Our blog will share 30 different Bible Contrasts that show distinctions that matter when studying God’s Word. It is important to understand this perspective or we may get confused.
We see a number of dissimilar wordings within God’s Word. Some have seen them as contradictions in the Bible. We prefer the term “contrasts.” The main reason for these differences is that God is setting forth two separate programs (intimated even in Genesis 1:1). The first deals with the earth and Israel. The other concerns the heavens and Christ’s Body Church. It was given to the Apostle Paul to lay out these differences. He is God’s “apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13).
So then we must recognize such Bible divisions if we’d truly understand God’s Word and be approved by Him (II Tim. 2:15). Then we must follow the last directives given by God through Paul as “the commandments of the Lord” for this present time (I Cor. 14:37).
Today is Part #8:
LEAVE UNBELIEVING MATE was required of Jews returning to God. He forbade His people to intermarry with Gentiles or strangers (Deut. 7:2-4; Josh. 23:11-13). But “the people of Israel…mingled themselves with the people of those lands” anyway (Ezra 9:1,2). Thus they were “punished” and could “not stand before” God (Ezra 9:10-15; Neh. 13:23-30). For restoration the congregation confessed their trespass in taking strange wives. They made “a covenant with our God to put away all [such] wives…according to the law.” They did God’s “pleasure and separate[d]” themselves “from the strange wives” (Ezra 10:1-17).
LIVE WITH UNBELIEVING MATE is God’s present rule for believers. The Gentiles are now “acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 15:16). No man is now “common or unclean” (Acts 10:28). Any believer with “a wife” or “an husband that believeth not” is commanded to “not leave him,” to “not put her away.” If the unbelieving mate “be pleased to dwell with” the believer, they are to stay together. Further, “the unbelieving” mate “is sanctified by the” believing mate (I Cor. 7:12-14).
For more information and understanding, we recommend doing the PMA “Understanding your Bible” 8 part lesson series available for free download at Free Bible Correspondence – Prison Mission Association
(These points come from Pastor David Adams, booklet, Bible Contrasts used by permission)