Intermarriage Now, I must acknowledge that there is a great deal we don’t know about this READ Ezra 9.1-6, 10-12, 15; 10.2-4, 9-11, 16-17. - perhaps these women had proper divorces with generous divorce settlements - so perhaps they didn’t suffer any financial hardship, though I doubt it Ezra 9-10 is a passage I have been avoiding for a long time - also, perhaps these women were worse than we hear about here - I have never preached on it or taught on it, for a very good reason - perhaps they came from one of the terrible old Canaanite religions - I don’t agree with it, - the religions which Israel wiped out when they originally came from Egypt - and this is a serious problem when you want to preach on it - the baby roasting Moloch religion and other child sacrificing religions - to be honest, I haven’t known what to do about this problem - I normally come to the Bible to find out what I think T hey were mostly wiped out, but we have lots of archaeological evidence of - I don’t normally let myself judge what I find in the Bible them - but in this case I just couldn’t accept what I’d read - the Israelites cleared it out mostly, but some of the later Israelite kings revived - or, at the least, I could understand why Ezra did what he did it - but I can’t see any way to apply it to us today - then the Exile of Israel and Judah wiped it out again - though perhaps some survived and revived among those imported into the land Well, lets see what you think - the Assyrians and Babylonians took Israel and Judah away, but replaced them - Ezra has encouraged the Jews to rebuild Judaism - other conquered people were removed from their lands and put in Palestine - they have rebuilt the Temple, and gone back to the laws in the Bible - this big swap-around meant that people were too disorganised to rebel - they want to follow the Law of Moses, properly - all they could do was farm and pay taxes to the organisation which DID exist - then someone says: Hey, what about our marriages? - ie the empire which had taken them from their land and moved them elsewhere - a lot of us have married non-Jewish women - that’s wrong isn’t it? When the Jewish exiles returned, they found these foreigners in their land - Ezra is distraught, and tears his clothing as a sign of mourning - they had every right to be there, and there was plenty of land for everyone - he prays and confesses the nation’s sin very publicly - the number of returning Jews was not very large, after all - then he calls the nation together to discuss the matter - but the problem was that the Jewish people needed to keep separate - they all turn up, not because they are all concerned about it - otherwise they would loose their identity and disappear again - but because he has warned any non-attendants will have their property - and with their identity, they would loose their knowledge of God confiscated - as revealed to Abraham, Moses and other prophets of God

They stand around for a day or so, trembling with anticipation and dread So Ezra was worried when he heard that Jews had intermarried with these others - and also because it is pouring with rain and they are standing outside - not just because they weren’t Jews, and they might forget their own Jewishness - the people say to Ezra: can’t we go home while our leaders look into this - but also because these non-Jews may introduce other religions into Israel matter? - but that is what I’m unhappy about, because there is no evidence about this - so they go home, and lists are made of everyone who has married foreigners - there’s nothing to suggest that these non-Jews were turning people away from - they are then encouraged or forced to get rid of their foreign wives and God children - some of them wanted to help build the Temple - just under 100 people are named at the end of ch.10, who did this - but also there’s nothing to suggest that they were fully following God - they might have wanted to keep their new religions and spread them. I don’t know about you, but I’m somewhat horrified at this - this list represents a hundred families, broken up over religion There’s another bad thing which was probably happening, which isn’t in Ezra - in the modern world, they’d just agree to differ, and teach the children about - in Malachi 2 there a reference to something which was probably happening both now - or, if the other religion was so terrible, don’t teach the children about it - but how can it be the right thing to simply abandon wives and children?

1 Malachi 2:11, 14 Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been - in Ex.34.16 there are severe warnings against intermarriage, but with committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary limitations the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god… - and the foreigners who are proscribed are only a limited set of nations 14 The LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your - the nations who followed the disgusting practices of the Canaanite religions youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, - and the reason is to avoid following the disgusting foreign religions of Canaan the wife of your marriage covenant. Exodus 34:11-17 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before It looks as though those who married foreigners were divorcing their first wives you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. … - I don’t know why, because Jews were allowed more than one wife 15 … for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to - my guess is that the foreign wives demanded it them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when - and in that case, the first wives probably didn’t get a proper divorce settlement you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those So perhaps things were worse than we realise by simply reading Ezra daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do - perhaps the foreign wives were causing people to abandon their first wives the same. - and perhaps the foreign wives were turning people to the cruel old religions Jews were never told not to marry ANY foreigners, but not to marry these - but I suspect that this wasn’t the main problem nations - the main problem was that Judaism was in a precarious situation - because their religion was so disgusting and contagious - they had survived Exile, but only just, and they were in danger of disappearing - as they found out, when there was a revival of that religion before the Exile - if they intermarried with the surrounding people, they wouldn’t be distinctive - but Jews were allowed to marry other nationalities, and they did - and then the nation of God, which would bring us the Messiah, would be gone - Moses married a Midianite and David was descended from Ruth, a Moabite - so they must not intermarry so that they remain distinctive and faithful to God - but Ezra appears to imply that Jews should not marry any foreigner

And the worst thing about Ezra’s situation was that the leaders were guilty Well, I’m not going to tell Jews how to apply this, but what about Christians? - in fact the leaders appear to be the main culprits, according to Ezra 9.1: - how do we apply this? Should we divorce anyone who is not a believer? - "The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept - I’m glad to say that Paul agrees with me that we shouldn’t copy Ezra’s themselves separate from the neighbouring peoples with their detestable example practices” - Or perhaps I should put that the other way round – I agree with Paul!

But I am still not happy, because how think about the human situation Paul heard that believers in Corinth were planning to divorce non-believers - it would be OK if Ezra simply taught people to stop marrying foreigners - they were married as non-believers, and now one of them converted - but instead he tells them to throw out the foreign wives and children - so the believer decided that they should put things right by ending the marriage - that is where I come to the difficult position of disagreeing with him - Paul wrote a long reply concerning this in 1 Corinthians 7 1 Corinthians 7:12-14 If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and I don’t like the idea of judging the Bible – the Bible should judge me she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman - but on the other hand we are told to examine the Bible and look at all of it has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she - and when we look at the rest of the Bible, we have good reasons for rejecting must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified this through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, After all, we do know that not every example in the Bible is a good example they are holy. - not everything David did was accorded with the Law of Moses and God’s will - he told them not to leave their unbelieving partners or their children - and the Bible shows us good and bad about most people in it - because these marriages are sanctified by the presence of just one believer - it is that lack of whitewashing which makes the Bible such an honest account - and Paul says that therefore the children of that marriage are sanctified - and here, in my humble opinion, Ezra made a mistake in teaching this way - (presumably some of them thought these children were contaminated - or, at the best, his teaching only applied to that time and for that situation somehow) - and that believers should make every effort to make these marriages work Forbidding intermarriage wasn’t part of the Law of God as given to Moses

2 But it appears that one woman had already walked out on her husband - in Roman law marriage ended as soon as one partner went their own way - Paul told her that she should try to return and put the marriage back together - presumably he was telling them that they were free to remarry again - as it says at the end of all Jewish divorce certificates: “You are now free to - she should try to be reconciled, and she shouldn’t scupper this by remarrying: marry any man you wish” 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she Paul quotes these words when addressing widows, at the end of the chapter, in must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a v.39 husband must not divorce his wife. 39 If her husband dies, she is “free to marry anyone she wishes”, but he - Paul didn’t tell her not to divorce him, because she had already done that must belong to the Lord. - in Roman law, if she walked out with the intention of ending the marriage, that’s it - Paul has spent a lot of the chapter disagreeing with Ezra about mixed - the divorce has already happened, and she is free to remarry someone else marriages - but Paul says: don’t remarry, because then you won’t be able to go back to him - now Paul is disagreeing with Moses’ law of levirate marriage - and you should go back, because being an unbeliever is not a ground for - in the Law of Moses a childless widow had to marry her brother-in-law to divorce produce a child who could inherit within the family - but Paul tells widows that they have at least the same rights as divorcees - he quotes the well-known words from the divorce certificate: you are free to marry any man you wish.

Why couldn’t she return to him if she had remarried in the mean time? Though notice that Paul made the assumption that they will marry a believer - couldn’t she divorce her new husband and go back to her old one? - although he tells believers not to divorce non-believers, this isn’t an ideal marriage - well, yes, but two wrongs don’t make a right - if you have the choice, (like widows did) you should chose to marry a believer - she had broken her marriage vows and divorced her first husband - should she break a second set of marriage vows in order to put that right? The whole subject of divorce and remarriage is huge, and has been a big - one could perhaps argue that her second marriage wasn’t valid problem - but that is a very legalistic and inhuman approach to matters of the heart - to understand the NT teaching, you need to read it like a first century believer - it treats the second husband as worthless - so you need to know about laws which they understood well, but we’ve - Paul tells her not to remarry, so that her first husband can decide forgotten - he might decide that he doesn’t want her back after walking out in this way - I’ve written a couple of books on the subject, and I can’t summarise them here - or he might decide to forgive her and have her back because he loves her so - see www.Divorce-Remarriage.com much - but it is up to him, because she is the one who broke her marriage vows The important thing for today is that God honours marriages - and until he decides, she should remain unmarried and ready to be reconciled - if you are married to a non-believer, this doesn’t mean God isn’t in the - becasue there is nothing wrong with being married to an unbeliever marriage - your children are under God’s protection the same as if you were both But what if it was the other way round, and the unbeliever left the believer believers - I guess that Paul would also try to tell the unbeliever to return and be - the enemy has difficulty getting at them because of the prayers of just one reconciled parent - but he knew it was useless because the unbeliever had no reason to listen to - of course, it isn’t as ideal as being married to a believer Paul - things can be difficult, when deciding how to spend time and money etc - so he tells the believer that they are not bound in this case – v.15: - but that doesn’t mean that God loves you less, or that your marriage is less - But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is strong not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. - he wasn’t telling them they were free from the marriage. - That was already And, as Paul says, your partner may well become a believer: over

3 1 Corinthians 7:16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Just one more word of wisdom from Peter, about how to convert your partner 1 Peter 3:1-2 If any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives [or husbands], 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. - ie they are not won over by nagging or preaching, or even an occasional reminder - they are often won by watching rather than by listening, by lifestyle rather than preaching - and we save our words to bombard heaven with them on behalf of our partners

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