What about?

My earlier-this-morning post, Divorce and Remarriage, has, as I knew it would, generated several conversations. Most have been very encouraging. A few have raised important questions. It's those "what abouts" that I want to address in this post. (I suppose I'm just opening another can of worms by responding, but the worms are already loose on this issue so I'll go ahead and answer as best I can. The additional issue of remarriage for widowed persons is covered in Death and Remarriage, so I will not repeat my answer to that question here.)

What about those who were divorced because of marital unfaithfulness?

This was the question posed to me almost immediately after my message was out.

In Matthew 19:9 Jesus says, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." (NIV)

This would seem to indicate that those who were cheated on are allowed to remarry and that in doing so they are not, like others, commiting adultery.

What do you say to the kids who are born to couples who have been divorced and remarried?

This question was asked by a concerned divorcee whose kids had brought up the issue in the past. Their son had asked, "So I wasn't supposed to be?"

Bible is not really clear on this issue. God never mentions the children who are conceived in an adulterous relationship. Moses says nothing of it. Jesus is silent. Paul never brings it up. No one was inspired by God to take up the subject.

In the past, the kids of adulterous relationships have been treated poorly. They were shamed publicly for their parents' sin. While that is not so much true today, it remains vivid enough in our cultural memory to spawn the question in the context of the previous discussion about divorce and remarriage.

In the Bible, the children are not held accountable for their parents' sins.

Deuteronomy 24:16, "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin." (NIV)

Jeremiah 31:29-30, "In those days people will no longer say, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.' Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes - his own teeth will be set on edge." (NIV)

So, the child of an adulterous coupling will have to deal with God concerning their own sin, but their parents' sin is not their responsibility. Their parents should not have been connected sexually. They were sinning. But that does not make the child illegitimate as earlier generations suggested. They are people of great worth. Jesus died for them so they could, if they believe, be free from their own sin.

Is someone who has had sex married to their partner?

The question came to me: If a girl has a baby out of wedlock, then the Dad to the baby is her first husband, even if they were not married, right? She's bound to him spiritually so to speak? Or how does that work?

The Bible says that when a man and woman come together the two become one flesh, so in a technical sense any couple who has sexual union is one flesh with their "partner in crime." Does that mean they're married? Not absolutely sure.

In Jewish culture, it would mean so. In fact the first sexual encounter, if a couple did things right, was at the wedding itself. They had a ceremony in the man's family's courtyard then ran off to the room groom had built for her there, consummated their marriage, then returned for the party. They were officially married when they were sexually united to each other. So, yes, it would seem that anyone who has sex is married to their partner.

(The baby is really irrelevant in this argument. Sex without pregnancy is still a union which makes the two one flesh. Conceiving a baby is just the byproduct of the union, not the union itself.)

In 1 Corinthians 6:15-16, Paul writes: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh.'" (NIV)

There's that one flesh stuff again. In other passages, the two becoming one applies to marriage. Does it here? Not abundantly clear, is it?

What is clear is that we are to avoid sexual sin. Just one verse later, 1 Corinthians 6:18, Paul says: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body." (NIV) And he closes out the chapter with these instructions: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV)