“Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there.”
-Jeremiah 3:6b, NIV
Yes, you are an adulterous wife who takes in strangers instead of her own husband.
-Ezekiel 16:32, NLT
They are unfaithful to the Lord;
they give birth to illegitimate children.-Hosea 5:12a, NIV
Never speak of the infidelity again?!
Such advice does not come from God’s example as is plain to see from this very brief sampling of Scripture on the matter of infidelity to God.
Not only does God speak of Israel and Judah’s infidelity, He does so repeatedly and enshrines it in the Bible for all time.
Clearly, God is not of the mind that His people ought to forget this chapter in their history.
From my reading as well as experience, pastors and other Christian leaders seem to generally think that avoiding talking about the infidelity or only speaking of it once is the proper–or even biblical way–to handle adultery.
This is a serious error.
The worst piece of advice I received and followed was to avoid talking about the other man with my (now ex) wife. It is not how I see God dealing with an adulterous people.
In fact, the opposite seems to be the model here. God does not seem to ever stop talking about Israel’s adultery until she repents!
And even when Israel repents, her adultery is forever etched in Scripture for all of us to see. It does not go away.
The acts of unfaithfulness are forgiven but not forgotten. We are to learn from those past sins.
Applying this to human marriages, I am adamant in my opinion that adultery and infidelity must be fair game discussion topics as part of a godly plan for repentance and restoration.
God did not shy away from repeated conversations about His people’s unfaithfulness. So, neither ought we!
