{"id":54554,"date":"2018-11-12T19:10:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T01:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=54554"},"modified":"2022-09-30T19:20:13","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T00:20:13","slug":"can-you-please-explain-why-mark-and-luke-dont-contradict-matthew-about-remarriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-you-please-explain-why-mark-and-luke-dont-contradict-matthew-about-remarriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you please explain why Mark and Luke don’t contradict Matthew about remarriage?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

Can you please explain why Mark and Luke don’t contradict Matthew about remarriage? Matthew records the porneia<\/em> exception, but Mark and Luke reject all exceptions.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

You are making an assumption that because something is not mentioned that it is a rejection. That is not true. All you can know is that it wasn’t mentioned. See:\u00a0Why does Matthew mention the exception to divorce but Mark and Luke don’t?<\/a><\/p>\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

Thanks for responding.<\/p>\n

Law doesn’t work that way. If I tell you you may remarry if you divorce your wife for porneia<\/em>, and I simultaneously tell you that all remarriage is prohibited, I have given you two conflicting sets of rules. If humans were not short-sighted sinners and we wanted to disallow remarriage, we have Mark, Luke, and Paul for support. 3 to 1 against all remarriage. We also are admonished to keep our vows to our own hurt.<\/p>\n

Lots of rules against all remarriage, if we simply look.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

I’m sorry but God doesn’t contradict Himself. Claiming to find a rule due to differences only means you don’t understand what God said. You cannot add or take away from God’s commands and you are proposing to take away something Jesus said because it doesn’t match your view.<\/p>\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

OK.\u00a0 Then why take Matthew as being the true revelation? He wrote to a Jewish audience who understood Jewish engagement they called marriage. If your engaged wife was not a virgin, you could have her stoned or, as Joseph thought, divorced quietly to save Mary pain.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

Matthew is as much a part of the New Testament as Mark, Luke, and John. The fact that you are trying to separate God’s inspired word to eliminate something you don’t like tells me a lot about your view of the Bible.<\/p>\n

Notice that you cite Joseph’s desire to divorce Mary as a fact, even though it is\u00a0only<\/strong>\u00a0found in Matthew. But you want to ignore what Jesus said because the exception clause was\u00a0only<\/strong>\u00a0recorded in Matthew. You are being inconsistent because of your belief and not because of what the Bible says.<\/p>\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

I simply wish to honor what Mark, Luke, and Paul wrote. Either all three must be ignored to permit godly remarriage, or we have to admit a contradiction, or we have to suggest that Matthew meant to explain Jesus’s words in a Jewish context. I don’t see any reason to make Matthews’s words our standard given that the other three disagree.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

I put my thoughts together in an outline:\u00a0Respecting Silence<\/a>. What you are doing is claiming that Matthew does not contain God’s word — that it is not inspired. I cannot accept that position.<\/p>\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

Mark, Luke, and Paul are not silent about the exception, they reject it. Given the 3 rabbinic schools of thought, there would be no reason for a reader of these latter 3 to assume that Jesus took the Shammai position. Two of them quote Jesus apparently clarifying the law and both chose to omit his exception. Why would they omit it? If this omission was done by the will of God, He has authored confusion. He should simply have had them repeat the Matthew exception. We Christians have a conflict here, but as we are called to keep our vows… No exceptions are given except for evil vows, we can never divorce with God’s approval. Christians can’t sue for divorce in human courts anyway. The so-called right to divorce and remarry does not exist for Christians.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

Since you reject the inspiration of the Bible and refuse to consider the reason that you originally asked for, I have to end this fruitless discussion. What we have here is a person who asks a question, not because he is looking for an answer but because he wants a platform to promote his false doctrine. His point was proven false in several different ways.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: Can you please explain why Mark and Luke don’t contradict Matthew about remarriage? Matthew records the porneia exception, but Mark and Luke reject all exceptions. Answer: You are making an assumption that because something is not mentioned that it is a rejection. That is not true. All you can know is that it wasn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[793,167,34,690,121,708],"class_list":["post-54554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-apparent-contradictions","tag-divorce","tag-false-teaching","tag-luke","tag-mark","tag-matthew"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32449,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-does-matthew-mention-the-exception-to-divorce-but-mark-and-luke-dont\/","url_meta":{"origin":54554,"position":0},"title":"Why does Matthew mention the exception to divorce but Mark and Luke don’t?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why is the exception clause \"except it be for fornication\" in Matthew 19:8 regarding the teaching of Jesus on divorce and remarriage not included in Mark's account of this teaching (Mark 10:2-10) or in Luke's account (Luke 16:18)? Answer: Each gospel account was written to different audiences with different\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43526,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-matthew-199-only-refer-to-fornication-prior-to-marriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":54554,"position":1},"title":"Does Matthew 19:9 only refer to fornication prior to marriage?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I am confused about your definition of porneia in Mathew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9. In your answer to the question \"My wife is leaving me after only seven months of marriage. Where does this leave me?\" you said that: \"One of the reasons for the divorce has to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":54549,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/respecting-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":54554,"position":2},"title":"Respecting Silence","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Mark 10:46-52 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What do you do when witnesses to an event give two different sets of details? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Matthew 28:1-7 mentions an angel rolling away the stone blocking the entrance and sitting upon the stone. The angel talks to the women when they get to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16856,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-remarry-if-their-spouse-commits-adultery-after-the-divorce\/","url_meta":{"origin":54554,"position":3},"title":"Can a person remarry if their spouse commits adultery after the divorce?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I want to ask you about two people who have divorced. I understand they are supposed to remain unmarried, and if one of them does get married later, he is living in adultery. Is the other person free to marry, since in God's eyes they are still connected to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49679,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-a-person-is-divorced-for-fornication-does-that-mean-he-cannot-reconcile-with-his-former-spouse\/","url_meta":{"origin":54554,"position":4},"title":"If a person is divorced for fornication, does that mean he cannot reconcile with his former spouse?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeff, I talked about the subject of divorce and remarriage with a preacher. I listened to what he said carefully but couldn't prove him wrong. I don't want to let my biases get in the way, but we're not in agreement. I told him I won't preach on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37394,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-divorce-only-allowed-during-the-engagement\/","url_meta":{"origin":54554,"position":5},"title":"Is divorce only allowed during the engagement?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Regarding\u00a0How could a woman in an adulterous marriage have the right to remarry after a divorce?\u00a0I believe there is something very important you are missing. Matthew was written to a\u00a0Jewish\u00a0readership, Mark and Luke were written for a\u00a0Gentile readership. As you know from the nativity story, Joseph was betrothed to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}