Broken Church Homes

By G. Craige Lewis, EX Times

Why are our pastors and church leaders divorcing? Who will set the example of how to be married and raise a family in God’s kingdom? What happened to the qualifications to lead God’s people that are talked about in the word? We are living in a sad day people and it is gonna get worse. If the “men of God” can’t stay married or believe God for their own marriage, how can they lead God’s church?
Sure there are a few of these men who’s wives have divorced them because they no longer want to be in the marriage. But I’m not talking about those scenarios, i’m talking about these Bishops and Pastors that are doing exactly what the Pharisees were doing in the Old Testament and that is, putting their wives away for convenience sake, or because they feel their family is not as important as their ministry!

It’s a shame that many church denominations and networks are now accepting divorce legislation and not truly concerned about the family anymore. The backbone of God’s church was built upon the family and he created the family way before there was ever ministry. And God NEVER called men away from their families to do ministry, so, what are these folks doing? They are putting their desire to be great, popularity, and money in front of their first God given responsibility, which is their family.

When a man is married to his church or a ministry, he loses interest in his wife and family. I have seen this done so much! They travel all around without their wives and get consumed in themselves. This causes problems for the wife and she feels she has to compete for her place. Some wives internalize the hurt and simply take a back seat while others are more forward about it and desire to fight for their place. The husband perceives this as a take over or “the devil” and he begins defending the ministry over his own wife. He begins to see his wife as an enemy of what he is doing, and she gets in the way of his desires. I’m not condoning this method, I’m just stating what usually happens. This almost always leads to adultery, emotional affairs, discontentment, and then divorce. When a man loses sight of his family for ministry, it compromises his ability to properly cover his wife and she is subject to all kinds of satanic attacks! As protector and provider, it is the man’s job to watch and protect his family.

I am definitely being hard on the man, because the man is the head and responsible for his family. Sure there are exceptions! There are some women that just don’t want to be married to a preacher and I get that. But more times than not, the man can change the home with his actions. If he be the head of his home, then he should be able to keep divorce from occurring in most cases. And if he is the head of God’s house, then he must be able to defeat divorce or else it will plague his church. What your home is made of, your church will be made of as well according to scripture so, if you desire to divorce a woman, men in your
church will develop like desires. This is a plague people of God. Divorce is just as spiritual as consummating a marriage. When we don’t take this seriously and we feel we can just get out of marriages without it having a permanent affect on others, then we are fooling ourselves. And if we call ourselves leaders in the body of Christ, how in the world are we going to EVER counsel, pray for, or heal other’s marriages, when we cannot do that for our own? Beware people! If you desire to save your marriage, you can’t follow a man that wants out of his!

Consider the children. Consider the vows you made. Consider the fact that whatever reason you are basing your divorce on will probably happen again in your next marriage because 9 out of 10 times, the person that wants the divorce will face most of the same issues in their next marriage. This is why it’s best to look pass the faults of a person and forgive. Even if it’s adultery, you should forgive. Adultery is NOT grounds for divorce. Jesus even said that if a man looks upon a woman and desires her, he has committed adultery, so if adultery is grounds for divorce, then every woman in America has biblical grounds? If you look at TV, Magazines, Movies, or Music Videos, you have probably committed adultery according to Christ’s definition. If adultery is Biblical grounds for divorce, and a man is already guilty of adultery if he lusts on another woman, then his wife should have a right to divorce him. To deny this is to say that adultery of the mind is not as bad as adultery of the flesh. Jesus clearly taught that they were both equally sinful. This proves that this is not what Christ was teaching here. Jesus was repeating the mosaic law but stated that it wasn’t that way in the beginning. The word that Jesus used was fornication, not adultery, because in Moses time, adultery was punished by death and you would not have needed a bill of divorce if your spouse was dead! Fornication occurs prior to the marriage vows and if the woman defrauded herself and claimed to be a virgin and after the consummation was found not a virgin, you could divorce her! If this is not the proper translation of this, then Jesus would have said no more than the pharisees or Moses for that matter and every time we THINK outside of our spouse would be grounds for divorce! Anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness are usually the grounds that people divorce on and not fornication. When a person repents and turns from their errors, shouldn’t we be the ones that forgive 70 times 70 according to Jesus’ words? What if our husbands or wives commit murder? Is that grounds for divorce? What about drugs, or physical abuse? Are those grounds? Come on people, let’s not try to pick and chose what we want to do here.

From the beginning marriage was suppose to be forever and we should fight for our marriages. Of course I’m not saying that you should put yourself in physical danger or you should not move on if you have been totally rejected and divorced by your spouse. But what I’m saying is fight for it if you want it! Don’t give up if you want God to save it. If you have ever loved this person, you can love them again. If you have ever had happy times together, you can have them again. If we made vows together, who are we to say we married the wrong person? The devil can wreck a marriage just like he wrecked our lives before. But Jesus fixed our broken lives and he can repair our broken marriage as well right? The bottom line is, fight for your marriage! I know men who’s wives prayed them out off drugs, and saved their marriage. I know husbands who’s wives got pregnant outside of the marriage and they stayed together and he is raising the child. I know wives who prayed their husbands out of other women’s beds and they are happily married now. I know a man that was homosexual while in the church and married but God delivered him and HIS WIFE STAYED WITH HIM THROUGH IT ALL!! They are happily married now raising their children together. God can do anything but it’s up to us to practice what we are preaching. Sadly, I know men that operate in God given gifts that require his power, yet God’s power is not enough to save and restore their marriage? Something is wrong with that!  If God’s power is able to operate through you and you are able to heal others physically and/or spiritually with God’s power, why can’t he do the same for your marriage?

Mark10:2-6,9, “And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female … What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
In Jesus name,

1Tim. 3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
1Tim. 3:4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)