But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself. Blows and disgrace are his lot, and his shame will never be wiped away.
-Proverbs 6:32-33, NIV
The real shame is not faithful spouses divorcing cheaters, pastors.
The real shame is Christians committing adultery!
Preaching or counseling against divorce is a little late when it comes to marriages ravaged by infidelity. That preaching and counseling needed to happen prior, and it needed to focus on teaching marital fidelity.
If you are sadden, pastors, over marriages ending and families breaking up, look no further than the cheater who decided sin was more important than godliness or their family’s well-being.
Don’t blame the faithful spouse who chose not to tolerate said sin!
I remain amazed at how much energy is spent by evangelical leaders condemning divorce compared to how little is spent on the topic of adultery that gave rise to divorce’s consideration in the first place.
I’m not a big advocate of shaming people in general. That said, it strikes me as odd that the cheater avoids such shaming while his or her victims do not.
Seems backwards to me.
But then again, a lot about how Christian leaders respond to adultery and divorce seems backwards to me!
The church needs to learn to take adultery seriously.
Part of the fruit of this behavior is ceasing to shame the divorced, faithful spouses. Another part is making condemnation of adultery a major preaching theme as opposed to bemoaning high divorce numbers.
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*A version of this post ran previously.
DM, one of the things I have noticed and I have gone to several churches due to moves, is that many preachers seem to stumble over adultery.
For example they will start to say something then kind of stumble to well enough about that or something similar.
They have no issues preaching long and hard about drunkenness’, thievery, gambling etc, but they can’t seem to flat out do a sermon on the evils of adultery backed up with bible references.
Even the preacher who stood strongly by me and was very clear to my cheater who was in the wrong, when I listened not long ago when he broached adultery, he just kind of stumbled and then said well I won’t go there. Why won’t they go there? What is so hard about it.
I don’t think for one second that this particular preacher is not a godly man or that he is a cheater; but it seems the words just won’t come in a sermon.