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Some seem to think that if you divorce and remarry, you are living in perpetual adultery. But if you kill your wife, she remains dead, right? So it's not like asking forgiveness fixes everything...and yet we believe God would forgive.But divorce!!! Oh, no. If you ask forgiveness, you apparently must divorce your current wife and either return to your first wife or remain unmarried.Yet notice that the woman who had been married five times recognized by Jesus as having had five husbands. If only the first was valid in God's eyes, then it would seem the others would not have been recognized as husbands. Further, while we believe in restitution where possible, it was an abomination, in some circumstance in the OT to remarry your previous wife!!!Once forgiveness is obtained, I cannot see how breaking up a second home--perhaps one with children of the union--is an improvement. Further, even if sexual sin is the only given Biblical reason for divorce, it is by no means the only good reason! Violence toward a spouse or children is good grounds. Drug or criminal or alcohol issues. Refusing to support the family. Or, since these are usually directed at male misbehavior, living with a termagent or abusive wife.It seems amazing to me that some couples will create a home life utterly unpleasant to God...yet think that is superior to divorce and remarriage. Hmmmm.

Aaron,What is your wife's phone number?I feel the need to alert her

I don't see this as inconsistent if they believe in the death penalty for husbands who murder their wives. A quick death penalty does away with chances for remarriage, too

Re: Better to kill your wife than divorce her!

A couple of problems there, Link. One, if he hired a hit man, he might get off with a lighter sentence. Two, if he does it himself and convinces everyone the house fire, boat accident, fall down the stairs, etc., etc., was an accident, well there you go. Or if he convinces his mistress to do the deed, he can just claim she is a lyin' female when she tries to incriminate him. Afterall, there are more fish in the sea.But I think all this is purposely missing the point Aaron is making. The attitude in some of acceptance of remarriage after death is quite different than the acceptance of remarriage after divorce even if the marriage covenant was broken.

OUCH!!!!! Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

I do agree with the spirit of the post. (But it is a pretty tough comparison.However ............. ............... ...... Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

Well Aaron, you dun sent me to the dictionary with termagent. I thought it may mean where you terminate your wife via an agent (another person). LolSerious question, if sex is such a big deal and committing adultery is horrible, why can one spouse refuse or rarely allow sex, thereby increasing the desire to commit adultery, why is that OK? I've wanted to ask that question for a long time. That is not meant as justification to commit adultery, rather, why is it not a valid reason for divorce.

There are a lot of things that would make someone a lousy marriage partner that aren't Biblical grounds for divorce. There a lot of things that would send someone to Hell that are not Biblical grounds for divorce. (There are married pagans, too, after all.) Jesus did not mention witholding sex as a valid reason for divorce. In first-century Judaism, a husband was supposed to have sex with his wife and a wife was supposed to have sex with her husband, though there was probably more emphasis on sex as a wife's right. I encountered an argument someone made online that 'sexual refusal' was grounds for divorce because it is 'sexual immorality' and the NIV translates porneia as 'sexual immorality' where the KJV used 'fornication.' Their argument was based on the wording of the KJV. Porneia means something more like 'whoring around.' Our traditional wedding ceremony is based on a certain version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and some churches use newer versions along the same thing. The Anglican's modified Roman Catholic traditions, of course. I've read and heard that the old Anglican wedding ceremony included these promises,With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship.They basically agreed to have sex with one another. Maybe it would help marriages today if we'd have couples agree to all the Biblical requirements of marriage, including those in I Corinthians 7. Some people seem to think their marriage is based on whatever they promised on their wedding day. I think one of the reasons this is a big issue in marriages is because of what our culture emphasizes about sex. The issue of sex in our culture has been taken over by fornicators and homosexuals. We have fornicators setting the sexual morality standards in college. To hear these pundits talk, the three sexual sins are rape, having sex without a condom, and denying ones true sexual orientation. Rape is a huge problem on our college campuses. One of the reasons it is a huge problem is because of the fornicator culture. It's considered normal for an unmarried couple to have sex. If they meet in a bar for the first time and go off and have 'consensual sex', that's considered their right. So then throw in a lot of alcohol at bars into the situation, or lots of liquor at a fraternit party, and you have situation where drunk young people have sex with each other, and waking up in the morning and trying to figure out if it is a rape. Rape is one-way, with her accusing him, and the police laughing it off if he complains that he was too drunk to make a rational choice. And then there are flat-out cases of rape where he claims it was consensual. But we used to have a society where fornication was considered a crime and sin. If there was no rape, they could face the penalty for fornication. On college campuses, there are those teaching young people that it is wrong to tell a woman not to go out and get drunk wearing a skimpy outfit, or she might get raped, as if that somehow justifies rape. (Telling people to lock their doors must be immoral.) The main emphasis when it comes to sex is consent. Instead of telling young men not to have sex with women they aren't married to, they tell them not to have sex with her against her will. Historically, under common law, it was understood that a husband and wife were supposed to take care of each other sexually. There are vestiges of this still left. One can still sue for lack of consortion if someone is injured in an accident for some reason. The take-away young people come out of college with is that sex is all about being willing, only if I want it. At least that is what the women come out of college being taught on this subject. We've got a very 'my rights' focused culture, rather than 'my responsibilities.' Where are people hearing the idea that if they get married, they have a responsibility to take care of their partner sexually? Some churches teach this occasionally. My guess is others do not mention it at all, either out of a false prudish sense of morality, or some other reason. Certainly, if a couple were both raised in the church or spent significant time there, or went through some marriage counseling, either. I'm sure there are plenty of men addicting to porn who have dutiful, loving wives. It's kind of shocking to hear comedians make allusions to pornography, and the audiences laugh as if they know the details the comedians are talking about. One comedian was talking about Sarah Palin as fitting some kind of school-teacher porn stereotype. The shocking thing is that porn is so widespread that an audience of regular people know 'inside jokes' about it. Some men come into marriage with a background of watching a lot of porn regularly. But I suspect that some men who repented or maybe never had a major problem with it are tempted by porn if their wives shut them off and ignore them. One blogger described this as a man being so thirsty that he'd drink polluted sewage. I hear that some of the men who go to prostitutes are really lonely hurting types. None of this justifies sin, but there are things that weaken people up for sin. A lot of alcoholics and drug addicts turn to substance abuse in reaction to emotional pain.Anyway, I think this topic is something that needs attention in the church. Husbands and wives need to take care of each other (each their own that is) sexually

Thank you Link. I remember a man in about 30 years ago whose wife of some 50 or 60 years died (he was in his 80's I think). Very shortly after that (days or weeks), he married his wife's sister. They were married about a week or so and he sought annulment or divorce because his new wife refused to have sex. He then married someone else. I always thought it was very very sad. He had married the same woman for many years and ended up remarrying someone after what may be considered an illegimate reason for remarriage. Certainly, it was not acceptable per COGOP standards, and I suspect most Pentecostals. I was quite shocked a man in his 80s would do that, but it happened. I guess the moral of the story is even if you are in your 80's, I guess you better ask the potential wife if she plans on having sex. I guess he had been married so long that he made the natural assumption the next wife would participate and I guess she felt she was too old to participate in such childish nonsense. But, it was a very sad situation. He was a life long COGOP member of high regard before all this happened.