Whom will you serve?

In a report on marriage in America (“Renewing Sacred Vows”), researchers Byron Johnson and W. Bradford Wilcox found that 48% of evangelicals agree that “divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can’t seem to work out their marriage problems.” That’s stunning to me! How can nearly half of individuals in evangelical churches think this? I looked up the word “evangelical” just to make sure I wasn’t assuming a different meaning. Merriam-Webster Online defines it as “being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels” or emphasizing, among other things, the “authority of Scripture.”

Clearly, evangelicals are missing some important Scriptural teaching if half of us think that divorce is okay if you’re just not getting along with your spouse. Jesus tell us very clearly in the Gospels that divorce is just plain wrong. The only exception He makes is for adultery.

Fellow evangelicals, we need to stop fooling ourselves. We have to either stop calling ourselves evangelical, change the definition of evangelical, or take Scripture seriously. We can’t have it both ways. “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD”