My cousin doesn’t know if he wants to divorce or not and I want to help him with that decision by using Bible verses. Can you help me find some?

Thank you for your courage in asking a difficult question.

I suggest you go an excellent Christian website called Bible Gateway. Go to http://www.biblegateway.com/ and enter the Keyword “divorce” into Quick Search.

Quick Search allows you to see how many times any one word (like divorce) is used in the Bible. It shows every verse where that word is used. When we plug in the word divorce, we get 33 Bible verses. That’s a lot of Bible verses!

First, if you look through all those verses, a lot of other questions and issues will pop up, and I think it would be a good thing if you used Bible Gateway with your mom or dad so that they could help you right away with other questions that might come up.

There are a couple of big ideas that come out of all these verses. Here are a few of the important ones – (1) divorce happens, even in the Bible, even with God’s people (2) there are certain times when God allows divorce Matthew 5:32 (3) God still hates it, though Malachi 2:16 (4) divorce is not God’s plan for a marriage Matthew 19:4-6.

Much of what the Bible has to say about divorce comes from the perspective that God wants the very, very best for His people. He asks His people to be holy (set apart, committed to him, different than the world) because He is holy (perfect and pure). The whole book of Leviticus (which talks about divorce a lot) can be summarized in one verse "Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy" Leviticus 19:2. So God asks for His people to live to His high standard, not the world’s standard, because He is our Creator, He loves us, and He wants the very best for us.

Since your cousin may not know what the Bible says about divorce, probably the best way you can talk to him about this is to let him know that you care about the trouble he is having in his life. By showing him that you care, you will be the light of Jesus and the love of God to him. Even if it is not possible to prevent this divorce, we can always know that no sin is too much for Jesus to forgive. And please don’t give up on him. And please continue to pray for him. Most of all, I hope that your cousin can learn about how much God loves him, and begin to make his choices based on a relationship with God.

Even though I do encourage you to know what the Bible says about divorce, and I do encourage you to connect with your cousin and share your concern about him, the responsibility for how this all ends up belongs to God. It won’t be your fault if you try to reach him and he still gets divorced. That is God’s responsiibilty. I am proud of you. I will pray for you. Keep in touch. Let me know if I can help you. Thanks for a fantastic Apple Box question.