Shalom, I believe you when you say you are not judging the
pastor. It seems that the opinion you are forming of him
could allow more room for other possibilities, is what I'm
trying to make plain.
Kent did not say whether or not the pastor talked
with his son concerning the Word of God. I assume he did.
I have to assume he did, or I'm assuming the worst without
evidence either way. Phlp 4:8 and 1Cor 13 point us toward
assuming the best in the absence of contrary evidence.
Do I know whether the preacher tried to speak to Kent's
son regarding the gospel? No. Do I know whether, before
the preacher could even make such an effort, Kent's son
perhaps made it clear he did not want to be preached to?
No. There are endless possibilities for what happened
in that encounter, as any lawyer or script writer (whose
job it is to speculate in such possibilities) could tell us.
Yes, I am quite mindful of 1 Cor 7:12 and the verses
following. I thought to mention that to Kent, but it
would have been off the immediate topic because those
verses apply to people who are already married. The people
those verses address are unequally yoked because they didn't
know or didn't heed the advice to not be unequally yoked,
or because, since becoming married, one of them has began
to believe in Jesus. Those are excellent verses for
unequally yoked marriages.
I'm sorry, but I don't know what you are referring in this
context about scattering God's people, (your fourth
paragraph). Referring to the first part of that same paragraph,
I agree that a wife is a gift from God, if that is what you
are referring to, but God only knows if those two are
the ones God has chosen for each other. We can also be out
of God's will, driven by hormones and other motives ("acting
in the flesh" or "according to the lust/appetites of the
flesh") when we pick our partners for marriage.
I've been married twice. The first time, I was not a Christian
when I got married. My first wife was Catholic. The pastor
(or priest, as the Catholic church calls them) told me that
the terms for the church to approve our marriage, even though
I was not a Catholic, were if I would give my word that I would
allow our children to be raised as Catholics. Nothing was said
to me about my spiritual standing, whether I was saved or not,
whether I wanted to learn about their beliefs or not. I was only
driven by my youthful urges and didn't think about those things
anyway. I said sure, I'd agree to that (anything to be able to
legally, fully partake of the pleasures of that woman's company).
That marriage eventually broke up, after 10 years. It lasted
many years longer than it would have if I had not become a
Christian at age 22. But one of the contributing factors was
that we were unequally yoked after I became a Christian. I was
happy to attend the Catholic church, or Baptist, Assembly of
God, Foursquare, you name it. I realized that no church has
perfect doctrine or a perfect congregation. My wife didn't
want to attend anywhere except the Catholic church. That didn't
cause the breakup of the marriage, but it didn't help, either.
It was one of many factors and she left me to go back to her
parents and our home state of Oregon and filed for divorce under
false pretenses in Oregon. I had that quashed, and, since she had
left me and wanted divorce, filed for divorce here and gave her
a better settlement than she had asked for when she filed in
Oregon. She remarried a few months later and my daughter informed
me recently that her mother's second marriage is in danger of
ending in divorce.
The pastor Kent's son spoke with didn't want to play a part in a
marriage he advised them against. Maybe he had been greatly
saddened by performing a marriage ceremony between unequally yoked
people and had seen it tragically, with children suffering
consequences of unbeliever divorcing believer. We don't know.
But he showed an open mind, by allowing that they might possibly
be meant for each other and making it clear he would be happy to
attend their wedding as a guest. The Scriptures (and current
statistics) tell us that the odds are against a marriage lasting,
betweeen a Christian and one who remains a non-Christian.
If there was nobody else willing to perform the ceremony (highly
unlikely) then that pastor would be consistent with his beliefs to
agree to perform it, making it clear to them that he had warned them
against entering into marriage unequally yoked. If they are adults,
they should be mature enough to not be "wounded" by his perhaps
brutal, perhaps gracious honesty (depending on how he delivered his
words). If their feelings were hurt so that they "licked their wounds"
and still can't get over it, then perhaps they are not mature enough,
unequally yoked or not, to get married.
Another circumstance in which the pastor would not be compromising
the Scriptural advice he gave them would be if the couple had already
had sexual relations with each other, and disclosed this fact to the
pastor. Once a man and a woman have sexual relations, they are
married. Then, the pastor could preside over some other kind of
ceremony, celebrating the fact that these two had gotten married in a
private ceremony and wanted to make their commitment public. There
would be no reason for him to decline to perform such a ceremony (but
how many couples would be that open and honest with the pastor, to tell
him they'd already done the deed?) because, as Scripture tells us, it
is the physical union of a man and woman that constitutes marriage, in
God's eyes. That is why fornication is wrong, because it is marriage
and, because the parties involved make no commmitment to each other,
but rather break off the relationship, it is also divorce, and God
hates divorce. "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder."
There is nothing for you to "yield" to that I'm aware of. We are
having a discussion, trying to understand each other and hone each
other to an ever sharper edge. According to what Kent said, the
pastor did not say he was prohibited from presiding over the marriage
commitment ceremony. I was of the opinion the pastor exercised free
will and followed the dictates of his conscience in declining to be
the one to preside at the wedding ceremony. As the scripture says,
if a man thinks that it would be a sin, for him to do something (such
as eat meat), then it would indeed be a sin for him if he did it,
believing it was wrong. If the pastor's conscience would have been
compromised to preside over the ceremony when they did not want to
heed his advice, then he did the right thing and was honest about it.
All we can do is speculate further, and I opt to believe the pastor
was sincere and honest, Kent's son was sincere and honest, his fiancee
was sincere and honest, and the misunderstanding and possible "hurt"
was due to the fact that in the mere 30 minutes the three of them could
spend together, they could not reach perfect understanding of each
other.
There are many possibilities, so why should I choose a lesser one, in
the absence of evidence, that puts any of the participants in a bad
light?
I also believe Kent is being sincere and honest, and just about the
only thing he seems to have heard about Christians is the false
prophets in sheep's clothing who get the publicity and which the world
labels as "Christians." (A truer label would be spiritual agents
provocateur.)
As for you and me, I believe you are firm in your convictions and I
in mine. I also firmly believe that I have a lot to learn about
love, but that it is the most important and vast subject mentioned
in the Bible. Our outlooks and opinions are always subject to
improvement.
Firm also in my admiration for your firmness of faith in God's Word,
a mutual admirer of the pure words of the Lord. (Psalm 12:6)
John |
