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Sunday, February 17, 2008
Why Are There As Many Divorces In The Church As There Are Among Non-Believers?
Saturday’s religion page headlines in the Trib read: “Survey shows Catholicism impacts view on marriage”. The article stated that 55% of Catholics said their opinions on marriage have been at least “SOMEWHAT” informed in church teachings. However, 76 % of those polled also said divorce is acceptable even though the Catholic church doesn’t recognize civil marriage after a divorce.
Jesus taught in the book of Mark that the only reason Moses allowed for divorce was because of the “hardness of our hearts”. Jesus was reminding the people that there are very few reasons [adultery and if a non-believing spouse wanted to leave] why God would allow divorce. When couples marry, they make sacred vows to love one another: “in good times and in bad times”. But many of today’s Christians believe as the world does- that if there are “irreconcilable differences” [Just a big term to mean any reason], It relieves us of honoring our commitment to stay together. Now while I am not advocating staying in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, I do believe that many times Christians deny the power of Christ and his word to help rebuild troubled marriages and just quit before their marriage is healed. I’m so glad that after 10 years of a troubled marriage, my wife and I decided to apply biblical principles in our marriage which has resulted in us recently celebrating 33 beautiful years of wedlock!
The truth is that survey after survey have shown that divorce rates are the same for Christians as for non-believers. Why is this? Does the bible not say anything about how a couple is suppose to honor one another? Does it not speak on the subject of divorce, and if so, why do these teachings not have an impact on the statistics? Anyone want to share their thoughts on the topic or how God healed your marriage?
