Divorce in the Bible

Though the controversy has died down, last month saw a bit of a firestorm ignite over the Bible's view of divorce when Christianity Today devoted their cover and a 4-page article to the issue of divorce.

In summary, the author David Instone-Brewer argues that the Bible gives us four grounds for divorce that make it acceptable in God's eyes: adultery, abandonment (the two traditional grounds), abuse and neglect (emotional or physical).

I found out about it at a staff meeting last month when we spent about an hour talking about it. Within a couple days, I saw posts about it on blogs and responses to the article by such prominent evangelicals as John Piper (which, by the way, Dr. Instone-Brewer responded to here), Al Mohler (click here to a page where you can download his radio show on this topic) and Andreas Kostenberger (here and here).

I wanted to make you aware of this ongoing debate, which though it seems to me at least that it's died down in our circles, has gained national attention thanks to a new article about it in Time Magazine online here.