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Tough Love, Church Discipline, and the Departing Wife
Church discipline is definitely a process given to the church and excommunication is the final step of discipline. The Scriptures offer very explicit guidelines for determining who qualifies for discipline and how the process must be worked out. However, a wife who has left her husband does not biblically qualify for expulsion. The Word is very clear about that.
God devised church discipline
as a means of motivating immoral, heretical, and divisive people to
repent, and to keep the church uncontaminated by them. He addresses
this issue in multiple passages. For further study, consider Mat
18:15-17; 7:3-5; 1 Cor 5:1-13; 2 Th 3:6; 1 Tim 1:19-20; 2 Tim
4:14-18; 2 John 1:10-11; Rom 16:17; Titus 3:10; 2 Cor 2:6; 13:10;
Gal 6:1; 2 Th 3:6, 14-15; 2 John 1:10; Heb 13:17; Tit 3:10.
(For a concise study on Church Discipline click here.) Among all
these texts God did not include wayward wives in the category of
those deserving of discipline. (Instead, in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 we
see that God gives specific instructions to wives contemplating
divorce or separation. He tells them that they are not to leave
their husbands, but if they do, they are to remain single or return
to their marriage. 1 Cor 7:10 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 must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
So it is very clear that God tolerates divorce or separation between Christian couples. He doesn’t want it, but it is tolerable and therefore is not grounds for church discipline. At this point a man may insist that it is not her separation that prompts him. He wants to pursue discipline because his wife has spoken ill of him to others – he wants her disciplined for slander or gossip. Or maybe, before she left, she complained too much about finances, so he wants her disciplined for covetousness. Or possibly she withheld herself in the marriage bed, so he wants her disciplined for violation of 1 Corinthians 7:3-5. A man so intent on coercing his wife should have little hope of motivating her to return. How then is an earnest Christian man to relate with his wayward wife, especially if he is convinced he has given her no cause to forsake him? If a forsaken husband may not shun his wife to coerce her to return, how can he influence her? The answer to this will require that a man understand his wife. The apostle Peter told us that a man must live with his wife in an understanding way (1 Pet 3:7 NASB). Paul said that love abounds in depth of insight (Phil 1:9). If a man can understand why his wife left him, it will help him know how to reach out to her. This will require that a man examine himself to determine what reason he’s given her to leave and then express love to her just as God did to Israel when they forsook Him for idols. If a man hopes to draw his wife back to himself he can be sure that she will only be drawn to someone whom she feels loves her.
How did God treat Israel when they were unfaithful? To illustrate his mercy to Israel, God spoke to the Old Testament prophet Hosea and told him to marry a loose woman (Gomer). When Gomer left Hosea to live with a lover, God told Hosea to financially support her while she was in the adulterous relationship. God was illustrating through Hosea the depth of His love for His people and was modeling how a man of good character treats his unfaithful wife. This was especially intriguing because under Old Testament law God prescribed that adulterers be executed. (If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. Lev 20:10). God chose mercy over justice. So how does a man of noble character treat an unfaithful woman? In the New Testament there is another beautiful example of a man of noble character with what he thought was an unfaithful wife. When her supposed sin was exposed, he protected her honor and shielded her from receiving what she deserved. You may have guessed – it was Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father who sought to protect Mary’s reputation when he found her to be pregnant. By law, Joseph could have had Mary stoned, but instead he sought to put her away quietly (Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. Mat 1:19) As a betrothed, pregnant woman, Mary deserved not to be divorced, but to be executed for her supposed “crime” of adultery. However, as the text tells us, because he was so righteous, Joseph wasn’t going to do what the law dictated. He wasn’t in violation of the law -- he was like God and chose to exercise mercy rather than justice. By his example, Joseph teaches us that a man of noble character will choose to honor his wife and protect her reputation over adherence to the law. Just as a man of noble character does not allow his wife to be seen naked in public, he does not expose his wife’s failings – he covers them. If she bounces the checkbook, he allows the bank to believe he did it. If she loses her car key, and he needs to have a new one made at the key shop, he doesn’t let on that his wife was the cause of the problem. He doesn’t protect his own reputation at the expense of hers – even when she is at fault. How did Jesus deal with the woman who was caught in adultery? Under the law, she deserved execution. There was no legal provision for exemption, even for repentant adulterers. Jesus didn’t refute the law, but neither did he insist that she get what she had coming to her. He chose to forgive her even without asking if she testified of repentance. Like he showed us through his death on the cross, his mercy preceded her repentance (Rom 2:4; 5:8-10). John 8:10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11 "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." The man who wants to subject his wife to discipline, must determine – what would Hosea, Joseph, or Jesus do in your situation? The man who has exposed his wife’s failings and attempted to subject her to discipline, should ask himself – Now that I have exposed her sins to the world, does she feel safer with me?
To finish this article, read the balance at The Controlling Wife. _____________________________________________________________________________________________
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