The New Testament teaching on divorce and remarriage appears to be impractical and unfair at first sight. The 'plain' meaning of the texts seems to allow divorce only for adultery or for desertion by an unbeliever, and does not allow remarriage until the death of one's former spouse. This means that someone suffering abuse cannot get divorced, and someone who is divorced from an adulterous partner cannot remarry unless that partner dies.

There are many different ways of understanding the text, whereby divorce is allowed for a wider range of grounds, which include physical and emotional abuse. These do not always take the text and the historical context seriously. By contrast, a few interpreters have argued that a believer is never allowed to divorce.

Summary

New insights into the Jewish and Graeco-Roman world of the 1^st century now enable us to understand how the original recipients understood this New Testament teaching, and suggest the following conclusions:

• Jesus and Paul affirmed four Old Testament grounds for divorce, which included emotional and physical neglect or abuse.
• Both Jesus and Paul rejected no-fault divorce and emphasized that divorce should be avoided if at all possible.
• Remarriage was allowed after a valid divorce, though remarriage after an invalid divorce is equivalent to adultery.