Truth Magazine

By Steve Wallace

In the spring of 1996 Dennis Scroggins and this writer worked together in spreading the gospel in Kaunas, Lithuania. The theme we chose for the lectures one Sun-day dealt with matters related to the Holy Spirit. When that Sunday came, a small group of Pentecostals were in attendance to hear our words. They had some questions after Dennis’ lecture and then I started my lecture. Be-fore I had gone very far they suddenly stood up, one of them began speaking loudly, and then they all left the hall, the last one shaking the dust off of his feet as he went. We could not use our interpreter in such a situation and the only thing that I could come up with in Lithuanian was to ask them over and over, “Is discussion not possible?” It was not. They left.

Our experience there was similar to the experiences many brethren go through when seeking to discuss the Bible with their friends in other religions. Discussion is often not an option many wish to consider. Very obvious differences might exist, but the willingness to investigate them does not. This phenomena is also found among brethren.

The Liberals Among our

Institutional Brethren

Many of us are aware of the problems our institutional brethren are having with men from among them teaching common denominational doctrines and practicing open fellowship with human denominations. The conservatives among these brethren (those who want such unscriptural practices as those found in the sponsoring church arrangement and support of human institutions from the church treasury, but nothing more) are involved in the fight of their lives. One of them, Paul Sabi, has put out a paper entitled, Set for the Defense of the Gospel. In the July 1, 1997 issue he shucks down the corn, exposing those who have come to be known as “change agents” among these brethren. He mentions such men as Max Lucado, Rubel Shelley, and others like them. In closing, he asks, “Can we discuss these matters?” In answer to his own question he writes:

We would like nothing better than to openly discuss these matters. Formal discussions have been requested of key individual change agents, but they have refused to date to engage in such discussions. Please know the intent of our heart is for good to be accomplished, for the faith once delivered (Jude 3) to be lovingly, faithfully boldly defended (23).

Discussion has not been possible! Two groups are clearly emerging among our institutional brethren, but one is not willing to discuss with the other. Are there any parallels among us?

Those Calling for Unity-in-Doctrinal-Diversity Among Us

There is a similar problem among conservative brethren. Some have said that we can fellowship those who teach error on marriage, divorce and remarriage on the basis of Romans 14. They have also sought to justify such a practice by appealing to what the church has practiced with regards to the question of a Christian killing for his government. They say that if the conscientious objector can fellowship one whom he believes is a murderer (the one who kills as an agent for the government), then we can fellowship those in error on divorce and remarriage. Further, it is being argued that church autonomy somehow gives a church the right to practice that for which there is no authority. This allows brethren to say they do not agree with what is being taught or fellowshipped at a given church but then stop short of condemning sinful practices. Meanwhile, other brethren (of whom I confess to be one) teach that there is only one scriptural reason for a divorced person with a living mate to remarry (Matt. 19:9). In contrast to brethren advocating unity-in-diversity on this matter, these brethren condemn all departures from Matthew 19:9 as error. Two groups are clearly emerging among us.

Is discussion not possible? Can we not sit down as brethren and talk about our differences (Acts 15)? Will God forgive us if we stop our ears and close our hearts to our brethren and let things go as they are (2 Cor. 6:11-13)? If any of us are wrong either in our teaching or in our actions towards our brethren, will we not repent of it for the sake of unity and our own salvation (2 John 9; Man. 18:15-17)?

Conclusion

We have too long asked for audience with our institutional brethren and those in human denominations to deny such audience to conservative brethren. What is currently happening among our institutional brethren shows too clearly what the passing of time can bring in circumstances such as exist among us. Let us reach out to one another while there is yet time and opportunity to do so.

Guardian of Truth XLI: 24 p. 14-15
December 18, 1997

By Jim McDonald

“They groaned because of their burdens”

The following is a letter which was received in late June from brethren in Tambobong, Davao City, Mindanao: “Greetings to you all from the Tambobong Church of Christ in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ .. . We here in Tambobong are living in the mountainside of Davao City. We are very poor people, and are surviving from our meager products of sometimes nothing at all because of the pests and diseases of the plants. Sometimes, the sudden bad weather like the strong winds come and destroy our crops, and sometimes the rains will suddenly flood and wash out our plants. This is the reason why we are hard-up. Many of us are hungry and sick, especially the children. Last year, brethren died of hunger and sickness, and many of the children got sick and died also . . . Our basic needs are food, medicine, and clothes. Many of the brethren do not have clothes. Some cannot simply worship because they do not have clothes to wear … It is of this juncture that we appeal for your mercies and kindness our dear brethren in Christ. Please help us; whether in cash to buy us food, medicine and clothing, or in kinds like canned goods, used clothes, and in any other kinds. These are all needed, and useful for us. Whatever is extended to us is deeply and heartily appreciated; so we ask of your helps to us, our dear brethren in Christ . . . May the Lord be with you my dear brethren in Christ. We await of your mercies and reply . . . In Jesus our Lord. Signed  Elders: Lopes Amoy, Kuting Enock, Tinoy A. Suboy, Pelayo Wading. Deacons: Aing Adoing, Aquino Linao, Henry Amoy; Preachers, Tinoy A. Suboy, Cito Ibog, Rolando Batawan, Henry Amoy; Attested by: Juanito P. Balbin.” We are told that the “membership of the Tambobong Church of Christ is 110 including children. Average attendance every Lord’s day is between 70 to 80.”

From the northwest corner of Mindanao comes a similar story from Luis Calapayan who sends pictures with his letter. The enclosed picture shows a “crop of rats” killed by brethren in their “rat campaign.” According to Luis the “harvest not even enough to pay back of what we have spent during the planting season, for it was being eaten by the rats. In fact we were able to get sack of rats on a one hectare of rice land.” From Cotobato (Southern Mindanao) comes another report: “I’m imploring for mercy to them who fall into the ditch of misfortune . . . farmers in Cotabato area are groaning due to black bugs infestation in their rice fields. Their rice production has terribly dropped down. Before the coming of the black bugs infestation farmers will harvest one hundred to one hundred fifty sacks per hectare but now fifty to thirty sacks per hectare …”  Benjamin V. Libertino, Poblacion 5, Midsayap, ROP.

In northwest Luzon not only are rice crops destroyed by typhoons, other crops are affected as well. Garlic is a “cash crop” in that region, much needed by the folk. Last year these brethren were victims of a “double-whammy.” First, came a typhoon which caused the planted crops to rot; the second crop was hit by drought. Brethren had borrowed from a Chinese money changer with the agreed payment of two for one. Many brethren have sold their animals to pay back their debt and that not being enough, they have been compelled to work so many days in the Chinaman’s tobacco fields (on Sundays) to clear up the debt. The last letter from brethren of the area said they had thirteen more days (Sundays) to work. Such calls to mind the hardships of Israelites in Egypt, the land of bondage.

Some crop disorders are man-made. In parts of Cotabato, southern Mindanao, the crops, homes, and church buildings of brethren have been burned by Muslim rebels, with some even being killed. When we were in Davao City last June we heard the same stories confirmed by different brethren several times. Recent letters tell of brethren from three different congregations in three different municipalities (Kabacon, Pikit, and Pagalungan) who are suffering much from the violence that often strikes their land. Forty thousand evacuees have left the region, including several brethren.

How thankful we should be that we live in a land of plenty and do not experience the terror of persecution. What compassion we ought to have for our brethren in Christ!

Brethren in each of these regions (and many more) need our help. Names and addresses of responsible brethren who will faithfully distribute relief to the needy in these congregations can be supplied to those who want to provide relief. Remember, “What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith but hath not works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food and one of you say unto him `be ye warmed and filled’; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what cloth it profit?” (Jas. 2:14-16).

Guardian of Truth XLI: 24 p. 10-11
December 18, 1997

By Jefferson David Tant

The day began a little earlier than usual. I woke soon after five, and since sleep had fled, I got up and accomplished a few things in preparation for my trip to Birmingham. There were many things to gather  checkbook, will, deed, title, burial policy. Today it was time to go back to Birmingham to begin settling the affairs of my father’s estate. Alone in the car, with some 200 miles ahead of me, there was much time to reflect and remember while watching the road through the tears. At this writing, it has been 25 days since my beloved father took his final journey. The last chapter of the book of his life has been finished, and on the last page, the words stand out in bold relief  the end.

I knew the time was coming, but I wonder if we are ever fully prepared. My father had lived well past his allotted “threescore years and ten,” and “by reason of strength” had gone eight years beyond the fourscore that Moses mentioned in the 90th Psalm. But I could not re-ally comprehend life without my father, my counselor, my teacher, my friend, my helper. It is a reality that you cannot fathom without experiencing it.

Some of the day was difficult. There was the stop at the post office to return the keys and give a permanent forwarding address (except they don’t forward mail to heaven). The clerks at the small Gardendale Post Office all knew my father, as he came every day to get his mail, and often stopped to talk with them. They expressed their sympathy, and the tears came again. Next to Norman Love’s piano store. He was rebuilding an old Nickelodeon, a reminder of days gone by when life was simpler. Norman offered a Dr. Pepper, cookies, and some chairs so we could sit and visit a while, as my father often did at his store. He truly loved my father, and told me that he had heard my father preach more than any other preacher. Norman is an elder in the church where my parents had been for over twenty years, and he and his Helen, along with so many others in the church there, were great helpers to my parents in recent years. He said that something was said or done at every service that called to remembrance my parents.

The bank was the next stopping place. The manager spoke as I entered: “May I help you?” “Yes, I need to take care of some business concerning the estate of my father, Yater Tant.” “Please come in my office and sit down. We miss your father. He was in here often and we all knew him.” More footprints that he had left in the sands of time. Then to the cemetery, where the sod has been replaced over the spot where his earthly tabernacle was returned to that from whence it came. In time, there will be no evidence that this spot had ever been disturbed. There will only be a small marker to note the fact that he had once lived. But in truth, he is not dead. He has gone home to await the coming of his loved ones. Solomon so aptly de-scribed the infirmities of age that eventually overtake us, “when the almond tree shall flourish, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets . . . Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:5, 7).

Lloyd Barker met me at the lawyers office. Lloyd and Gwen have been so good to my parents  treating them as their own parents. They are buying my parents’ house, so we had to discuss the arrangements with Bill Noble, and there was the matter of tending to The Last Will and Testament of Fanning Yater Tant.

Supper was with Rhodes and Cindy Davis, a wonderful young couple whom I have known for many years, even before their marriage. Cindy’s father was W.C. Hinton. I went to school with W.C. and Nancy so long ago, and the Hintons were responsible for our moving to Atlanta thirty-five years ago to take their place at the Snapfinger Road church when they went to take the gospel to Japan. Cindy and I have been friends for a long time, but now we share an even stronger bond. She lost her father eight years ago. She only had her father for twenty years. I was fortunate to have mine for sixty-two years, but tears know no age discrimination. I asked Cindy, “When do the tears stop?” As I suspected, in a sense they never do. There are moments when a thought goes through the mind, or some visible reminder is before you, when the tears come unbidden, even as they did while we were talking. A few days ago, Editha Puckett Kern called to encourage me. We have been friends since we met as teenagers in 1950. Her father taught me Bible at Florida College. Franklin Puckett and my father were close friends. They had spent a week together just days before he was unexpectedly carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom in January 1975. I asked Editha the same question. After twenty-two years, the tears still come.

There was the conversation with Homer Hailey through thousands of miles of telephone wires. At 93, he has now buried two wives and a step-son. There have been many tears in his life, but they are not finished. He and my father have been friends for sixty years, and he tells me, “He was a great friend.” And then there is silence, for we are both weeping.

Today Frank and Joyce Jamerson came to our home. Frank will be preaching for us next week. Tears have also been their companion, as their beloved Jill was taken from them in 1993. She was only 19, so godly and so full of life. And then soon after, Joyce’s sister-in-law, Carol Coffield, was taken in moment of time. In both cases, the silent scourge came without warning.

So, sooner or later, death will touch us all. If you have not experienced the death of one who was close to your heart, just be patient. It will come  inevitably. And the heart will break, and the tears will wash your face.

As a preacher, I am often in the presence of those who are bereaved. I have given comfort and encouragement as best I could. I tried to comfort my wife when her father and mother died in the Lord in 1982 and 1983. But I have never truly known how one feels in such a situation. Now I know. Now I will be better able to empathize with them.

But why do we have tears? Why did God give us tears, and why must we undergo the situations in life that bring them? In contemplating this, I believe there are several reasons for them.

1. “Weep with them that weep” (Rom. 12:15). We are a family, and we are to embrace one another as a family. Families give strength, comfort and encouragement, and as we experience the tears in our own lives, that prepares us to lift up others who weep, even as our Heavenly Father gives comfort. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). The hundreds of calls, cards and letters that have come to us have meant more than we can say.

2. God has given us our emotions, and we need to be able to express them in the right way. Tears have a healing quality about them, and I have found them to pro-vide a cleansing of my spirit. Our Lord wept on more than one occasion. He was not ashamed to do so. Our culture does not accept the tears of men as being “manly,” but there was no greater man who ever lived than Jesus Christ, and if there was purpose for his tears, then we should not be ashamed of our tears. The epistles of Paul most certainly contained a few splotches where the tears fell as he was writing from his heart (2 Cor. 2:4; Phil. 3:18). And his brethren, who loved him greatly, “all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the word which he had spoken, that they should see his face no more” (Acts 20:37). Paul knew that he must soon meet his appointment.

3. “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Eccl. 7:2-4). In reality, who would rather go to a funeral than a party? Well, parties can be good, and they are fun. But they don’t teach us anything. The house of mourning can teach us much. We will all be there one day, not just as a spectator, but as the principle person. That will be my body lying in that casket. The preacher may speak kind words, and may even try to “preach me right into heaven.” But my eternal destiny will have already been sealed. “As a man lives, so shall he die.” We know not when our summons shall come, whether in the bloom of youth or in the quietness of age, but “it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

I am not sure that I have ever seen one make a decision to obey God at a party. I cannot count those who have made the decision to serve God at a funeral. When one’s own mortality is so vividly presented, it has a sobering effect upon the soul. Solomon knew what he was talking about. I wonder about parents who seek to shield their children from death and who never take their children to funerals. They think it would be too “traumatic,” or some-thing. In truth, presence at a funeral may be one of the most valuable lessons a child could ever learn.

What thoughts will your family and loved ones have as they sit at your funeral? What a blessed hope that I have of seeing my father again. His grandchildren also walk in the light and have that same hope, and are raising their own children to share in that hope. While I have suffered a loss, I have not suffered the crushing loss of an eternal separation that some have suffered. What a great comfort we have in the words of Paul who encouraged us “concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him …. He continues to tell us that when the Lord comes with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, that we shall “be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:15-18).

What is the legacy that you will leave your parents, if you should die in your youth; or your children, if your years are many? Will you leave property, wealth, fame? If that is all, you will have lived a life in vain. “For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?” (Matt. 16:26). There is no greater legacy that my father could have left than the knowledge that he died in the Lord. “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works do follow with them” (Rev. 14:13).

We, too, shall pass that way, and it is we who determine the realm in which we dwell when that moment comes  the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Satan.

4. Tears are a reminder of how beautiful heaven must be. The Psalmist declares that even if our years are many, “yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (Ps. 90:10). I have known of people who wanted to live on this earth forever. Now, I have no longing to die tomorrow and end this life. I have been blessed, and have had a good life. But if I believe God’s Word, there is so much more awaiting me, more than I can begin to imagine. In spite of my good life, there have been moments of intense pain, grief, and anguish. And some seem to know such for most of their days. But in that home of the soul, none such can invade. John the Revelator de-scribed the incredible scenes that he saw  that holy city a coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. “And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God; and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain; the first things are passed away” (Rev. 21:1-4). Every tear that we shed should remind us that there will come a day when pain and sorrow shall pass away. What a glorious reminder our tears should be.

5. The tears that we shed at the death of a loved one should also remind us of the fleeting nature of our opportunities. I will ever be thankful that, for the last months of my father’s earthly journey, he and my mother were with us. Day by day I was able to tell him that I loved him. The last communication from my father’s lips were to my wife. He mouthed the words “I love you.” And as best I can recall, my last words to my father were, “I love you, Papa.” I was a grown man before I learned to speak those words to my father. There was no doubt that I loved him, and he loved me, but neither he nor I had learned how to express our love for one another in words. But we learned. I am thankful for that. Too often we know there are words of love, words of encouragement, words of apology, words of forgiveness that we need to speak to another, but we put if off, thinking there will be time and opportunities later. But our Lord reminds us that we should “redeem the time” (Eph. 5:16), and again tells us that our life is as fleeting as a vapor (Jas. 4:13-15). Whatever we need to do, we need to do it now. Tomorrow may never come, and how much guilt we carry with us for deeds that remain undone, and words that remain unspoken.

6. Our tears also tell us that Christ really was like us. He wept over the death of his friend Lazarus. He wept over the coming fate of Jerusalem. He really felt as we feel. He understands us. “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Note that he can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Even if others forsake us in times of trial, he will be with us to comfort and strengthen us, to feel with us. What a great blessing this is, and how bereft are those in the world who know not this comfort. In-deed, Paul relied on Christ when others forsook him. “At my first defense no one took my part, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their account. But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me …” (2 Tim. 4:16, 17). Paul was not alone. Christ had been where he was, and knew how he felt.

7. And finally our tears are a part of making heaven more real to us. We who are the children of God naturally believe in heaven. Christ has said he has gone there to prepare a place for us (John 14:1-3). I have no doubt that there is such a place, and cannot remember ever having lacked a desire to go there. But when someone so dear to you has gone on before, that only serves to heighten the desire. I would like to go to London one day. I know it is there, and I believe I would enjoy being there. But if my Flora were there, waiting for me to come, would that not just intensify my desire and my efforts?

At my father’s age, most of his friends were on the other side. And there are his parents, Jefferson Davis and Nannie Yater Tant, and other siblings. In a way, there was more calling him there than there was to keep him here. What a glad reunion! And now they wait for the coming of the last of their family circle, my aunt Mozelle Priestley.

Now back to the Davis home. Supper was finished, and it was time to take the road home. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, and Rhodes and I walked out into the yard to view the comet Hale-Bopp. What a sight in the heavens! This stellar visitor was last in our environs some 2,000 years ago. Did our Lord look into the heavens one night and recognize this part of the universe that he had created? Did the disciples look up from a hillside in Galilee and wonder at the awesome power of the Creator? It seems that at night I am more aware of God. The star-studded vault of the heavens is a vivid reminder of the vastness of his creation and his infinite power. As I drove home, I thought of my earthly father, who is now out there beyond this physical realm with my heavenly Father, and who is now at rest, freed from his final weeks of suffering, freed from his concern about the care of his dear wife of 65 years. He had wanted her to go first, so he could care for her with her Alzheimer’s disease. He devoted his life to her care for the past few years, and did the best he knew how, but he has passed on that care to us. Most of the time she knows he is gone, and her tears join with our tears. Very likely she will see him before I do, and when she does, she will be whole again, and God will wipe away her tears.

When do the tears stop? Not until they have completed their task. I weep, but not as those who have no hope. They are good tears. I cannot imagine the despair that tears the hearts of those who have lost loved ones, but who have no hope. I don’t know if anything could compare with that. If you are reading this, and are not in a covenant relation-ship with God, I pray that you will do what is necessary before another day passes.

So live that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapering of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Thanatopsis, by William Cullen Bryant

My father is gone and there is an empty space in my heart that will never be filled in this life. But I look forward to seeing him again, and not him only, but also the face of my Savior, the one who died and rose again from the dead and provided the way for this reunion to take place.

In the distant past, Job asked the question, “If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee …” (Job 14:14-15). Do we exist beyond the grave? Yes, a thousand times yes! “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Ps. 90:1-2).

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson

(Written in memory of my father, Fanning Yater Tant, preacher of the gospel of Christ and servant of the Most High God, who was born December 30, 1908, and who was transported to a higher life March 3, in the Year of our Lord 1997. This is written as a reminder to me, his son; to Flora Hartsell Tant, his favorite daughter-in-law; to his grandchildren  Jeff D. Tant, IV and Cynthia Teague Tant; Bill and Susan Tant Moore; Donald and Sharon Tant Jacobs; Kevin and Shannon Tant Stinson; Shawna Kathleen Tant; and to his great-grandchildren, Shannon Moore, Davis Tant, Zachary Moore, Jasmine Jacobs, Aubrey Tant, Taylor Tant, Jacob Stinson, and Rachael Moore.)

Guardian of Truth XLI: 24 p. 6-9
December 18, 1997

By Weldon E. Warnock

The Bible states: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” ( 2 Cor. 6:14). Some have applied this passage through the years to marriage, saying that a believer is prohibited here from marrying an unbeliever. Does Paul include marriage in this text?

Let us notice that “be ye not” is a translation of me ginesthe which forbids an action already in progress. The above Greek word, ginesthe, is second person plural present imperative of ginomai. Arndt-Gingrich tell us when me (translated “not” in v. 14) is used with a present imperative, it means to bring to an end a condition now existing (518). Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon says in reference to me with a present imperative, generally where one is bidden to cease from something already begun, or separated, or continued” (410).

Paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 6:14, if it applies to believers married to unbelievers, “Cease your already begun marriage to unbelievers.” This would necessitate divorce. I suppose there would be no marriage made in heaven in this kind of marriage, hence, both would be free to marry somebody else  the believer to a believer and the unbeliever to an unbeliever.

It is maintained that such a marriage is not to be dissolved by the unbeliever, but rather he is to repent and remain in the relationship. This is strange repentance! There is no change, but simply an acknowledgment to God that I should not have gotten into this kind of situation in the first place. But the Lord says, “Do not be married to an unbeliever,” and “come out from among them, and be ye separate” (v. 17). God says abandon, depart, separate, dissolve and detach from all sinful relationships. It seems obvious to me that Paul does not have marriage in mind.

We read in 1 Corinthians 7:12-13, “If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” In these verses Paul specifically addresses an unbeliever. Here, the instructions are plain. “Let him not put her away” and” Let her not leave him.” Why would Paul tell believers to re-main together in 1 Corinthians 7 and turn around and re-quire them to not be yoked with unbelievers in 1 Corinthians 6? Such would be a contradiction.

We hear some rationalize that after a believer gets him-self into such a “fix,” he should go ahead and remain in the relationship because God hates putting away (Mal. 2:16). Well, the same kind of convoluted reasoning could be made about an adulterous marriage. Jesus said, “Whosoever putteth away and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth that is put away from her husband committeth adultery” (Luke 16:18). Now then, since God hateth divorce, we could reason that those who divorce and remarry without cause could stay together since God hates putting away. If this kind of thinking is accept-able on 2 Corinthians 6:14, why not on Luke 16:18?

We often see 1 Corinthians 7:39 lumped together with 2 Corinthians 6:14 as a passage forbidding a believer marrying an unbeliever. The verse says: “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.” To make “only in the Lord” the man the widow is marrying is to make the phrase adjectival in its modifying force. “Only (mono, adverb) in the Lord” modifies “to be married.” An adverb modifies a verb. Here “only,” an adverb, modifies the verb, “married.” Hence, the marriage is to be in the Lord and not the man in the text. Thayer states, “In the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 7:9 “denotes the Christian aim, nature, quality of any action or virtue” (211). Thus, marriage is to be in accordance with the principles of New Testament teaching.

Though Jesus and his apostles never made a prohibition against a Christian marrying an unbeliever, and such marriages are recognized in heaven, prudence and wisdom teach us that such action is fraught with dangers and, many times, serious problems. A Christian needs encouragement at home in living the Christian life and bringing the children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

My strong advice is: Brother or sister, marry a Christian! When I say a Christian, I don’t mean some irresponsible, lazy, immature, half-converted member of the church.

Guardian of Truth XLI: 24 p. 18
December 18, 1997