Divorce and Remarriage

In his final chapter Jones continues with the theme of marriage and discusses divorce and remarriage. Here Jones again brings the ideas of covenant into play while discussing the issue. It becomes apparent based on the Mosaic teaching, Jesus’ teaching and the Apostle Paul’s teachings on divorce and remarriage that there is general agreement but not absolute agreement between the three. This is how covenant helps to show the reasons for seeming differences, regardless of how small, between Moses, Jesus and Paul.

Ultimately, all three of the rules regarding remarriage and divorce have a singularly common and root issue. The rejection of the covenant of marriage. In Jesus’ teachings a man and woman can only divorce on grounds of adultery, but to Paul, a believing spouse may remarry after being left by an unbeliever. Jones asks the brilliant and helpful question here, “Why?” In the teaching of Jesus, divorce is allowed when adultery takes place, but what is adultery? Jones explains it as a willful and radical violation of the marriage covenant.  Then he moves on to the issue of abandonment of a believing spouse by a non-believer and concludes that this reason is also permitable because abandonment is a willful and radical violation of the marriage covenant. This was very helpful because, as Jones modeled throughout the book, the main goal of ethics is to determine the intention behind a command (i.e. the root issue at stake) and then form Biblically shaped positions based on that reasoning.

In all I really enjoyed Jones’ book, it was certainly much more of a book about forming Biblical ethics rather than using biblical ethics to resolve ethical problems. Jones spent almost no time on the issues of homosexuality, abortion, the environment or the evils of capitalism. But what he did do was argue for, explain, defend and teach a method which allows one to form biblical views on said positions and for that I am grateful. I would much rather be shown and taught a way to understanding rather than simply given a list of things that I should approve or disapprove of. So in that respect, Jones’ book was both highly practical, pastoral and helpful. It was a pleasure to read and interact with. I recommend it highly.

Marriage and the Family

Jones’ eighth chapter is concerned with “Marriage and Family” but not in the strictly individual sense, but rather in the family as a social structure.

Jones establishes that the entirety of Scripture and even throughout all cultures and times, the family is understood to be the basic social structure. It is through this basic social structure that Jones believes Christians can be both a witness and an agent of transformation towards the culture. Because of this, Jones sets out some basic Christian understandings of the family.

In doing this, Jones decides to first look at the Christian marriage as a covenant. He claims that the bond of male and female into a marriage is the creational mandate for marriage. As in other ancient covenants, the man and woman bind themselves to one another and even take on specific blessings and curses to an extent (i.e. for better or for worse). The covenant of marriage is an unconditional “royal grant” covenant in the sense that each person is giving themselves to the other and promising to never leave or forsake the other, “until death.”

He also takes a great deal of time discussing the roles within marriage, explaining that men and women have different but complimentary roles that are ordained by God. This of course is coming at things from a complimentarian viewpoint but I found this section to be very well written explaining that for men and women to have different God-ordained roles does not mean that in order for Christians to have a biblical marriage, they must be hardworking men and housekeeping women. This is not the point of complimentarianism in the eyes of Jones. To say that men and women have different roles is simply to point out the differences in genetics and function that a husband and wife have together.

Ultimately what Jones calls Christian couples to is a loving and life-long marriage in which they love each other well, have children who they love and raise in the Lord. By doing this, Jones’ argues that Christians will be able to transform and witness to the fallenness of the world at its very fundamental social level. To say that I enjoyed this chapter would be an understatement. In reality, this chapter actually made me think about what type of husband and father I would like to be someday.

The Resolution of Moral Conflicts

Jones titles his seventh chapter, “The Resolution of Moral Conflicts.” The chapters purpose is more of a “how to” resolve moral conflicts rather than a chapter resolving all moral conflicts. Jones goes through the many different types of ethical systems which offer ways to deal with these moral dilemmas. The first he examines is consequentialism.

In this system, “an act is right if it is intended to produce a greater balance of good over evil than any available option.” Jones describes current views on consequentialism and its close relation to utilitarianism. He interestingly notes that consequentialism claims to do away with moral dilemmas but in reality it only propagates them. The fundamental aspect of consequentialism is attempting to do the most good in each situation, not only for the individual but also for all of humanity. Jones correctly points out that, “One could never be sure of doing the right thing if it depended upon a balance of good over evil weighed in such a scale.” Jones therefore concludes that consequentialism is not the method one should take in resolving moral conflicts because it is impossible to know precisely what action will produce the most good. I found this to be very persuasive. Although I often use a consequential lens to consider what the right thing to do is, I had never considered my incredibly underwhelming knowledge of the consequences.

The second system is described by Jones as “Tragic Morality,” which is the theory more popularly known as “the lesser of two evils.” He cites J.I. Packer accepting this reality which states that in a fallen world, people are sometimes faced with a choice between two sinful options and the least sinful one must be chosen. He also cites John Warwick Montgomery as using a situation where you are faced with the decision to kill a sniper in order to save the lives of his victims. However, Jones points out that Montgomery is makes the mistake of assuming that the taking of human life is always wrong. Jones argues that to take a life in order to bring about public justice or the like is in no way wrong.

Jones eventually goes on to note that the incorrect assumption behind this model is that it makes sin necessary in some situations. In fact, Jones argues, “To hold that in a fallen world situations arise that make sin unavoidable renders the example of Jesus meaningless, for either he sinned…or else he never faced a really tough moral situation, and so was not tested at all points like us.” I found this to be very compelling. In either situation, there is much lost from the obedience and righteousness of Jesus and that is something no one wants to cause.

Jones moves on to critiquing “hierarchicalism” and “prima facie duties” in the next section. In spite of helpful things in both, Jones ultimately rejects them as still setting up systems in which sin is inevitable in certain circumstances. This brings Jones to his solution to these rejected systems. He argues for what he calls “case analysis,”  which he defines as, “the careful, devout effort to discover by reflection and discussion, the right course of action in typical circumstances.” This system claims to look to the whole of Scripture and the context of laws within the larger story of redemption to determine what is right or wrong in a given case. This I found to be very helpful because it looks to all of Scripture and shows that there are times in which we can look toward the motive of a law, or redemptive context of a command, in order to understand its application today.