Can You Remarry After Divorce?
Dear Mike,
I have read the writings of the early church fathers my understanding is all of them say you can not remarry after divorce for any reason?
There is a reason that these writings are not in the Bible itself, they have errors! Catholics use these writings to formulate their own teaching on marriage and divorce which have in the last fifty years crept into the Restoration churches. We know that the early leaders of the Restoration movement, which produced the Churches of Christ, never taught these ideas..and people like Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone were academics and intellectuals of the highest caliber.
Another thing to note from the Bible itself, not patristic writings, is that on Pentecost Sunday when 3000 people were baptized, not a single one of these was questioned about their marriages or denied baptism because of their marriage history. The only question was,"Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?" not "Have you ever been divorced?"
This is true throughout the entire New Testament for every example of someone being saved.
Another point is that there is no record in any church document or patristic writings giving an example of someone leaving their present wife to remarry their original partner or remain celibate. If this was the teaching, surely it would have created some upheaval in the church, but there is no mention of this ever happening.
