Q: What Are The Biblical Grounds For Divorce?
Q: What are the Biblical grounds for divorce?
A: As a Christian friend once said to me, “Dr. Mike, you’re a former Federal Statistical Economist, show me the numbers, because they don’t lie!” The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%; second marriage is 60%; and third marriage is 73%: The divorce rate in the Bible belt is equal to the 50% rate in secular America.
As one of my mentors pointed out to me, the grounds for divorcing someone, has become complex because of the interpretation given by Jesus in Matthew 19, after the conniving Pharisees tried to trick Him. They asked, “Is it lawful to put away his wife for every cause?” Scholars point out that during this time, there was an ongoing debate in Israel between two major rabbinical schools: the school of Shammai, very conservative view of divorce and said that only on the grounds of adultery could divorce be legitimized in Israel; and the school of Hillel, more liberal interpretation allowed divorce on many grounds, under the Old Testament law.
It is very clear that Jesus does allow divorce in the case of adultery. He was also correcting the misnomer that was prevalent in the Old Testament that a man could divorce his wife for “any reason.” That’s why He stated, “Because of the hardness of your hearts, the law was given to Moses that did make a provision for divorce, but from the beginning it was not so.” He was simply saying that God’s best for a man and woman is marriage, but due to the fallenness of man, God instituted divorce for the innocent partner.
God’s intent throughout scripture, even in the case of adultery, is for the two people to ‘try’ to reconcile with Agape (the God kind of LOVE): in other words, just because someone committed adultery once, doesn’t make them a candidate for divorce court. However, if the innocent party can show a continued pattern of infidelity, then, of course grounds for divorce is permissible.
The only other noted ground for divorce is found in 1 Corinthians 7:15, given by Apostle Paul in the case of the willful and beyond repair separation of an unbeliever to a believer.