Question #96

Are the divorce and remarriage rules different for men and women?

As you know, muddled teachings on divorce are everywhere throughout the Lord’s church. I have even seen men I loved and respected for their fight for the truth teach falsely about acceptable reasons for divorce and what the scripture allows. So I guess I have 2 questions for you:

1. If a person, man or woman, puts away his/her spouse for any reason other than adultery do you feel they are subject to church discipline?

2. It seems in the scripture that there is a distinction made between man and woman and what each can do accordingly regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In all teaching that I have heard it is always applied universally to both male and female. Is this accurate? Can a woman scripturally divorce her husband?

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The Answer:

I agree that muddled teaching on divorce exists everywhere, including the Lord’s church. Unfortunately, most of it arises because those who depart from the teaching of scripture very often have family members whose condition they are trying to justify. For example, I know of a group of elders who told a young man who was divorced without scriptural cause that he could never marry again unless he was reconciled to his first wife. Today that young man is married to the unscripturally divorced daughter of one of those elders. Moreover, the couple is now teaching in the Bible school. It is truly sad when leaders in the church bend Biblical teaching to conform to personal practice rather than conforming personal practice to Biblical teaching.

As for your questions, you have not provided sufficient information to answer the first question. They are not subject to discipline if there is no remarriage following the divorce. In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 Paul gives instruction for a situation involving divorce in the absence of adultery: “10 And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: 11 But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.” That the Greek word translated “depart” involves divorce is evident from the context because Paul says that she should “remain unmarried.” Discipline would be appropriate if remarriage occurred rather than staying single or being reconciled.

While much Biblical teaching is stated in the masculine, it is generally applicable to both male and female. God is no respecter of persons. Even in situations where the context clearly limits teaching to males, e.g., since an elder must be the husband of one wife women do not qualify as elders, God is not holding male in favor over female. The fact that different functions are assigned male and female has nothing to do with their worth as individuals. Much teaching is stated in the masculine because, until the day of political correctness, the masculine gender was often used in the sense of mankind to include both male and female. The fact that the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 19:9ff. is couched in terms of the husband putting away his wife does not mean that the wife cannot put away her husband. She may in fact do so, but under the same conditions, or in the absence of adultery, under the same limitations. That this is so becomes absolutely clear in Marks record (10:11-12) where both the husband and the wife are addressed.