Quote:
Originally Posted by staythecourse  Piper argues that "except for pornea" (19:9) means premarital sex not 1. general sexual immorality or 2. moicheia adultery. Therefore in our day and age according to him, it's OK to break off an engagement if you find that your fiance' was unfaithful. That was the divorce Joseph was considering in giving Mary.
However, Piper stops with the logic there which would then mean the fiance' (Mary) would be committing adultery if she got married. She could not get married in that case.
If Mary had committed immorality anytime before marriage, he could have divorced her and remarried (since they had not come together). Mary could not get married, nor could any 21st century fornicator. Piper doesn't say that but that is the logical end.
I'm not making that statement strong enough. Piper's conclusion would prevent millions (billions?) of marriages (no fornicators could marry except to the other fornicator) and put 100's of millions of believers in adulterous marriages (adjust the numbers as yo see fit but you get the point.) |
I think that's a fair analysis of Piper's position. By contrast, the Christianity Today article and Ray Sutton book I cited above both treat
pornea (Matthew 19:9), usually translated "fornication," instead of
moicheia, usually translated "adultery." The WCF position does not deal with these words, but takes "Adultery" as the KJV gives it to us in 19:9.
Sutton's position is that the "pornea" envisioned in Matt. 19:9 includes any serious moral uncleanness that deserved any O.T. death penalty offense. So it is not a "liberal" position that he takes. He reasons that, under O.T. law, the offending spouse would have been stoned and thus the marital covenant broken by death.
My concerns are and have been over issues of administration in a permissive culture with few if any death-penalty offenses and with church sessions who have little or no competence in dealing with legitimate Biblically-based offenses.
