Jesus and Divorce

Jesus taught many things, but one of the most difficult to understand is divorce. Some Christians take his words literal and would never think that a divorce would be acceptable making them incapable of exercising judgment on a case by case basis. A follower of this school would say that Christ forbade divorce in any situation if there is no proof of marital unfaithfulness. If a woman is being abused, that is an issue that she has to deal with while helping her husband learn his actions are wrong.

Did Jesus mean to say that we should always stay in a marriage no matter how bad it gets? Jesus did state if you are married to an unbeliever if the unbeliever decides to leave the Believer can let them go, that they are not obligated to remain. A case can be made that marital faithfulness can mean faith in the union of a man and a woman. This could mean that the act of being unfaithful is not just limited to sexual context. If a man hates his spouse, and shows his disdain for her by being hurting her, exercising hate and contempt to her, he is in fact being unfaithful to the marriage. If we accept this concept, we can then accept that this situation is within the confines of what Jesus was telling us when he said “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”