No 10
(Divorce)
Are there ever any proper grounds for
divorce or is the husband-wife union unbreakable? God hates divorce which is why He gave no
provision for it when He instituted marriage in Genesis 2 :
23, 24 : “And Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh….and he shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh”. But in Deuteronomy 24 :
1-4, the Bible also says : “…and it come to pass that she find no favour in
his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness in her, let him write her a
bill of divorce” . There seems to
be a contradiction here in the original plan for marriage – a man could divorce
a woman if he found an “uncleanness in her”. What is an uncleanness? This is left to interpretation and for a
while there, Jewish history tells us that the men were divorcing their wives
for burning the bagels and other such frivolous reasons. This was confirmed when the Pharisees asked
Jesus a question in Matt 19 :3b : “Is it lawful for
a man to put away his wife for every cause?”. Jesus quoted Genesis 2 :
24 and said to them :“Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered
you to put away your wives : but from the beginning, it was not so” (Matt 19 : 8). Jesus did not stop there, He went on to say : “…Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for
fornication and shall marry another, committeth adultery…” (vs 9). Those who are
pro-divorce for Christians use this verse and also the fact that God divorced