The Narrow Path Ministries

My name is David Buddrige. I read the article at:
http://www.thenarrowpath.com/topical/Di ... rriage.htm

with some interest. In particular, the scenarios presented at the end
of the article are of interest to me, however I want to run some other
scenarios past you all.

I want to start by saying, that I am NOT looking [for myself] for
reasons for divorce. Furthermore, I hate divorce. My opinion is that
simple unhappiness in a marriage is no [Christian] cause for divorce;
that as you have correctly pointed out in your article, simply because a
marriage has become unpleasant, difficult, or that love feelings have
died, the covenant of marriage remains. Love is bigger than feelings,
and is far more to do with what we do than what we feel. Therefore it
is perfectly possible to "love" your spouse by remaining committed to
them even when your emotional preference would be to leave.

In-fact, I have been married now for 7 years to my wife who I remain
very much in love with and utterly committed to. My wife has been
seriously ill with psychiatric difficulties that has seen her in and out
of hospitals, nonetheless I have again and again said to her, and
demonstrated through action that the only way I'm leaving her is in a
box [coffin]. Come what may, [and there have been substantial
difficulties], I plan to be with her until one of us goes to be with
Jesus.

The reason for my inquiry is that I am involved in [the beginnings of] a
Christian outreach to my home suburb in Perth, Western Australia, and
the situation of those we are trying to reach present particular
problems that need addressing - that is, I need to know how to
[biblically] counsel people who may come to faith, but find themselves
in a marriage where a spouse is violent. In the overwhelming majority
of cases it is a violent husband who is the problem.

My own beliefs are orthodox, in that I believe that the Bible to be the
inspired, infallible word of God, and the only authority against which
Christian belief and practice can be legitimately be criticized and from
which all Christian beliefs and practices must be drawn.

I believe that we all stand condemned before God, and only by accepting
Jesus sacrificial death on our behalf can we hope to have a relationship
with God, and subsequently, entry into a coming [perfect] world devoid
of pain, suffering and sorrow.

The issue at hand, is whether or not a violent spouse can be considered
[legitimate] grounds for divorce. One of the issues we have [in this
area], are husbands who are not just abusive, but very violent. Beating
their wives to the point of hospitalization, and sometimes - to death.

Furthermore, there are many instances where the husband, in a fit of
rage or despair, murders both the wife, any and all children that she
may have, and then kills himself. Sometimes, it has been known to
occur that a man may murder the children as a way of 'punishing' his
wife for some perceived slight. A woman in that circumstance therefore
some very serious decisions to make, whether to remain in a potentially
life threatening relationship, and whether her responsibilities to her
Children override her duties to her husband.

Simply saying to such a woman [who is or has recently become a
Christian] that unless he [her husband] actually has sexual relations
with someone other than her, she has no grounds to leave him, seems to
defy common sense ideas of justice; and therefore itself seems immoral -
for is not love the essence of the law.

My own [gut] feeling, is that violence towards a spouse is a form of
unfaithfulness, and therefore satisfies the "except for marital
unfaithfulness" test that Jesus allowed for. For did not the husband in
marrying his wife promise to honor, care for and protect her? Therefore
in the circumstance when he [her husband] is beating her senseless
[often for trivial or imagined sins - more often simply because the man
is feeling angry for some reason], he has massively breached his duty
has a husband, and the vows that he made on entering the marriage.

Another form of violence is rape within marriage. In some marriages, it
may not be uncommon for the man to come home roaring drunk [or even
not], and force his wife to have sex with him. This may be accompanied
by a beating [if the man feels so inclined].

Again, the question is, can such behavior be considered "marital
unfaithfulness"?

It is one thing to say that your duty to your spouse overrides your
duties to your children, but to make that into an inflexible law seems
to defy common-sense justice - both to the woman, and also her children.
How is it to the benefit of the children to have their image and
understanding of fatherhood/manhood warped by a violent man, rather than
legitimately terminating the relationship and starting again [with a man
more accurately portraying the image of the fatherhood of God/Christ]?

And, if it remains a sin to leave a violent, dangerous husband who has
not actually committed sexual adultery, is it not also a sin to subject
the children God has given you to raise to the imminent possibility of
violent death, and/or a mind-warping upbringing that may lead them to
reject God as a father. [Where otherwise, newly found Christianity
might be identified as the thing that caused the mother to take them out
of that situation rather than the scourge that kept them in it - as they
may reason when they are of age to do so] Therefore, I am wondering if
divorce of such a husband can be justified on the grounds that there are
occasions where we don't get to choose between right and wrong, only
between wrong and even more wrong. To hide our heads in the sand and
refuse to deal with these issues is itself a sin - it is a failure to
love [which is the essence of the law].

Hello David,

Thank you for the thoughtful post. I agree that a woman and children should not be required to remain in the home with such dangerous men as you describe. Such men are violent criminals, and should be treated as such by the legal system. Just because his victims are members of his household does not make his behavior any less criminal.

I normally advocate that a woman in such danger should leave the home and find a safe place to which to escape. It is certain that God considers the behavior of such a husband to be marital "unfaithfulness"—but not necessarily the "fornication" that Jesus mentioned as the only grounds for divorce among Christians (Matt.19:9). A separation need not be followed by divorce, and if a divorce seems necessary for full legal protection, then the legitimacy of remarriage should not be automatically assumed (1 Cor.7:11). Permanent singleness is better than keeping the family under the roof with a dangerous criminal.

The husband, in such cases, is almost certainly no Christian. Therefore, one might well argue that his behavior constitutes what Paul would call not being "content to dwell" [as a husband] with his wife (1 Cor.7:12-15). A man who sees the members of his household as objects to bully or to take out his frustrations upon is not interested in being a husband. He only wants live-in victims.

If the man is a Christian, who is struggling with anger (as other men struggle with overeating or covetousness), then I don't think the woman should divorce him, or seek another partner. You never know what God may do in transforming his life further along. But if he is a true Christian, and has dangerous fits of rage that he has not learned to fully control, he himself will urge his wife to take the children to a safe place until he can take the steps necessary to overcome his demons. No Christian man would insist upon or even permit his family to remain in such danger.

The church should be a community of emotional support and financial assistance for such fugitive wives. Like the cities of refuge in the Old Testament, however, the Christian community should not assume the legitimacy of a wife's departure or divorce without adequate inquiry into the situation. Many wives claim that their husbands abuse them, when there is, in fact, not the slightest danger in the home. The church must not become a sanctuary for unhappy wives (or husbands) seeking an underground railroad to freedom from their marriages.

thanks Steve for your reply. It is very helpful.

I have personally witnessed on two seperate occassions, men beating their wife/partner in the street - including one occassion where the man concerned punched his female companion to the ground and then proceeded to kick her while on the ground. I am also aware that a great deal more "goes on" behind closed doors [it is not uncommon during a walk down the street to hear loud arguments coming from houses - and noises that suggest violent engagements].

Given that we are cranking up a serious attempt to bring an evangelistic witness to the area, I had to assume that we're going to be confronted with this kind of issue. While it seems [very] self-evident and common-sense that a woman/children not be required to stay in such a relationship, I needed to be able to justify it biblicaly, and for this reason was examining the scripture and various commentaries to find out what the meaning of the scriptures was. Unfortunately, I do not know greek, and so was unsure what the exact meaning of the word translated [in the NIV] "marital unfaithfulness" in the passage in Matthew might mean exactly.

thanks for your help.

warm regards in him who is called "Wonderful"

David Buddrige.

One sticky point that I am pondering is the issue of men who claim to be Christian, but who are or have been violent. I have seen instances where a man will say almost anything if he thinks it will get him what he wants. He may be sincere, even tearful in making a verbal repentance to all and sundry, yet soon after a relationship is restored revert to the violent abusive behaviour.

If the man is not even claiming to be Christian and has been very violent, then it seems clear enough that he is "not content to dwell' with his wife as a wife [rather than as a live-in-victim as Steve so succinctly put it] and there are reasonable grounds to terminate the relationship and be done with it.

In the case where a man is claiming Christianity, the situation becomes more blurred - requiring further consideration.

One question to be considered is whether [very bad] behaviour can be taken as clear evidence of apostacy [in which case he can be considered an unbeleiver who is not content to dwell']. In favour of this view is 1 Corinthians 5:11 where Paul recommends [paraphrased] "having nothing to do with a person who claims Christianity but is an adulterer, immoral, murderer, swindler etc'. I guess that could be interpreted to mean that if a person who claims Christianity is engaged in these major sins, then their verbal profession of Christ can be taken to be counterfeit.

On the other hand, relationship to Jesus is via grace - rather than works - and therefore it is at least theoretically possible that a person may genuinely be "trying" but nonetheless have major problems with anger etc that renders his family unsafe with him.

If this were the case however - and especially given the hard facts of life that many men in this situation are usually very selfish and willing to lie about their intent to reform - at what point can you ever trust such a person. How many years of reformed behaviour need to be demonstrated before trust is sufficient to entrust the presence of wife and possibly children with him in the same house. My own gut instinct is that it would take a very long period of consistently demonstrated [immaculately] reformed behaviour before I could be satisfied enough that I would be willing to counsel anyone to return to normal marriage relations with such a person - to the point of this being measured in many years [a decade?].

I think it would be a sin [of culpable naivete] to counsel any woman to return to a previously violent husband until her safety was assured with a very, very, very high degree of certainty. It is highly debatable [understatement] to my mind whether I would ever be willing to be convinced that such certainty had been attained. Consider: How guilty would you feel [and be] if you counselled a woman to return to a supposedly reformed husband who subsequently seriously injured her [or worse - killed her]?

One also comes to the practical aspects of how is a wife and children going to be supported for such an extended period of time without the husband either knowing where they live, or a permanent break being made [via divorce].

Such are my ponderings as I consider this potential scenario - although I am inclined to think that such a violent man is highly unlikely to be a Christian. In the case where a man claims Christianity after beating his wife, the first thing I would be doing would be to put this suggestion to the most severe test through a very aggressive [in company] cross-examination of the claimant, pointing out all of the implications of his behaviour [such as proposed by Corinthians 5:11] and also the need to undergo multiple years of proving repentance with immaculate behaviour, as well as a willingness to financially support wife and children while having no [or very little - and that closely supervised] actual contact with his wife/children. I am inclined to think that such an aggressive cross-examination if done right should weed out how genuine such a person would be.

[/i]

I do pray your wife is feeling much better and getting the help she needs.
Keep praying and loving her God in his timing will heal her.

Thankyou for your prayers MLH. My wife passed away on 29 March, 2006 after 7.5 years of marriage. In one sense she is truly healed - she now has more health, strength and love than I. Everything I wanted to say on the matter, I put on the program for her funeral that was handed out to many people who attended [we ran out because more than 2.5 times the number of people we expected showed up for the funeral].

The program from the funeral is downloadable via:
http://www.wasp.net.au/~buddrige/lisa.html

After the service, I had a quite a number of people come up to me that she'd met in psychiatric hospitals, who told me how much she'd touched them, and helped them when they were really struggling with their own problems. That was my Lisa - even when she was herself desperately ill, she was always thinking about other people. It was one of her deep qualities that led me to fall in love with her in the first place.

Thankyou and God bless.

David.

David,
I'm really sorry for your loss. It is a blessing that she is strong and healthy again and with the Lord.

I am sorry about your loss. I am blessed to hear she is now in peace.
Your kindness and humility is so appreciated. thank you!

I downloaded the file to see you and Lisa. I am not good at writing but my heart speaks volumes tho' here silently..God Bless you

Does the bible permit putting away a spouse for abuse?


Actually, it does seem to give grounds for 'putting away' for things like abuse, ect.

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord:
If any brother hath a wife that believeth not,
and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
(1Co 7:12)

The wording there clearly shows that if she is 'pleased' then let him not put her away.
This statement is conditional.
It doesnt not simply state 'let him not put her away' but adds the condition of being 'pleased' to his not putting her away.
If this were an absolute statement, that he not put her away then it should be stated as such, but its not. A condition is very apparent in the actual text.

So what does this word 'pleased' mean?

G4909
1) to be pleased together with, to approve together (with others)
2) to be pleased at the same time with, consent, agree to
2a) to applaud

the word clearly shows a mutually pleasant experience.
She is pleased along with him...at the same time....'together'.

If one spouse is being beaten, they would hardly be "pleased together with" the person who is beating them....so why does Paul show the condition of mutual pleasing if there is no condition at all ?

In taking the actual greek into account, we clearly see a condition added to Pauls stating that this man not 'put away' his wife. The condition being that the marriage is pleasing mutually... the greek does not show a one sided thing at all.

Paul then shows the same thing in reverse for the believing wife in this situation....

And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
(1Co 7:13)

"leave him" there is the same as 'put away' in the previous verse.

G863
aphiēmi
Thayer Definition:
1) to send away
1a) to bid going away or depart
1a1) of a husband divorcing his wife
1b) to send forth, yield up, to expire
1c) to let go, let alone, let be
1c1) to disregard
1c2) to leave, not to discuss now, (a topic)
1c2a) of teachers, writers and speakers
1c3) to omit, neglect
1d) to let go, give up a debt, forgive, to remit
1e) to give up, keep no longer
2) to permit, allow, not to hinder, to give up a thing to a person
3) to leave, go way from one
3a) in order to go to another place
3b) to depart from any one
3c) to depart from one and leave him to himself so that all mutual claims are abandoned
3d) to desert wrongfully
3e) to go away leaving something behind
3f) to leave one by not taking him as a companion
3g) to leave on dying, leave behind one
3h) to leave so that what is left may remain, leave remaining
3i) abandon, leave destitute[/quote]
The context of 'divorce' as a whole in scripture is either the casting out of a spouse or the leaving of a marriage with the intent of 'putting away' that marriage (altho there are some who try to pretend the two are not the same intent)

If we jump back up to verse 7:11 we see that this woman who has departed her marriage is deemed 'unmarried' by Paul....Agamos/single/unwed/ARAMOC


G22
agamos
Thayer Definition:
1) unmarried, unwedded, single

I think the greek makes it very clear that in a situation where a believer is married to an unbeliever who is abusing them that the condition above that Paul presents does give 'grounds' for divorcing the spouse (leaving the marriage)

Pauls condition of if it is "pleased" (meaning mutually) is the 'grounds' for putting away this spouse if they are abusing and its not pleasing.
The "leaving" of the believer would cause them to be "agamos" or unwed/single/unmarried according to Paul thus showing that they are quite divorced when they left with that intent.

In a case of two believers tho, there is a call to reconcile or remain unmarried.
Of course, some folks move on because they no longer wish to be abused.