Last week, a well-known personality made an outlandish statement on television that defies clear biblical teaching about marriage. He asserted that a Christian husband or wife is morally justified to divorce his or her spouse who has Alzheimer’s disease, and to find another partner. He explains that the spouse who has dementia is “not there” anymore. It seems that he is suggesting that it’s as good as the spouse has already died. And that frees the other to move on with his or her life.
What made me quiver in disbelief is the fact that the general public recognizes him as a Bible teacher and, mistakenly, listens to him as though he were a spokesperson for the Christian view on various matters. The truth is, this particular “teacher’ has made similar unbiblical—and even unchristian—statements in the past. What this Bible teacher is now suggesting reveals a perspective that is more in keeping with the world’s: that marriage is all about satisfying my own needs, a tool in my pursuit of my own happiness. That if my spouse can no longer give me that happiness, then I can leave and find my happiness with someone else.
Just a few weeks ago I pondered the matter of “the inconvenient commitment.” I believe that this recent news reveals just how seriously we ought to consider our commitments as those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ. I observed before that there are people who “are not willing to make that kind of consistent commitment that involves inconvenient sacrifices.” Our commitment to Christ must manifest itself in how we fulfill our commitments in every area of our lives. Marriage, especially, is that one specific area where this kind of commitment must remain stable.
Scripture has some pretty straightforward teaching about commitment in marriage—it is never to be taken lightly, or to be easily discarded when things are not going the way we want it. Our commitment in marriage must reflect the same kind of commitment that Christ shows toward his bride, the church. He “loved the church, and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5.25). We can bear faithful witness to the steadfast love of Christ and what it is like through the kind of commitment that we keep in our marriage relationship … and, of course, every other area of our lives.
—Keith Y. Jainga