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TITLE: MDR: Many Theories
TEXT: Mark 10:5-9
PROPOSITION: Many has invented many excuses to avoid the command of God.
QUESTION: What?
KEY WORD: Inventions
SCRIPTURE READING: Same


INTRODUCTION:

  1. Personal – Divorce is personal to each of us

  2. Emotional – affects relationships (family & friends)

  3. Difficult – People get into a mess; difficult to resolve

  4. Theroies – In an attempt to get around the standard, common, long-held teaching on this subject, many have sought ways to explain away the scriptures


THE RANGE OF RELIGIOUS ERROR

This list is in no certain order, and we do not have the time to exhaust a complete listing of them, but note these errors now being taught:

  1. The deserted “believer” of 1 Corinthians 7:15 is free to remarry, and that with God’s approval.

  2. The “guilty party” of Matthew 19:9 may, with God’s approval, form another marriage.

  3. The teaching of the Lord in Matthew 19:9 applies only to a Christian married to a Christian (covenant passage).

  4. Every person may continue in the particular marriage situation in which he happens to be at the time he is immersed, regardless.

  5. The non-Christian is not under, that is, amenable to the law of Christ on marriage.

  6. Repentance means, if one says “I’m sorry, and I do not intend to do it again,” that he is free to live in that particular relationship (God-sanctioned and God-approved).

  7. The “sin” if there be such, is in the “divorcing”, not in the remarriage.

  8. The “sin” is not in the divorcing, but in the “remarriage.”

  9. The teaching of Christ in Matthew 5 and 19 is, in reality, a fuller explanation of the Law of Moses.

  10. Unless you can find the teaching of Matthew 5 and 19 reiterated after the day of Pentecost, it is not a part of the New Testament and we are not bound by it.

  11. Death constitutes the only Biblical cause for remarriage.

  12. Divorce and remarriage can take place without cause.

  13. Divorce and remarriage can be for any legal or justifiable cause.

  14. Divorce and remarriage if before baptism is okay because sins are washed away in baptism (the idea that baptism makes an “unholy” union to be a “holy” union).

  15. If a person is unhappy in his marriage, he can divorce and remarry, as it would be an “unreasonable” thing if he had to stay in it and we know, (Romans 12:1), our service to God is reasonable.

  16. If a person “lusts in his heart” (Matthew 5:28), he has committed adultery, therefore, can divorce and remarry.

  17. If a person commits “spiritual adultery”, the innocent has the right to divorce and remarry.

  18. If a person commits “fornication before marriage” (not “after” the marriage), then he can divorce and remarry.

  19. It is no longer valid to restrict the meaning of “adultery” to the teaching of Matthew 19:9, that is, we need a new definition to the word “adultery.”

  20. When either marriage partner fails to “function in the marriage, it is no longer a marriage, therefore there is a right to divorce and remarry.

  21. Not a one of us can keep God’s laws. When you break one you have broken them all - including the marriage (James 2:20). God is a Father, not a Lawyer!

  22. The “unbeliever” of 1 Corinthians 7:15 is the “believer” who becomes an “unbeliever, unfaithful to the church.” Because that one has become an “unbeliever” and departed, you are no longer under bondage, that is, no longer “bound.”

  23. The word “depart” (choridzo) as used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 means “divorce,” and in the “technical” sense.

  24. Either spouse can “up and separate,” by any legal means available and there is “no sin” in the separation, even if it is permanent.

  25. “Let every man have his own wife...” teaches that one hundred percent of men and women today have the right to remarry (marry).

  26. MMLJBC – Everything in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John before the cross is part of the Law of Moses and does not apply to Christians.

Summary

  1. I don't have time to discuss in detail what is wrong with each of these false teachings.

  2. Jesus did not go back to David or Moses. He went to the creation.

  3. Laws about worship have changed

  4. God's intent for marriage is the same as in Genesis 1 & 2

  5. Marriage is – one man; one woman; for life.

  6. Don't keep hunting for loopholes to avoid the command of God.



http://www.watchmanmag.com/0202/020217c.htm This site lists some other theories on MDR.



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