The Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, And "Husband Of One Wife" Controversy

©This book is copyrighted with the following provisions: (1) No part of it may be commercially reproduced for profit. (2) It may be freely reproduced for use as a study and teaching aid in not-for-profit organizations. (3) It may not be posted to another web site without our express written consent. Each case will be considered on its own merits. For questions email us at:

contact@earnestlycontendingforthefaith.com

We challenge you to read this introduction and the book all the way through. This book was 16 months in preparation. Part of the reason for the extended preparation time is because it was tightly wedged between this and church duties. It is one of the most exhaustive discussions of the subjects it treats that we have seen. This book is 208 standard typewritten pages long which equates to a standard book of 360 pages. This book deals with one of the most divisive issues in fundamentalist and Independent Baptist churches: that issue being whether a divorced man is "qualified" to serve in the offices of pastor, deacon, and elder. On the positive side, we want to thank Pastor Karl M. Baker for motivating us to study this issue through for ourselves through our reading of his book "The Marriage & Divorce Controversy With A Rebuttal Of 1 Timothy 3:2". On the negative side, the booklet "Running Unsent" by that "once married" peacock, Billy Ball, drove us to study this issue through and through convincing us that we have always been wrong on this issue since we swallowed it whole when we were first taught it. We were gut hooked by men with good intentions, but thank God we have been rescued!
It is high time that fundamentalist and Independent Baptist leaders stop beating up on Peter Ruckman concerning the issues of so-called "double married" preachers and the King James Bible and study the issues through for themselves instead of parroting the positions of "great men of God", many of whom come down on opposite sides of the issue. A primary example would be that bastion of Independent Baptist doctrine, C. I. Scofield, who was a divorced, "double married" preacher himself. To add insult to injury for the fundamentalist, he was also Dwight L. Moody's pastor. Dwight L. Moody knew Scofield was divorced and Moody was involved in calling Scofield to be his pastor. Many of you beat Peter Ruckman up as badly as you do the Roman Catholics whose marriage and divorce doctrine you teach and preach. We have repeated the same pattern in this study that we did when we studied the King James Bible issue. Our doctrine of the King James Bible was already settled before we read anything by Peter Ruckman. Ditto for our doctrine of marriage, divorce, remarriage, and “qualifications” for bishops, deacons, and elders. Many of you beat up the King James Bible much more badly than you do Peter Ruckman when it comes to marriage, divorce, remarriage, and “qualifications” for bishops, deacons, and elders, or you act like you have excommunicated the King James Bible from your study and taken up with the pope and his cardinals.
Many times when we have a particular doctrine that always runs up red flags when we try to teach them to young Christians, we just reassure them with some empty, nervous platitudes and move on without giving them an in depth scriptural, explanation to their questions. We hope they do not probe any further because we would be embarrassed if they learned we really do not know the answer when we should. We have had some of those awkward moments! Those red flags should alert us that at the very least there is some major defect in our teaching methods and study, or worse still, that we might be teaching false doctrine. Many times, those red flags are run up by the Holy Ghost. Many times we find ourselves on shaky ground because we either do not believe that which we are teaching and/or have not studied the issue through for ourselves so that the doctrines we teach are the product of deeply rooted convictions that are not the regurgitations of a parrot, but are instead the utterances of the Holy Ghost. When tried in the furnace of affliction our preferences come to the top as dross while our convictions are refined as pure gold. Concerning this issue, much of the fires we face in the furnace of affliction come from our proud Baptist brethren. Many of the men we know have doctrinal “convictions” until their doctrinal feet are put to the fires of the Scriptures then they run like scalded dogs to the shelter of what doctor so-and-so has taught them. The Holy Ghost has an uncanny knack of revealing loosely held false doctrine to us through the innocent questions of new born babes in Christ. If you cannot give a new born babe a straight answer from the Scriptures, that is the Holy Ghost warning you to study thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH. We uncritically and dangerously teach and regurgitate what we have been taught without studying the issue through for ourselves. That is why we have so many apostates and heretics in our Baptist pulpits.
One of the red flags that gets run up for new born babes is the false doctrine that they are taught concerning marriage, divorce, remarriage, and “qualifications” for bishops, deacons, and elders. When we say new born babes, we are talking about saved people here and not a bunch of professing Christians who, like many Independent Baptists, have a head full of doctrine and a heart full of hell. There is not one pastor in ten that can give you a scriptural defense from the Bible as to why they believe what they do about marriage, divorce, remarriage, and “qualifications” for bishops, deacons, and elders. They can give you one or two sentences about what they have been taught, but nothing in depth because their doctrine is as shallow as what they have been taught: one-sixteenth of an inch deep and twenty-five miles square. The same applies to the doctrines of Calvinism, the doctrine that says you can lose your salvation, and the defense of the King James Bible. Those are yet three other reasons why we have so many apostates and heretics in our Baptist pulpits.
There are many great men of God and great churches that we love that we disagree with on the issue of marriage, divorce, remarriage, and “qualifications” for bishops, deacons, and elders that either will break, or have broken fellowship with us over this issue. There are many pastors out there that will not allow a divorced man to do anything in their church but tithe. There are many pastors that will not preach for a church that allows divorced men to preach in their pulpit. There are also men out there who will break fellowship with a man who preaches in the pulpit of a pastor that allows divorced men to preach in his church. This is obviously a very emotional issue for their to be such strong reactions to it, but WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY? Again, we challenge you to read this book through and through. We also challenge you to read Brother Karl Baker's book.