Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
-Hebrews 13:4, NIV
How can you miss it that bad?!
How can someone read and understand the Bible yet treat adultery as a “regrettable footnote” to a marriage ending?
It astounds me looking back at all the pastors and professing Christians I knew who treated the adultery of my first wife as a side issue to the marriage’s deterioration and demise.
Which sin committed by married people does God name as the sin that defiles marriage?
Last time I checked, it was committing adultery. This sin comes with a promise of God’s judgment.
I would say that any pastor who misses that has missed God’s heart on the matter. It ought to give such a pastor pause to consider whether or not he/she knows God at all.
This isn’t a minor oversight.
It is not like the Ten Commandments and God’s exhortation to refrain from committing adultery is mentioned only in the Old Testament. Such a prohibition is consistently cited throughout the whole Bible.
When God repeats Himself on the matter of marital sin, it might be worth noting.
God does not treat adultery as if it is a “regrettable footnote” to the destruction of a marriage.
He treats it as the marriage defiling sin that a married person can commit.
Yes, it is that serious!
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*A version of this post ran previously.
It is serious, and it is also so much more than the adultery, it is emotional, verbal, physical danger to the betrayed (STDs) and financial.
I believe that all of the above are almost always involved in adultery. Even in short term adultery.