Sometimes Scriptures Hurt
Adam C. Parker
Earlier today, I was writing a paper on a hard text in the Bible. The verse is from Luke 16:18, and it says, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
In a church where it is estimated that around 50% of marriages fail (Christian or not, surprisingly!), this is a hard text. To preach a hard verse like this to a body of believers is no easier than to preach it to a room full of divorcees! These individuals who have endured the painful flames of a soul-scarring divorce will not (unless they are extraordinary) welcome this verse, for it does not bring ease or relaxation. It instead brings a stark and difficult challenge which many who have endured a divorce are neither prepared for, nor are spiritually ready to tackle. “The man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
I am brought to reflect upon how easily we all can write off some texts of the Bible as antiquated, as “too hard,” or as something that just doesn’t “make sense.” When I presented the paper where I was discussing Luke 16:18, the first reaction I got was not, “I would argue that the text doesn’t say that.” Instead, the first response I received was, “Then divorced people are just supposed to go single for the rest of their lives?”
At first, this seems a fair question, until you consider that such a response is dodging the issue of the text. Scripture tells us difficult things, most of which we find a way to water-down, and some of which we have managed to forget are actually in the text. Consider Jesus’ hard words to Peter: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” Consider the words of Christ to the apostles: “If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Or Jesus’ sermon before the crowd: “All that the Father gives me will come to me.”
We have a hundred interpretations for each of these verses in the church today. There is only one absolute meaning to the text, and we should seek to find that meaning. But isegesis is an infectious disease in the personal applications of the Bible to peoples’ lives. Can the church bear to consider the weighty implication that perhaps her reading of God’s Word is possibly mistaken?
Perhaps even more frightening to many is the prospect of thinking differently. To actually change the way we consider God and think of His interaction with us is scary. We are all willing to give lip-service to God’s Word, but when it asks the unthinkable (such as commanding the divorcee that he must never marry again), we shrink back in fear. Fear of what? Of changing. Of challenging. Of making a valiant charge to other believers. Of being ostracized as being too “traditional.” Of fear that we were wrong all this time. These were all obstacles for me when I began to take Luke 16:18 seriously, and there are probably a thousand more texts that I have yet to face down with honesty and candor.
What a painful thing it is, to consider that we have been wrong. But how liberating, when a believer in Christ gives up one more small aspect of his theological commitment out of humble submission to a truth long ignored. To be liberated in this respect is the liberation that comes when we know that God tells us what to believe about Him, and that it’s not the other way around.