I found this link while reviewing some of the references listed in the Christian Worldview Press posts I've previously posted about. It was VERY rewarding to see the revelation Holy Spirit had brought me to via meditation on Mark 10 being clearly explained here . If I had found this earlier maybe it wouldn't have taken so long for me to see it! Since this was posted in the very early days of webpages, I decided just to copy and paste it in its entirety for you. I didn't write any of this (all emphasis, whether bold or italics, was already in the text) and claim no credit for it, obviously! Click the above link to go directly to the source.
The question was asked of whether people living after the time of New Testament should use accounts in the Old Testament as models or justification for their personal relationship choices. Specifically of whether Esther’s being as they put it “a second wife” is an example that God condoned remarriage after divorce. It must first be noted that the interpretation that King Xerxes divorced Vashti before eventually marrying Esther is unsupported. Xerxes was polygamous and kept a harem. Vashti was Queen in that she was the Chief Woman if that harem and her children alone would have royal legal right to the throne. When the book of Esther recounts her dismissal as Queen, the inference is that she was sent back to harem to “live as a widow” as we hear both Tamar, Judah’s daughter in law, and several of David’s secondary wives ie. concubines had to do. Vashti was not divorced and set free to remarry, she was banished to the harem to live without hope of sexual contact or children again. “ ...
David, and all other men in the Old Testament up to and including the Jews in Jesus’ day who either divorced their wives and took another or added another wife to their already intact relationship would today be guilty of adulterous polygamy under the Atonement. This was not the case under the Old Covenant, however. Jesus tells the religious leaders that Moses wrote this law allowing divorce because of the hardness of people's hearts. Who did Jesus say wrote that law? God? No, Moses. Jesus says it was not this way from the beginning. In other words, the separation of spouses joined by God is not God's will for married couples, period. He says that Moses wrote the law, the inference is with the allowance of God. Why allow such a thing? It seems reasonable to interpret His explanation to mean this was allowed to be written because He knew that people were, to put it plainly, stubborn, sinful jerks and since they lived among heathen lands who practiced this and...
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