letter (of instruction), written order, commission, request, written decree, legal document, certificate of divorce, deed of purchase, indictment, sign.
Divorce= divorce, dismissal, divorcement.
That sounds like a full-fledged divorce to me! It doesn’t sound like or imply an ultimatum.
Then I hear about a verse in Malachi that says, ‘God hates divorce!’ Wow. That is strong. But when I go to look it up I cannot find it. I will write a second part of this blog to show my finding on what Malachi was talking about.
One reading, which was very helpful, can be found at http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Brewer/3Weddings.htm. This person did an in-depth study for Tyndale on God and divorce. It is very enlightening. Either in this paper or one that was a writing about this paper it said that the reason God hated divorce was because he went through one and knew the pain involved in loving one so deeply and being shunned. He completely understood the depths of the broken heart and all the pain involved. They said this is why he truly hated divorce. It could be. I will have to research before I give my yea or nay on that one.
Either way, what I learned this week is that God himself got divorced and that he is not going to cut me off for doing something that he himself did. My God is not a hypocrite. If it was ok for him then I am sure it might be ok for me. Is it the best decision? Who knows? Divorce is never easy for either partner. There was a cleaving and now a strong pulling apart. For me unfortunately, the pulling apart started or happened a long time ago. This is just ending what has started too long ago.
The paper I mentioned above says a lot more. Maybe I will write more on that. I know that this is a touchy subject. The very people that they are putting their trust in mislead most Christians. Why won’t a Christian church tell you that God got divorced? Or that this walk with Jesus is not about a set of do’s and don’ts. Jesus came to abolish the Ten Commandments yet we allow ourselves to be roped in by them again and call it obedience or submission or some other silly name that the institutions have chosen.
Be blessed and enjoy God today!!
3 comments:
You do realize that Jesus said that divorce was justified in the case of adultery (Matt 19:9). You also must realize that Israel had adulterated herself many times, right in her "husband's" face (in the verse you quoted and history in Kings and Chronicles). God was justified, according to his own Word, to divorce Israel, not the hypocrite you imply.
Hey BD, I am sorry if I intoned or implied that God was a hypocrite. The crux of all of this is not a scriptural match game but rather that in the end sin is sin and I am forgiven. Does that give me license? No! But that blood washes it away thankfully. As an end note: these scriptures do need to be taken in their contextual and historical settings to be valid for any debates.
Hello Dawn, you did not imply that God is a hypocrite, as BigDummy stated. My reading of your blog was quite encouraging and uplifting. As a divorced person myself, I have found myself in emotional turmoil over it and during it. Perhaps, folks like BigDummy simply haven't gone through the emotional turoilof divorce. Maybe then, the scriptural matchgame will end and mercy begin. I too was in church this past Sunday and heard the very same passage. Had never heard it from a pulpit anywhere in all my life. It is good to know that even if BigDummy doesn't understand, then at least God does. And, if we are anything alike at all, that is all that matters to me.
Post a Comment