The article posted at your website on this difficult subject is very helpful. I especially appreciate the time all the authors took in developing the "concessionary will" strand in the paper. Yet after reading the article, I'm still having a little trouble understanding every situation where remarriage is an option to the Christian. Obviously it is an option after the death of a spouse. There seems to be some concession suggested in 1 Cor 7:15-16: "But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?" I would like to focus on the phrase "not bound." Does this mean that the former marriage becomes as though it never existed, and the man or woman victim is free to remarry? I have read several writers that suggest that remarriage is still not an option because the offended spouse needs to remain in an unmarried state in case a reconciliation is possible at some point in the future. As a church elder, I am interested in trying to find scriptures that provide any conditions under which remarriage may be an option for the Christian. I am dealing with single brothers who want to know if they may date a sister who has been divorced. They want to see scripture (and rightly so) letting them know that this would be okay, and that the sister is a candidate for dating and possible remarriage. Do you have any additional enlightenment for scenarios such as this? -- Dr. Bob Glass (Louisville)
Ah, yes, much hinges on the interpretation of the phrase "not bound." In my view, brothers can date divorced women (provided the divorce is finalized and was not on frivolous, non-biblical grounds). And yet if the sister was divorced without sufficient biblical warrant, her ex-husband might have remarried (de facto abrogating the marriage and retrospectively justifying the divorce). Then again, perhaps the divorce was not legitimate at all, and the single brother insisted on pursuing the relationship against advice. Once they marry/consummate the marriage, I believe we have to take them as a legitimately married couple. This of course is contra the strictest (mainline COC) position.
Further resources: J. D Bales, Not Under Bondage. I read this around 1979 and found it to be quite reasonable. On the other side: The Warren-Fuqua Debate on Divorce and Remarriage. Anyway, these two works represent the two poles in Church of Christ thinking. A short, encouraging, and readable work is Rubel Shelly's Divorce and Remarriage: A Redemptive Theology. And the best not-so-little books on this were authored by David Instone-Brewer. They are called Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible and in the Church (two books of same title, though different subtitles). Instone-Brewer has thought the matter through. With a PhD in rabbinic theology, he is well qualified to explain what people understood when Jesus was asked to take sides in the famous Shammai / Hillel debate on remarriage.
Bottom line, each individual must decide, and the local leadership of each congregation must advise according to their convictions.
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