1. Esdras 10:2–3 (NEG79)
  2. Applications

Opposing what would bring us to sin

Esdras 10:2–3 (NEG79)

2 Alors Schecania, fils de Jehiel, d'entre les fils d'Elam, prit la parole et dit à Esdras: Nous avons péché contre notre Dieu, en nous alliant à des femmes étrangères qui appartiennent aux peuples du pays. Mais Israël ne reste pas pour cela sans espérance.

This is not so much about biblical teaching and regulations and grounds for divorce, though it does speak to that…Here it concerns marrying in an unequally yoke situation. Do we carry that into the New Testament? For example, if you have married someone and you find out it is the wrong person and they are not believers, you can put them away?... I do know this: it is not just about divorcing unbelieving wives. Jesus says, If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, then it follows if your spouse causes you to sin, at least separate yourself from her. Or to put it in the more dramatic terms that Jesus uses in Luke 14:26: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. This is not about maintaining marriage or divorcing. This is about maintaining communion with and cleaving to the Lord, and being zealously opposed to anything that would incline us to sin.1

William Harrell