[Jim Noble]

God's Word never fails

Correctamundo. But the argument right now is over the MEANING of God's Word, specifically what Jesus meant when he spoke about divorce in Matthew 19:9 and Mark 10:2.

When He says that a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, did He mean it in the same way He did when He spoke about having lustful thoughts at the sight of a sexy woman being the same as committing adultery with her, or did He mean that the second marriage was a state of continuous adultery?

I've been very close to Bible Christians and Bible churches for many years. I don't know of one that takes the accusation of continuous adultery in a second marriage literally. The Eastern Orthodox churches permit a second marriage after a penitential procedure, but they do not call the remarried man an adulterer.

However, this is the tradition of the Roman Church, and you must admit that, in this case at least, there is ample scriptural support for their position.

[SkyPilot]

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Matthew 19: 3 - 9

Seems pretty clear to me.

[ebb tide]

When He says that a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, did He mean it in the same way He did when He spoke about having lustful thoughts at the sight of a sexy woman being the same as committing adultery with her, or did He mean that the second marriage was a state of continuous adultery?

Thou shalt not commit aduterey.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

Does that answer your question?

[Arthur McGowan]

Jesus did NOT say anything about “lustful thoughts.”

He spoke of a man “who looks lustfully at a woman.” “Looking lustfully” is an ACTION. A deliberate action. Having lustful thoughts may or may not be deliberate.

People constantly misquote Scripture, and then construct arguments on their misquotations.