Why Divorce?

As far as I can tell, divorce is the only thing in scriptures that God hates, then turns around and allows us to do it.  

Think about this,

God hates divorce, all divorces, all the time.  (Malachi 2)

Yet we have several passages where Jesus, Paul, or someone else allows divorce as a very real option for certain problems.  

So here we have God, laying out the groundwork and letting us do this thing that he hates so much.  

Why?  

For all the other things God hates (see Proverbs 6) he doesn't give us some loophole to perform those actions.  It's just simply, "don't do that."  

For the longest time I thought to myself, "why not just make divorce wrong all the time?" 

We don't have any red letters that tell us "divorce is wrong, always, just go ahead and never ever divorce."  

The problem I was dealing with lied in the fact that I found this rather inconsistent of God.  

But the problem wasn't God, it was me.  Or rather, the problem is "us."  

Matthew 19 is an incredible chapter.  The kind of "sweet spot" of the ministry of Jesus.  The Transfiguration had just happened and now he's really into the heart of his ministry, which is now in its prime.  He's got huge crowds, huge miracles, huge followers, and he gets hit with huge questions.  

The Pharisees, who are trying to trick Jesus, ask him, "Is it lawful for a man to send his wife away for any and every reason?"  

He tells them the part in Genesis that says "What God has joined let no man separate."  

"Ah yes," they reply, "well then why did Moses allow men to deliver certificates of divorce to their wives?'  

Jesus reply is a stabbing reply, not just for them at that time, but for all of us.  He said, to paraphrase, "Moses allowed you divorce because your hearts are hard, it wasn't supposed to be like that in the beginning."  

Basically saying, "divorce exists because you are all bad people."  

The laws of marriage exist, but they don't automatically make us good at marriage.  And thousands of years ago when Moses was given laws for his people God understood something.

Some people are still going to hurt each other, they'll still lie, cheat, slander, and mislead.  

I know a therapist who has a phrase framed in his office, it says "The God who Wastes Nothing."  

He can use everything to his will, even when someone breaks apart something he joined together.