In any case, one can investigate the Greek and Hebrew words used, see what they meant, and draw conclusions as to what Paul, etc. meant and then try to apply that to today.

Avoiding learning about the cultural context of the Bible is essentially a way to guarantee you will misunderstand it. You will teleport 1st century text into the 21st century. It is a way to disrespect Scripture.

There is no such thing as a marriage where both people are not sinning.

Darius,

I am not offended by what you have said personally but by the vacuous, and unrealistic attitudes and teaching of some older people who ought to know better.

I went up to an older theologian who had just preached the strict line and asked him a few questions. It did not take long for him to lose eye contact. He could not defend his own sermon. (In Piper’s case it might be a nervous giggle.)

The way single people are treated and single women especially is already distressing. The entire Christian foundation of a woman’s spiritual existence is described as being based on her headship relationship. What is a young divorced women going to do? (That is a rhetorical question. BTW)

An older woman like myself can always take up smoking or perhaps televiion.

That is the EXACT argument people use to say that the Bible doesn’t prohibit most / some / all modern-day homosexual relationships.

It can be unsettling to THINK one knows what some text says only to find out it says nothing of the sort, but if one reads the Bible, you had better get used to the possibility as one learns more.

That is, we need and should appreciate all the help we can get to try our best to understand text written almost 2000 years ago in a different language with a different culture, etc. To think otherwise can too easily result in arrogant ignorance.

I doubt that there are many cognitive hoops to jump through to arrive at biblical conclusion on marriage and divorce.

I personally believe that people take a soft stance on divorce and/or remarriage of divorcees because it’s difficult for someone to draw lines that will exclude himself or ones that are close. It’s that bias and hypocrisy that make t-shirts like this one sadly funny:

http://www.cafepress.com/bettybowers.12893182

Yep, in that case, you’re right. Anyone seeking divorce outside of the 1 Corinthians 7 exception is wrong. But, like all other forms of sin, Jesus’ sacrifice can cover it. Even in our sin, we have a Mediator.

I will repeat, though, for the sake of clarity that I believe separation is okay and that no all divorced people are guilty of their divorce.

Part of the challenge is that Piper is comp and Instone-Brewer is supportive of egals, so there is that wide divide on how to interpret passages that do not even deal with divorce. A simplification is that egals would claim that some aspects of a comp marriage could easily be abusive and allow divorce and Piper would not agree, since he would not see it as abusive.

I do not know the other, but from scanning it, it is not credible as scholarship. Instone-Brewer is a 2nd temple scholar, Wingerd is not and not even close.