Divorce then remarriage – what does the Bible say?

Tue Feb 19, 2013

Editor: This article is the 7th in the series. This means that one article, which is the final one, remains and will be published shortly.{{more}}

What about the fact that in Strong’s Concordance “apoluo”, 630, includes “divorce” in the meaning along with “put away”, “release”, etc.

Strong’s Concordance is based on the King James Version of the Bible. Since the King James translators translated “apoluo” (one time out of more than 65 occurrences of the Greek word), Mr. Strong was obliged to include “divorce” as one of the definitions. The word apostasion which means “divorce” or “divorcement” is used three times (Mt 5:31, 19:7; Mark 10:4) and is a distinctly different Greek word with a distinctly different meaning. This of course shows the importance of studying the Greek language from which most or all of the New Testament was translated.

Does the Bible anywhere say that married couples one or both of whom were previously divorced, should separate? No. How many verses in the entire Bible speak of a woman having authority of divorcing her husband or giving her husband a certificate of divorcement? None.

How many verses in the entire Bible speak if a woman and a man taking marriage vows? None.

How many verses in the entire Bible speak of a man and woman making a marriage covenant? None.

If there are no marriage vows and no marriage covenants between a man and a woman spoken in the Bible, then what constitutes a marriage?When a man and a woman make a verbal or written or implied commitment to one another to be husband and wife, the laws of the land must be in this process.

Is anything wrong with making a marriage vows? No. it is, however, a serious matter to make a vow and break it. We can see from the above truth that “putting away” one’s spouse is different from the legal act of dissolving a marriage by giving a bill of divorcement.

I am saying because of the mistranslation of the Greek word “Apolup”, which means “put away”, not “divorce”, many sincere Christians today are being led astray and perpetuate the false teaching that anyone who marries a divorces person is living in adultery and must separate. A close examination of the scriptures will show that this is false teaching. That false teaching has caused many people especially Christians to separate due to misunderstanding of the scriptures. Stay tuned for the final article of this every important topic.

On The Ground Observer