Get in a time machine with me and let’s travel back 100 years to 1911. Let’s crash a wedding of someone’s great grandparents, anyone’s great grandparents. It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter if they were rich or poor. It doesn’t matter if it was in Chicago or Chattanooga. Nine out of 10 ten weddings we could have crashed would have ended the same way- with two individuals that have joined their lives together in holy matrimony who, given long life on the earth, would have grown old and gray together. They would have raised their sons and daughters together into adulthood and been together long enough to even usher their grandchildren into adulthood.
Yet if we go to a wedding today, there would be a five out of ten chance that the marriage will end in divorce. No longer are children growing up in the safety of a healthy family. Where has the shift come from? Can it be that the salt has lost its saltiness? Can it be that the light has grown dim? With the percentage of divorces being the same amongst self proclaimed believers as with unbelievers, can it be that the church has lost it’s distinction on the earth and has thus lost it’s effectiveness?
I will spend the next several weeks writing on my study from passages throughout Scripture dealing with marriage, divorce and remarriage. I will make the case that most evangelical churches have it wrong. We have allowed the sinfulness of our hearts to determine how we understand marriage & divorce. I will explain why I hold to the permanence view of marriage- that there is no grounds for divorce for a believer that has made a covenant with another. Covenants are life long. I ask that you take this journey with me and be open to prayerfully considering this view. Looking forward to the ride!
