Other
Allow me to shove politics aside for a bit (as it presently nauseates me, and is back to a status quo not much worth chatting about anyhow), and present a thought.
There is a consideration that has bugged me for some years—although it'd be difficult to explain why exactly; and it might just lead to an interesting conversation (even if it's only a conceptually possible conversation, as most of you won't or can't be bothered to respond—communist firewalls, and so forth.) At any rate, do let's ruminate together.
There are a number of things that the Bible is less than transparent on, which most of you who aren't vapid Evangelical smiley faces would likely agree with. And to be sure, it doesn't claim to have a manageable, packaged answer for every problem life throws at us.* However, sometimes the issue in question is of such an important nature that the lack of a clear answer can drive one insane. Why, for example, is the wrong in divorcing a woman that the man then causes her to become an adultress? There's apparently no particular wrong in the divorce itself; only she is then caused to become an adultress and whoever marries her is an adulterer. What about the guy that does the divorcing: is he not also caused to become an adulterer just in case he marries again? Seems a tad one-sided, but it's good to be a guy and not a girl, i guess. Or shellfish: i dig the laws of separation and purity demanded of the Jews to cordon 'em off from the Gentiles, but did it have only to do with cultural separation, or was there some deeper reason that they shouldn't eat pigs and shrimp? —and i don’t mean health reasons. Was such food chosen just because the Gentiles du jour were into it, or did God have a very serious problem with folks eating pigs and shrimp in general? The point is, it's very often terribly difficult to ascertain (at least for me) what is demanded of me in a given situation, just because i absolutely cannot discern the why behind any possible what.
Here's my own quandary—and while it may sound silly to you, it's occasionally driven me to distraction. In Exodus, Moses was commanded to take off his shoes because the place where he was standing was holy. He then intuitively covered his face when he discovered he was in the presence of God. However in Isaiah, when the prophet sees the seraphs who stand before the Lord, they (presumably also by divine fiat) cover their feet (albeit with their wings), in addition to their faces. So i have for a long while wondered which is the correct posture to assume—specifically when i pray, and am most aware of standing in the presence of God. Do i cover my feet, or do i uncover my feet? Or does it only matter when it's God speaking to me, and not the other way 'round?
*(In fact, i'm starting to suspect that part of what's expected of us is that we make a good go of torturing ourselves to an early death trying to solve those problems, as opposed to just spending all that same energy and talent on anchoring ourselves to a pet scripture, however obliquely it treats the issue in question.)
There is a consideration that has bugged me for some years—although it'd be difficult to explain why exactly; and it might just lead to an interesting conversation (even if it's only a conceptually possible conversation, as most of you won't or can't be bothered to respond—communist firewalls, and so forth.) At any rate, do let's ruminate together.
There are a number of things that the Bible is less than transparent on, which most of you who aren't vapid Evangelical smiley faces would likely agree with. And to be sure, it doesn't claim to have a manageable, packaged answer for every problem life throws at us.* However, sometimes the issue in question is of such an important nature that the lack of a clear answer can drive one insane. Why, for example, is the wrong in divorcing a woman that the man then causes her to become an adultress? There's apparently no particular wrong in the divorce itself; only she is then caused to become an adultress and whoever marries her is an adulterer. What about the guy that does the divorcing: is he not also caused to become an adulterer just in case he marries again? Seems a tad one-sided, but it's good to be a guy and not a girl, i guess. Or shellfish: i dig the laws of separation and purity demanded of the Jews to cordon 'em off from the Gentiles, but did it have only to do with cultural separation, or was there some deeper reason that they shouldn't eat pigs and shrimp? —and i don’t mean health reasons. Was such food chosen just because the Gentiles du jour were into it, or did God have a very serious problem with folks eating pigs and shrimp in general? The point is, it's very often terribly difficult to ascertain (at least for me) what is demanded of me in a given situation, just because i absolutely cannot discern the why behind any possible what.
Here's my own quandary—and while it may sound silly to you, it's occasionally driven me to distraction. In Exodus, Moses was commanded to take off his shoes because the place where he was standing was holy. He then intuitively covered his face when he discovered he was in the presence of God. However in Isaiah, when the prophet sees the seraphs who stand before the Lord, they (presumably also by divine fiat) cover their feet (albeit with their wings), in addition to their faces. So i have for a long while wondered which is the correct posture to assume—specifically when i pray, and am most aware of standing in the presence of God. Do i cover my feet, or do i uncover my feet? Or does it only matter when it's God speaking to me, and not the other way 'round?
*(In fact, i'm starting to suspect that part of what's expected of us is that we make a good go of torturing ourselves to an early death trying to solve those problems, as opposed to just spending all that same energy and talent on anchoring ourselves to a pet scripture, however obliquely it treats the issue in question.)
posted by c at 10:58 PM
10 Comments:
Wow !!
I don't really have an answer (or opinion) on any of the specific situations you brought up.
I personally just focus on my relationship with the Lord and if I do read the Bible I remember that it's like a map, it leads to Christ.
I think as human beings we tend to over analize and over think the Bible WAY to much.
Or people just like to pick verses here and there to "justify" their own causes or beliefs !
That's my two cents !:)
Deborah
Well, huh. That. Could. Be.
Hi Cody,
I want to give me two cents worth on one of the issues you brought up, divorce and the whole adultery issue. If the Lord permits, we can get into the other issues like pork and worship posture at a later time.
I think the problem lies in how we read the text or rather in how it is translated in most Bible translations. But before I deal with that, I think it is important to establish the broader teachings of Scripture on divorce. We know that God hates divorce as Malachi states. Why? It is a breaking of the marriage covenant. Essentially adultery. Notice God is not opposed to marriage but divorce. So what do we make of the way that Jesus' words are translated in English. Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. So what's going on in the text. Our translation seem to make the remarriage into adultery. I simply cannot endorse this for two reasons. First, in Deut.28, a passage that Jesus refers to in Matthew 19, God recognizes the legitimacy of the second marriage. Second, in the Greek "the whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" is passive not active. In other words, whoever marries a divorced woman by the mere fact of his marrying a divorced woman (one against whom adultery was committed) enters into that adulterous relationship. He in a sense inherits the pain, mistrust, children, and everything else that went with previous relationship.
Does that sound confusion enough. What are your thoughts?
Hi Cody,
Oops, that was me ... Sean Katinga.
Adultery/Divorce/Remarriage thing
Hey Sean, sorry i haven't gotten back to you yet. Got a reply vatted and brewing; just haven't had the wherewithal to distill it into a coherent sentence. Been short on wherewithal lately.
Mr. Cody,
Looking forward to a good dialogue. I'm eager to grow in these things. How's Steph doing? The baby? Love to all
Sean
Sean,
Sorry for the lapse in time here. i've been a tad distracted lately. my point in writing this was quite simply to demonstrate that very often scripture is unclear on what the right course of action is in a given circumstance. That, in fact, is neatly highlighted in your response-- namely, you have to do a lot of digging in context (which in this case involves having at least a rough understanding of Greek language) in order to come to the level of conviction that you have on the matter of divorce, etc. i am certainly not trying to forge any sort of case for the illegitimacy of scripture based on its being unclear on these things. In fact, the reason that divorce (and perhaps remarriage thereafter) is wrong, adulterous, seems fairly intuitive in the light of the rest of what Jesus taught. The problem of course is that very often people are caught between two almost equally horrible choices. For example, in the case of many divorces you have a couple faced with either "doing what's right" and adapting the callouses required to live with a mate they don't love and resent (and in some cases are even threatened or hurt by), or else divorcing and being adulterous. i'm not in that situation, so perhaps i don't have a right to speak, but it seems that for those folks the question "Ok, now just exactly how bad is it really?" is very real, and something they'd have to face daily without an extremely clear answer. i mean just what, exactly, constitutes the breaking of a marriage vow on the part of a spouse? It would be very-- well, arbitrary i think, to say that the only thing your spouse could do to break his or her marriage vows is to go have sex with someone else. Following that line, it is easy to see that she could say for example, "He vowed to always cherish me, and doesn't. Thus he's broken his vow and i'm free." Again, i'm not advocating that as a righteous excuse, only it happens, and then where are you? Are you an adulterer/ess?
And again, divorce, etc., bacon, etc., really any specific example of an issue we could potentially face and how we should handle it vis-a-vis scripture is not what i wanted to tackle here. Rather, in a much broader sense it seems that our whole lives are supposed to be lived as a kind of posturing before God. With respect to divorce or eating lobster, we have at least to ask ourselves if what we're about to do can be done in conformity with a Godly way of being. That alone would rule out at least most divorces and, within our cultural context, would render eating most every food a non-issue. The point, though, and the locus of my frustration is that while i can appreciate that posturing ourselves very carefully and thoughtfully before holy God is paramount, it seems at least somewhat unclear how we're to do that properly even in the most clear-cut example of interacting with Him: i.e. prayer.
Nadab and Abihu, for example, went about it incorrectly and were killed for it.
I suspect that things are clearer to you than you think. If I'd ask you how God felt about divorce, you would probably have a word to say. The issue of remarriage might require a little more digging because of a tradition of misinterpretation, in my opinion. If I'd ask you if it was ok to eat pork or shrimp, you would probably have an answer. And that answer would be based on N.T. revelation which is differs from the requirement of the O.T. You may not know the whys and hows but you know that there is a change because it is revealed in the Bible. If I'd ask you if there is a right posture in prayer, you probably would say something like this ... "God ultimately doesn't care whether you're standing, sitting, laying, hands raised up, eyes open or shut, feet covered or uncovered." The important thing is to pray and how the heart is positioned before God rather than the body. I suspect that you would answer this way because of your reading of Scriptural texts. My point in bringing up divorce and remarriage was simply to show that Scripture is consistent in its view of divorce and remarriage. Not eating pork was not about moral defilement but ritual impurity (cf. Mark 7). David sat before the Lord, others fell on their faces, some covered their feet and others are urged to pray lifting up holy hands. The point - every situation will illicit an appropriate response. I was hoping to give a fresh perspective on the one controversial and misunderstood topic, marriage, divorce and remarriage. Thanks for responding though.
Sean Katinga
Well, thank you for your response sir. i did not at all mean to downplay your discussion of divorce and remarriage, just in case it seemed that way. In fact, i firmly believe that most divorces happen long before any papers are signed, and that divorce is nearly always a matter of selfishness and laziness-- each of which is perhaps a greater sin than the divorce itself. So you're right: i do have a word to say on divorce. But i'm not so sure about posturing for prayer. On the other hand, i'm sure that at times i've taken on an almost superstitious ritualism in posturing, that is awfully distracting. Over the last few days, i've tried taking what you've said to heart: i've tried hanging upside down, and standing on my head with one shoe on and one shoe off. Alright, just joking. Really i've tried simply not to get distractied. Silly to say maybe, but it's something i have consciously to pay attention to. Thank you for your thoughts.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share my thoughts. You're awesome.
Love,
Sean
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