What Does the Bible Say About Divorce? (understanding what Jesus said) — rethink

Originally published at https://www.rethinknow.org

It wasn’t so long ago that divorce was a taboo subject within the Church. Today the controversy has been replaced with normalcy and even support for those going through it. But there still is a lot of misconceptions. So let’s look at the question, What does the bible say about divorce?

The Bible actually says quite a lot about divorce (you can read all the verses here: Verses About Divorce) The problem is when we read these verses we impose our understanding of divorce onto the text. This has left many people with incorrect ideas and led many to wrong, and sometimes dangerous, practices.

Since there are so many verses I had to do some picking and choosing. We will look at two key passages from Jesus. Since he incorporates many of the Old Testament teachings into his, this will still give a good understanding of what the Bible says about divorce.

Before we look at the scripture we need to look at what divorce was in the 1st Century and who it affected so that we can understand what the Bible is actually saying about divorce.

The world was very different in First Century Israel. Maybe the most difficult thing for us to grasp today is their extreme patriarchal…