“Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure."
There is so much talk about divorce, both in and out of the Christian setting, so many statistics, so many different situations, that I really do not want to go there.
But I do see something in these verses that goes right along with what Jesus has been saying about issues of the heart. Look at these words:
"Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’
Selfishness, whim, pretending, going to the core of the issue. And summing up in the last line:
" You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure."
Legal cover, the letter of the law, but what about the heart?
How many times have I heard folks say "Show me where in the Bible I can't do that. Sure I know it says Thou shall not kill, but there are no commands about .........".
It sure looks like the key word in the above statement is "I", and the other key from the verses above is "selfishness". If I really want to do something, and I can cloak my actions in an absence of Biblical authority, I am OK. I can do this.
But is it "right". Sure I "can", but "should" I?
How about those verses that talk about "not causing another to stumble" or even "Present your body as a living sacrifice"?
I need to be careful in using what the Bible does not say in defense of what I want to do.
"You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure."
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