Divorce and Church Disunity

A stunning piece of commentary on marriage and the church by Ajith Fernando...
" He may not divorce her all his days." Deuteronomy 22:19

The Seriousness of Covenant Commitments (22:19b)

The Law goes on to say, "And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days" (22:19b). Many today would react to this statement with shock and incredulity. Why should a man be forced to live until death with a woman he "hates" (22:13)? Should not the couple divorce because they are so incompat- ible? Incompatibility seems to be an almost universally accepted ground for divorce today. Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, made popular the idea that incom- patibility can be a plus point in a marriage. Billy Graham once described the secret of their more than sixty-year marriage by saying, "Ruth and I are hap- pily incompatible."5 Chuck and Barb Snyder, who describe themselves as "the world's most opposite couple," have written a helpful book, Incompatibility: Still Grounds for a Great Marriage,6 which, they say, explains "how they have survived almost 50 years of marriage—and enjoyed the journey."7

When a couple marries, they make a solemn covenant before God and human witnesses to be faithful to each other until they die. That is a serious undertaking. If people keep breaking their covenant commitments, we are going to end up with a very insecure society in which no one trusts anyone and authentic community life becomes extinct. Sadly, this seems to have happened already, and the world is filled with insecure, unhappy, and rest- less people—missing the enriching life in community that God intended for them. The idea of lasting commitment has gone out of fashion. When people find their church does not meet their particular needs (incompatibility), they move to another church, forgetting that the key to their church membership is not their needs but the fact that they have become part of that body. Imagine a body having to amputate its members all the time. Today's church-hopping culture has made the body metaphor for the church very difficult to sustain!

The principle of commitment to people despite their weaknesses and failures finds its fullest expression in marriage. Christians do not practice this commitment only by stoically clinging to an unhappy and gloomy marriage out of an obligation to be faithful to vows made at the wedding. The Christian view of patience is much more positive, and it is based on the belief that God turns everything to good (Romans 8:28). We are patient with people because that is the best possible thing to do. If the Old Testament is any indication of what a good family is, then joy is an important feature of the marriage relationship. When Christians exercise patience with their spouses, they are fired by an ambition to see their family life joyful just as God intended it to be. They know that God can help them achieve this joy.

With such ambition, Christians exercise patience as part of a concerted effort to work at improving their marriage relationship. Over the years I have worked with a few couples who looked like they were very incompatible with each other. Some had come from dysfunctional backgrounds that had left serious psychological scars in their personalities. At times it looked like there was no hope of salvaging these marriages. However, as they persevered in obedience to God and with an ambition to make their marriages work, I have seen them emerge with beautiful testimonies to how the sufficient grace of God helped them forge stable marriage relationships.

I am not saying that there is no place for divorce in the Christian church. We know that sometimes devout, holy Christians have to resort to divorce because of an impossible relationship in which one partner refuses to work toward a resolution. What I am saying is that far too many battles to save marriages are abandoned too early. God can make incompatible people happy. However, for all this to make sense, we must first bring back to the thinking of Christians the utmost importance of commitment as a key Christian value. Jesus said, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:6).

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Regards,
Ryan Chia

It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world,
as that God has a church for his mission in the world.
Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission—God's mission.

From The Mission of God by Chris Wright

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