The life partner (Part 15)
Some readers told me they were married without consulting God and wondered what to do? If you followed the instruction, you understood the true definition of the covenant. Even if you were pagans or ignorant, the fact that you are publicly married and have cohabited together created the covenant between you. I talk about cohabitation because I know people who are legally married in European countries just to have papers or other personal interests, but who have never slept together. The covenant is not justified by a ring on the finger or by an act (document) wedding. If you are married to someone, she is your wife or he is your husband, and the covenant is genuine. If you abandon your spouse to seek for another, you would commit adultery.
Regarding divorce, we already discovered two exceptional cases where the bible can speak of separation: death and infidelity. Today we will discover a third exception. This is the case of a couple where one partner is an unbeliever. It is a hard life to live with someone who has not the same faith as you. In most cases, it is the husband who is an unbeliever, the other way around it is very rare because it is often easy for the believing man to influence his wife but many women are not able to influence their husbands.
Sometimes the unbelieving partner becomes more and more aggressive and sometimes threatens to leave home because of the faith of the believer. If this happens, the bible is very clear: Let’s read in 1 Corinthians 7: 15 " But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace”. This passage is very clear and precise because it insists by saying that “in such circumstances”. If the unbeliever because of your faith abandons you, you are no longer bound. If the bible says that you are no longer bound, it means that there is no covenant. If there is no more covenant, remarriage option is possible. But according to 1 Corinthians 7: 13, if the unbelieving husband is willing to live with her, the woman should not divorce him. They must stay together.
In the sixteenth teaching, I will talk about the biblical attitude of Christian women toward their unbelieving husbands
Chris Ndikumana
