mattrose wrote:Avoice,
I have seriously tried to answer all of your questions. I think it is more the case that you don't like my answers than that I haven't given them.
If you can provide a list of questions that have remained unanswered, I'd be glad to get to them. I only ask that you ask them in 1 or 2 sentences.
I agree with you, though, that readers of this thread have been able to sift through the 2 views and have the necessary information to make a good decision.
Matt,
Let's say you have 20 brand new converts to Jesus, which have very little experience in the scriptures.
Someone comes to you and says, I am going to allow Jesus to teach them about divorce by reading to them the 4 main references where Jesus directly and thoroughly addressed the topic of divorce.
This person says, Matt, since you say you read the verses the same way, with or without the exception clause, I am going to leave it off and read to them all 4 references with the exception clause omitted from Matthew's gospel.
Matt 5:
32But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Matt 19:
9And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Mark 10:
11And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
12And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
Luke 16:
18Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
After he reads these verses in their contexts especially Mark 10 and Matt 19 that focus on Genesis and Adam and Eve, he announces that this is to be trusted after how the plain wording appears to indicate what the plain meaning is. He doesn't explain or get into detail, he just says that what they have just read is the absolute truth from Jesus himself and should be trusted as written. There is hardly a question that cannot be answered by the authority in these words spoken by Jesus.
Most believers would say this man who just read to these new believers has evilly deceived them.
Why? Because, they will say, he didn't tell the truth that divorce is allowed. They will say this because they have been indoctrinated into believing that the exception of fornication is "for adultery". They are obviously declaring, that the exception clause interprted to mean an allowance for divorce for adultery is 'essential' to the verses in Matthew and absolutely essential to the overall doctrine.
The truth of the matter is that the reader of the verses has merely done what Mark did in 10:2-12 (Compare with Matt 19:3-9). He left out the exception clause to not create unnecessary uncertainty, since being a non essential aside, it does not pertain to the joined-in-marriage anyway.
Matt, how would you react?
Earlier you said this:
No. I would interpret the 4 passages exactly the same whether the exception clause were there or not because marriage is a covenant and covenants can (though they should not) be broken.
This suggests, as if it were concrete evidence for the adultery model, that since marriage is a covenant and covenants can be broken, therefore marriage can be broken. This is a failed argument that I think Steve also uses to some extent. I think this might qualify to be called a 'non sequitur'. Shouldn't you have said many covenants are breakable and you believe marriage is one of those types of covenants that can be broken?
I responded to this:
It depends on the covenant.
With Noah the covenant concerning the rainbow cannot be broken as though mankind can effect it. It is one sided.
The same with marriage, it is patterned after the first marriage therefore the terms are not detemined by the individual parties involved as if one can break it. Like the rainbow covenent, it stands under its own terms between God and married couples; as the rainbow covenant stands between God and mankind. God determined in the beginning that death and death only can terminate a marriage even if the married couple are unaware of the reality of their situation.
Whether or not they are believers is irrelevant. Since it is patterned after Adam and Eve, under which situation it was impossible for the one flesh status to have ended while they both lived, that fact dictates the terms of the covenant of marriage as ordained by God. In short, "till death do us part" are the terms. He stands on one side and has stated the reality of their situation, they stand on the other side and are obligated by the dictates of truth to abide under the natural 'till death do us part" pattern established by the first couple, something their God given conscience should easily agree with.
Any response to your 'covenants-can-be-broken argument?