ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses perspective, and guidance will be provided for readers as to how they might use the Bible if they wish to do so. The areas will be marriage, divorce and remarriage, the charging of interest, and human sexuality. The Bible is reticent about marriage, it is also reticent about divorce. Divorce is referred to only in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and possibly in Malachi 2:14-16 in the Old Testament. In the New Testament it is mentioned at Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:3-9, Mark 10:2-13 and 1 Corinthians 7:10-15. The background to the New Testament passages is that by the first century it had become general practice not to put to death a woman who had committed adultery but to regard the offence as a ground for divorce. As the Church expanded in the Roman Empire, it did so in a realm in which marriage and divorce were governed by civil laws and customs.
