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The Need For Divine Change - Multitudes are without God, without Christ, without hope in the world. That is the way Paul speaks of them. That distinction is there throughout the Bible - not just here - but here the Holy Spirit directs the apostle to focus on this distinction. Those who are in the flesh: that is who are unregenerate, who are not born of God, who not in Christ.

Let Marriage Be Held In Honour Among All - The Bible is telling us: Let marriage always be thought of as precious. Let it be treasured like gold and silver and rare jewels. Let it be revered and respected like the noblest, most virtuous person you have ever known.

Parable of the Vine and the Branches, John 15:5 - Many are called to become leaders, assisting others in their spiritual journey. Spiritual leaders - clergy or lay, seek to meet the needs of people in their own congregations or communities of faith. But spiritual leaders have unique and often overlooked needs of their own.

Confidence In Prayer - Are you tired of praying and not getting results in your prayer life? If so, you probably need to examine your confidence level in this area. A lack of confidence in prayer simply comes from not knowing God's Word. Too many Christians pray emotional, fear-based prayers, hoping that they get through to God.

Are there any biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage?

Author: Apostle Homer

While the Scriptures take the marriage covenant very seriously, they permit divorce and remarriage in some situations. To learn exactly what these circumstances are, we will begin with the Old Testament regulations of divorce and remarriage. Then we will consider the words of Jesus on this subject. And finally, we will look at the instructions given by the apostle Paul.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 tells us that when a man finds "some uncleanness" in his wife, divorces her, and they both marry new mates, they cannot ever undo this new marriage to remarry each other.  

We know little about the rate of divorce in Israel between the time of Moses and the exile into Babylon over a thousand years later. However, at the beginning of the New Testament era, men were divorcing their wives for the most trivial reasons imaginable. In the rabbinical literature of that time, burning a husband's food was listed as grounds for divorce! While the conservative school of Shammai taught that the provision of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 required a serious moral violation, most Rabbis belonged to the far more lenient school of Hillel. In their view, any man who wanted a divorce should be able to obtain one easily. Even the Rabbis who followed Shammai believed that it was violation of a man's masculinity to live as a celibate. In practice, therefore, both schools advocated remarriage for any single male, no matter what the grounds for his divorce were.   

Of course, while this may have been the rabbinical consensus, it certainly does not reflect the biblical view of marriage! The rabbinical schools of Christ's day were often wrong in their interpretation of the Old Testament. They made the Law into a works system for salvation and created loopholes by which clever people could get away with terrible wrongs. It appears that these Jewish scholars, all of whom prided themselves on their loyalty to Moses, were often out of tune with the deep spirituality of the Law.

In this cultural and religious context, the Lord's statement that people who divorced on lesser grounds committed adultery when they remarried was shocking. It even amazed the disciples, as evidenced by their response   (Matthew 19:10). Jesus' teaching clearly ran contrary to the easy-going divorce and remarriage customs of His time. He declared that the only grounds for a valid divorce was porneia (sexual immorality -- Matthew 5:32), a term that encompassed a broad range of sexual sins. Later, Paul added another legitimate reason for divorce -- the willful desertion of a Christian by a non-Christian mate (1 Corinthians 7:15 ).

While the New Testament explicitly makes both sexual infidelity and desertion by an unbeliever grounds for a Christian's divorce and remarriage, it does not offer a detailed description of how a Christian should deal with an intolerable marital situation that does not involve either of these circumstances. It appears that Paul had such situations in mind when he wrote:

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife (1 Corinthians 7:10-11).

To sum up, there is general agreement among evangelicals that apart from the death of a mate, the New Testament gives only two situations in which a marriage can be terminated with the right to remarry: illicit sexual activity, and abandonment by an unbelieving mate. There are no other rightful grounds. Although it may be necessary in some other situations for a Christian to separate from or divorce his or her mate, Scripture requires him or her to remain unmarried until reconciled. From the very beginning, God recognized the profound value of unconditional commitment between spouses in marriage. He mercifully provided a way out of relationships that have already been shattered by adultery and abandonment, but He never intended an "easy out."