Ask the Pastors S8 E10: “What constitutes ‘porneia’ as biblical grounds for divorce (Mt 5:32)?”

(00:03):

Welcome to Ask the Pastors, a segment of the West Hills podcast where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host and one of the pastors. Today I'm joined by our lead pastor, Will.

(00:21):

That's me.

(00:23):

And we are without Thad today. We're

(00:24):

Thadalis.

(00:25):

Thadless. Got a big and important question. Lots of good questions submitted. Appreciate all of those questions that have been submitted. Appreciate this one from Jacob and Lauren who wrote, "What is West Hills interpretation of Pornea foregrounds in divorce?" Specifically, they wrote, just for context, quarter one, 2026 member meeting.

(00:54):

Yeah. So first of all, thanks so much for the question. Jacob and Lauren, not just from them either. I got this question from those who attended that quarterly all church meeting back in March. May remember Anna also asking this question

(01:15):

Aloud actually in the meeting when I gave time for follow-up questions. And it came in the context and her question on it last month came in the context of we were voting as a church to remove one of our members from our membership role and in giving context for the decision to do that. And in the explanation of the context, had mentioned that this was a couple who have had a lot of struggles in marriage for many years, and that she felt at the end of her tired and wants a divorce. And I think I mentioned in that meeting, scripture is very clear. Jesus is very clear. So let me just go ahead and read the two passages that are most relevant here. Matthew 5:32, Jesus says, "I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, that's the Greek word pornea, except on the ground of pornea, that's Jacob and Lauren's question, makes her commit adultery.

(02:52):

And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Similarly, later in Matthew 19: nine, Jesus says," And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality, except for Pornea, and marries another, commits adultery. "And so I'd mentioned in that member's meeting that this wife is pursuing divorce against her husband, both of them members of West Hills at the time, and that we had met with her individually, with him, individually, with both of them as a couple, and that we, to the best of our discernment as the elders, leaders of the church, she did not have biblical grounds for pursuing this divorce. And by biblical grounds, what we mean is Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19: nine do not seem to be in place here because again, to the best of our discernment, this is not a husband, a man who has committed pornea.

(04:02):

Now that brings up the question, well, what is sexual immorality? What is pornea? And so, in other words, what would constitute grounds for divorce? There's a second category of biblical grounds for divorce that Paul mentions in one Corinthians seven about abandonment, desertion by an unbelieving spouse. And some will lump abuse in with that. We're not going to go there right now. For the purposes of this conversation, let's just keep it in the box of pornea and what Jesus means by that. And so, or again, what we interpret Jesus means by that. So that's the context. And let's see, a couple things that I want to make sure I say upfront in trying to go about answering the question. I mean, first thing maybe it's worth saying is the Combs are asking for West Hill's official interpretation. I want to just say on the front end of this, that we have not published a position paper as an elder council that we then ran by the church for a vote for inclusion in our constitution, something like that.

(05:37):

So this is not official in that sense. I mean, I am the lead pastor of the church.

(05:50):

So take that authority for what it's worth in terms of sort of staking official policies for the church on things at the same time. And I will say too though, that we did in the wake of that quarterly meeting last month, we did actually discuss it as an elder council. And so I think that what I'm going to share in this podcast is a pretty fair digestion and conveyance of what the consensus amongst our elder council seems to be. And even with that said, I will say that probably what I'm going to say, I'm pretty confident going back to even our theological triage episodes from recent weeks here on the podcast, I'm pretty sure that what I'm going to say will be at odds with some folks' views, even within our own church. Some of the members of our church will hear what I'm going to say and say, "That sounds too way too conservative." Others are going to hear it and say, "That sounds way too wishy-washy." So that's fine.

(07:02):

That's usually where I like to be anyway, is kind of in the middle equal opportunity offender. But I mean, mainly where I want to be is in the truth and accuracy, biblical accuracy. So that's what we're going to strive for. But just other things that are saying at the beginning of this maybe ... Well, no, let me back up and let me start by giving a little bit of context for the word that Matthew uses here in both those passages, Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19: nine. In both cases, Matthew is, again, using the word pornea in the Greek.

(07:48):

It is the word from which our English word pornography is derived. So take that for what it is. Now, some people will try and make an argument, a case out of that, not a very good argument, just there's all sorts of word etymologies that are related, but I mean, this is not a good argument. So in terms of, if we're answering the question of, for instance, is pornography use in marriage, would that be ... And we'll get to that question. So I'm just saying that you can't just map the Greek word pornea onto the English word pornography, and because it's derived from that, therefore ... And make that kind of a direct line. So

• Read more

  (08:42):

  Pornea in Matthew's context in a first century Greco-Roman context was a generic term translated in my ESV Bible as sexual immorality, translated in I think the King James' fornication, translated in other translations as infidelity or sexual infidelity. So you get a range of different ... And English translations, obviously the important thing is that the connotation of the Greek. Pornea, if you were to read other first century source documents, porneya can refer to everything from adultery in the classical sense to fornication, sex, just any kind of premarital sex, let's say, outside of marriage, not in the context of marriage, it can refer to often to incest, to obestiality, a whole range of sex with prostitutions, especially of sexual deviation or deviancy, or just out of boundsness, sexual out of boundsness.

  (09:59):

  So again, there's a range. And so when Jesus says, except on cases of this, the question then becomes, okay, well, where in that gray area, where in that range does Jesus have in mind? Let me just further add for context in this conversation, keep in mind, oh, by the way, Jesus wasn't speaking Greek. This is Matthew, probably 40 or 50 years, maybe after Jesus even said this, that Matthew is now writing it down and translate into Greek. What Jesus would have said, presumably in Aramaic was the common lingua franca of Jesus' day amongst first century, Jesus and Palestine. They spoke some Hebrew in religious settings and stuff, but I mean, Jesus probably ... So I don't even know what the Aramaic word that Jesus presumably might have used, but again, we'd be guessing because we don't have the transcript of the sermon. We have Matthew from years later, again, doing his best to ... And we're, again, I believe in biblical inerrancy, like we're taking Matthew at his word.

  (11:11):

  And so Matthew is, we believe faithfully rendering Jesus' words. I just add that to say,

  (11:20):

  Jesus didn't speak Greek that we know of and probably wasn't speaking Greek when he said ... So Jesus probably didn't say this word. So again, those of us who are biblical and errantists are going to get real caught up on, oh my gosh, Porneo, we got to figure out what it means. And yeah, we should because all scripture is God breathed and that's the best we got. That's the closest we got to what Jesus said, but it's not even what he said. He said something in Aramaic. So just keep that in mind. We're reading an English translation of a Greek translation of an Aramaic phrase. The other thing, so many other caveats that need to be said in this, that even we're talking about in what cases is divorce permissible. I mean, that's the, again, what Greek Matthew says here is everyone who divorces a wife, except on the grounds of Pornea, makes her commit adultery.

  (12:37):

  And so in what cases would divorce be permissible? But again, I think it's worth pointing out that because it's permissible, it doesn't mean that it's advisable, doesn't mean that it's recommended our best. I mean, I do think there are cases when divorce is not only permissible, but when me, in my own, just using my own best pastoral wisdom and discernment of the specific situation would say, "Divorce is not only permissible here, but I think it's best." I think it's ... And I say that as someone who, victim of parents' divorce and I hate divorce probably as much as almost anyone other than God, God hates divorce, God loves marriage, hates divorce. And yet, there's a reason that these two categories of pornea and then abandonment are in there, are biblical and that God makes this, again, so- called ... You sometimes hear this called the exception clause or the exception clauses, the first Corinthians seven, Matthew 5:19, 5:19, the exception clauses for divorce.

  (14:07):

  But even then, just to say from the start, always has to be said whenever we have this conversation, which is a lot, is that just because permissible doesn't mean it's recommended or best.

  (14:22):

  So because pornea is a broad generic term in the Greek referring to a whole range, let me just maybe continue to talk around it and set the stage a little bit by saying, by giving some kind of two ends of a spectrum of interpretation then, one camp of Christians would interpret it and say, look at this and say, even in context, I mean, maybe they do have somewhat of a point here in saying, "Let's look at Matthew five in particular in context that Jesus has just said someone on the mount, Jesus has just said, you've heard it was said, you shall not commit adultery." Same word in Greek. Let me double check that. I've got my Greek Bible. Oh, shoot. I have Matthew 19 pulled up. Hold on. Let me pull up Matthew five, the Greek Bible here, verse ... What was that? 27 I said, right?

  (15:27):

  Yes, you've heard that it was said, you should not commit adultery. Yeah, same word. Moi Kiyosais commit adultery, the same word that he's going to use in verse 32, our verse when he says that if anyone divorces wife except on grounds of pornea, sexual immorality, causes her to moik you then I commit adultery and same thing, whoever, if he divorces her and remarries, he commits adultery, moiatai, all different declinchions of the same verb for to commit adultery, which is.

  (16:11):

  And so

  (16:16):

  Jesus could have used ... Some people like to translate these verses as anyone who gets divorced except in the case of adultery causes his wife to be an adulterers. And the problem with that kind of a translation, a very conservative, let's say, or narrow understanding translation of the word pornnea as adultery. And so some will want to define pornea very narrowly as marital infidelity, adultery. So as long as I don't go have sexual intercourse, like penetration with another woman while I'm married to my wife kind of thing, like very narrow. And again, part of the problem with that, a couple things. Number one, we could probably do a word study of that Greek word I just mentioned, Moikeo of adultery to say, "Well, does that even just refer so narrowly to just sexual intercourse with someone while you're married da, da, da?" And because then you can get into emotional affairs and whatever else.

  (17:45):

  But the bigger problem is that Matthew intentionally in his remembrance of what Jesus said, uses two different words. He doesn't say whoever divorces accepting cases of adultery makes their spouse commit adultery. He doesn't conflate and use the same two words. He uses pornea first, unless there's pornea, then you cause her to commit adultery. And so there's two different words there. So I don't think we can understand pornea that narrowly. And again, some people do that and maybe well-meaning or maybe trying to justify. Like for instance, if I was a chronic pornography user and I didn't want to live with the guilt and shame of like, my wife has biblical grounds to divorce me because I'm committing pornea all the time, then it might be better for me to feel like I'm not, at least I'm not guilty. I haven't given her grounds to divorce me.

  (18:47):

  Okay. But I'm saying that we can't define it that narrowly because Jesus doesn't use the same word in Greek or Matthew doesn't.

  (18:56):

  On the other end of the spectrum now, let's say very, very broad interpretation of pornea and really let's say threatening the ... Or let's say really throwing wide open the doors, the gates for permissibility of divorce would be a very broad interpretation of porneya that does account for any kind of sexual out of boundness. And again, that's where I started to make this explanation is looking at Matthew five in context, you've got verses 27:28 where Jesus, looking back on the Old Testament, law of Moses and says, "You've heard it was said, you shall not commit adultery." But I say to you ... So the passage that we're talking about Matthew 5:32 is right after this, where Jesus is doing the same thing with divorce. And he says, "You've heard it was said in the law, whoever divorces his wife, give her a certificate or divorce.

  (20:01):

  At least do it the right way by the law." And Jesus saying, "No, no, no, you don't get divorced except for Menea, except for this exception, pornea." But he's saying, "God hates divorce. Don't get divorced." That was only because of your hearts of heart that God made some allowance for divorce back then. But before that, just before that, Jesus has done the same thing with adultery itself. And he says, "You've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery." All right, sixth commandment, don't commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone, sorry, seventh commandment, right? Sixth is murder. I think seventh is ... Yeah. "I say to you, because fifth is honor your father and mother, I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, better that then your whole body gets thrown in hell." Okay, so some people will even look at it at the divorce thing in context and say, "Well, look at what Jesus has just said about lust." And some people will go so far as to say that pornea, I mean, Jesus is really ratcheting up

  (21:17):

  And

  (21:18):

  Heightening the bar of, again, what moral perfection is. I use this passage all the time and explaining the gospel on Sundays, Matthew 5:48, the very end of the chapter, what Jesus builds to is, "You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." He's saying, "You think you're pretty good under the law of Moses? You're not. You're not good.You're certainly not good enough to earn heaven on your own. You need me. " That's the point of Matthew five. So that's what he's doing here. But again, going back to our discussion, some are going to look at this and say with porneya, they're going to say he doesn't use the word pornea in verses 27 through 30, whoever looks at a woman with lustful intent. Let me make sure that I didn't just lie, go back to my great Bible.

  (22:13):

  You've heard it said, you should not commit adultery. That's the moikeo. However, I say to you everyone who looking at a woman with lust, yep, that's epithemisi. So already committed adultery, same word, tear your eye out. Yeah. So he doesn't use the same word porneya, but some will say, look, Jesus raises the bar so high that even to look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've effectively committed adultery, which is already a step beyond whatever generic version pornea is. So therefore, now the problem with that is if that's really what Jesus is saying, and that's how we should read that, then literally every marriage that exists is divorceable. I mean, hey, there are biblical grounds, frankly, in both ways. I mean, show me a husband or wife, neither one of whom, or even one of whom who is never lusted after anyone who's not their spouse that they're married to, I don't think you'll find them.

  (23:29):

  So that would mean that Jesus is saying, "Well, every marriage is filled with some degree of pornia, therefore all marriages are really ... Anybody is biblically justified in getting divorced from their spouse." And I for sure don't think that's what he's saying, because again, in context, in both those passages of Matthew five and Matthew 19, what Jesus is saying is marriage is really important. Don't just do it willy-nilly. Like people are getting divorced left and right, and even the Pharisees and their religious, scrupulous understanding of their own oral traditions of the law were saying, "Oh yeah, God's fine with divorce. As long as you got a certificate, we'll give you your certificate, whatever." And Jesus is saying, "No, stop it. Stop getting divorced." God hates divorce. There's only this one time when ... And so it wouldn't make sense for Jesus to say, "Oh, here's the one escape patch for marriage, and oh, by the way, it applies to everyone." That just doesn't make sense.

  (24:42):

  He's clearly referring to something rather specific that really would only apply in a minority of marriages, I think. And so for all those reasons, let me now try and start to actually lay out my own position on this, and to the extent that the other elders have agreed with me, and we were counseling a couple coming and sitting for pastoral counsel on something like this, this is kind of where we ... It's somewhere in between, somewhere in between the very narrow, just unless you do this, X, Y, and Z, very specifically, you don't have grounds for divorce, but on the other hand, oh yeah, pretty much everybody has grounds for divorce. No, it's neither of those things. I think it's somewhere in the middle. And so the way I, and I think we would understand Pornea in this context would be characterized by persistent, unrepentant, and/or egregious marriage covenant violating sexual immorality.

  (26:07):

  So let me try and unpack that. On the one hand, let me start with the maybe easier, the marriage covenant violating egregiousness. So if your spouse was convicted of, God forbid, I mean, let me just go the super extreme version of raping children, let's say.

  (26:46):

  I think that no matter how much repentance or changing of heart, I mean, again, I really believe God can redeem, forgive anything except the unforgivable sin. And so God can forgive and what a testimony that would be.

  (27:11):

  I mean,

  (27:12):

  Gosh, if God gave you the strength to be able to forgive something like that and rebuild trust, but at the same time, I think there are levels of egregiousness and heinousness in sin such that ... Or maybe let's make it even more personal. We've got a young lady that's been around our church for a while now that was raped by her own husband. So now we're not even talking about violating the marriage covenant in terms of going outside the marriage, but we're talking about the violation being done to you personally. I mean, I cannot imagine the amount of trust that's broken there in a marriage. And so in a case like that, if that girl's coming to me and saying, "Do I have grounds for divorce?" I would say even if that man seems to be repentant and I'll never do it again, whatever, I would say that is an offense that is so personal and heinous and traumatic that at the very least, I'm going to use the word permissible, that I would say that, I think that that's a wife that has grounds for divorce because of the violation that's been done to the marriage covenant union that's supposed to exist between them.

  (28:53):

  If not recommended, certainly if the man is not repentant, does not show fruit of genuine repentance like grief, sorrow, not just over being caught or this or that, punishment, but over like, "I cannot believe I did that. I was drunk. I'll never drink again." I don't know, but certainly if there's no repentance, like in that case, you need to leave this person. This is not safe. I'm going to advise divorce. Now, let me go ... I'm losing track of my thought. So that's the heinousness egregiousness argument where I would say, if you're raping kids, raping your own wife, there's certain ... And it might not even need to be that egregious or heinous to be grounds for, yeah, I think God is okay with you getting divorced here. And again, by the way, I'm a person, I'm a human trying to discern the mind of God based on his word and his spirit.

  (29:57):

  That's all I've got, but it's a lot. And it's all any of us have, and it's a lot. And so we're doing the best we can.

  (30:06):

  And so now the second case though that's probably even more relevant and certainly common is not so much the heinousness of the sin. And again, in a case like that, I would personally put adultery, even a one night stand kind of physical sexual adultery. If God forbid I went out and slept with some other woman tonight, I think even once, and I immediately regret it, whatever, I think I would personally say that that is such a violation of that to become oneness, union, sacredness of the marriage covenant that if, again, in that case, not like you have to divorce will, but it would be at least permissible that if my wife, even with repentance and marriage counseling and whatever, if she was just like, "I just can't get over the fact that what he's done there," I would say that that's a permissible divorce because even that adultery is heinous enough in that regard.

  (31:47):

  Now let's look at, consider other cases of clear sexual out of boundness that might not rise to the same level of heinousness. And again, I don't feel like I want to do the whole justifying, because I'm using words like egregious heinous. All sins are not the same. I had a whole podcast episode on that, so you can go listen to that separate one. They're not the same. Pornography is not the same as adultery. That's not even what Jesus is doing in Matthew five when he says that. So anyway, just to get that out of the way. So now let's consider, talk about categories of sin that are less heinous and egregious.

  (32:33):

  But this is where I had that second in my definition of when is divorce permissible in cases of either egregious, just almost irredeemable kind of, not from God forgiving, but from a marriage recovering violations of that category one. Category two is persistent unrepentant sexual immorality. So let's talk about pornography. I mean, that's the most common test case here because it's so ubiquitous. The stats are something like 70% of men in the church, regular church attending men have viewed pornography in the last month, 70%. I mean, just let that soak in for a minute. Over two thirds of men who are in church almost every Sunday are also on their computer looking at porn at least once a month. So you can see how relevant this question is all of a sudden where it's like, whoa. If that's pornea, certainly I don't think I need a whole podcast to justify and back up biblically the case that we shouldn't be looking at pornography, that that's sexually out of bounds, that would fit within a generic Greek pornea sexual out of boundness.

  (34:23):

  But then the question becomes how much? I mean, because to just get really practical, I mean, you can hardly watch a TV show or a movie anymore without stumbling upon what could probably be considered pornography.

  (34:47):

  So a husband that stumbles upon, a husband that stumbles upon and the sinful part of him is drawn to it. So later when his wife's in bed, he pulls it back up and rewatches it a couple times and then realizes what he doing and shuts the computer and goes to bed, feels bad about it, tells her the next morning, "Does she have grounds for divorce?" The husband who does that and then masturbates, the husband who does that and then does it again the next night and then the next ... So there's a spectrum here of how much engagement with the sexual out of boundness are we talking about? And at what point does it cross a line into the realm of, okay, this is so violated, this marriage covenant that this wife, or flip the tables because women are increasingly right there with, I think it's 31% of porn hub subscribers are women.

  (35:44):

  So in either direction, but at what point does the spouse, is the spouse able to say like, "This is no longer a marriage because you have so violated what we said we were signing up for when we got married

  (36:07):

  To become one." And your engagement with this other form of sexual out of boundness has so marred and distorted and perverted and separated and driven a wedge in between our oneness that now it just feels like we're two again, want to become two. And so therefore I ... So that is a massive question to answer. And here's my totally unsatisfying answer to the question of where that line lies, is that I cannot give you a black and white line in the sand for that. There are just so many variables of frequency of intensity of the sexual outboundness, of the heart posture during and after, and trying to gauge repentance, the activeness versus passiveness of engaging in the recovery battle. I mean, there's just so ... As a marker, a tangible sign of repentance, are you just sort of paying lip service or are you going to essay meetings and are you checking in a recovery group?

  (37:35):

  Have you found a sponsor? So I mean, there's just so many things, variables that it ... And I think here's my, again, probably unsatisfying take on is that I kind of want and have to believe that Jesus intentionally left the actual application of this so- called exception clause for divorce that vague and broad for us intentionally. I mean, Jesus didn't do anything by accident, but I believe Jesus knew we were going to be having this podcast and this conversation 2000 years later, and I believe he wanted it that way. And here's where I'm going to make the case for why you need to be a member of the church and why you need pastors.

  (38:30):

  This could feel self-serving to say that of course, and toot our own horns, Brian, but this is why you need pastors and why you need elders because I believe that God has given it to the church and in particular to the leaders of the church to help shepherd the flock through these kinds of really heavy, weighty, massive implications for my personal, practical, everyday life decisions. If you are a wife out there listening to this and your husband has confessed to you a week ago that he fell off the horse again and got back into porn again. And the last time he confessed that was 18 months ago and it had been going on for six months at the time. This time it's been going on for three months. And I'm just painting a hypothetical, but like, at what point, how many slip-ups, how many confessions, how much time in between of, wait, you were doing it for how long and before you confessed and that ... So now everything that you told me in those three months feels like a lie.

  (39:52):

  I mean, at what level of the trust being broken is a wife, again, justified in saying, "I just can't trust you. I feel like this wedge is too big between us." These are, again, just massive decisions that sadly in a fallen world that believers are going to have to make. But again, my plug for coming to your past is like, you don't have to make them on your own because God has given you pastors and elders and churches to come alongside you and to be yet another source of God revealing his truth to you through the Holy Spirit that lives in them. And so that's my totally ... So here, let me just maybe finish unless I come up with something else that ... I've talked long enough. Let me finish by reading you a much shorter summary of the email that I sent to Anna after she asked this exact question at our quarterly meeting.

  (41:05):

  So I emailed her back and said, "Wanted to follow up with you on your pornea question from Sunday's meeting. First of all, I appreciate you asking it. It's a very important point of clarification that is important for any church to have clarity and consensus on when applying the text." The short answer to the question, "Does pornea only refer to adultery as no?" Matthew 5:32 makes that clear by Jesus' use of a separate specific word for adultery, but intentional choice of pornea to refer to a broader category of sexual sins. So the question remains, how should we understand pornea and particularly when a divorce may be considered biblically justified? And I believe the answer to that question is it depends. It depends on the specifics of the circumstances. We have to leave room for wisdom, discernment, especially amongst the elders of the church as the overseers shepherds based on the guidance of the scriptures and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

  (42:03):

  That answer will surely be unsatisfying for many who would like something more black and white and put it in stone and universal, but I think God purposely doesn't give us that in his word. That said, as I do think he offers us some pretty good guidelines and guardrails. I've included a few articles below for you that are in line with my own thinking on the matter and to the best of my discernment, the rest of our elders at this church as well, after we've discussed it, so I hope these help. And then I offered, if she had follow-up questions, wanted to talk more, but then I sent her a couple articles from Nine Marks and the Gospel Coalition and basically saying in a much more cohesive and short, concise and comprehensible way, all the things that I've kind of talked in circles around for the last however long it's been, 30, 40 minutes.

  (42:57):

  So I hope that's ... What did I leave out though, Brian? I mean, what am I- Oh,

  (43:03):

  That's good. Good question. Great summary of that. You had just said, correct me if I misheard, Pornea did you say it is not just adultery? Is that how you said it?

  (43:15):

  Correct.

  (43:16):

  Could you maybe say a little bit more maybe for me, for the listener, also that might be a little confused by that. What else would be, I guess, spiritual infidelity?

  (43:27):

  Well, in a Greco-Roman context, again, you're talking bestiality, incest, you're talking rape, you're talking fornication, sex, premarital sex. So I mean, things that we might consider even worse than just adultery, maybe, depending on ... But if you're asking about things that also might be included that we wouldn't consider as bad as adultery, but still out of bounds. Again, even divining pornography, right? It's like that famous- Congressman, you know it when you see it kind of thing. I mean, is that really it? Do you have to see private parts or is sexually stimulating content that ... I mean, if a husband's, "Well, she's still got a bathing suit on, but in his mind, there's lust, he's masturbating, whatever it is, it's like, I mean, I don't think any of us are going to argue, oh, that's okay." Or even, again, even if short of ... So where to draw that line, I will say this because you asked about, I do think that, and I could be wrong, I don't think I am.

  (44:59):

  Maybe I'd have to do even more research. I do think that inherent in the use of the word pornea is the implication of sex, of things of a sexual nature. So for instance, now even the lines there get blurred, right? Like when does an emotional affair, is it ever only really emotional, like this deep friendship with this woman at work that I feel like I connect with even on a closer, more intimate, personal kind of heart level than I do with my wife? Really? Does it not cross into the sexual ... And what is sexual? We know what sex is maybe, but sexual, the adjective is even more ... A lot of people are going to use the word sexual to refer to just passion and just like ... It's not just a bodily organ to organ kind of contact kind of thing. It's like, no, it is the intimate kind of deep part of you connecting.

  (46:05):

  So yeah, I'm trying to give more context to your question too of like, okay, yeah.

  (46:17):

  And without even needing ... Again, maybe I should say this, like whether or not Jesus had emotional affairs in mind when he was saying the word pornea, or he didn't say the word, in Matthew 199, Matthew 5:32, I don't think he smiles on it. I think we can look at elsewhere in scripture and say whether or not that would fall underneath the category of or flirting. I mean, is that harmless? I don't think that's a good thing. I don't think any of us probably think that Jesus is like, "Well, a little flirting and you get the heart rate, you get the dopamine you're looking for. " Using some other person other than your spouse to elicit that kind of a response from you, I don't think anybody's going to argue it's a good thing. Whether or not that, again, would fall under the definition of pornea, I don't know, because I do think if you want to look at a very technical way, pornea is referring to the category, broad category of sexual out of boundness.

  (47:37):

  But again, then I think some people will make the case that it's all sex. It's like politics, what is it? I mean, everything's politics really, or worship. Some of these words that were like, depending on how you define that, everything's worship, everything's sexual in nature to the extent that ... Anyway,

  (48:05):

  But yeah, it's just ... I could keep talking, I could keep giving hypotheticals that aren't even hypotheticals because most of these, I've just had too many conversations. I've known too many people and I myself have lived as a sinner for many years. And so thinking about what are, to your question, what are some of the other kinds of behavior that we might consider grouping that could be considered as meeting that under that Pornea umbrella. I think that's why it gets difficult because you could just probably put so much there. And so that's why, again, I think having discernment ... I do think too, on the other side of it, for the spouse who was sinned against, there's need for discernment there of your own heart and your own motives, because this always has to be said in this conversation too. Again, as God hates divorce, what's going to bring God the most glory?

  (49:24):

  I mean, bringing God the most glory is, let's assume the sin's already been committed, is for the offending party's repentance, the offended party, forgiveness 70 times, seven times. I mean, as much as the biggest number you can think of, that's how many times you forgive,

  (49:49):

  And that that two become one, become really tenuously frayed oneness because it was so on the brink and yet what brings God arguably even more glory is when a marriage like that, that has been so damaged, violated, broken, and yet to see God be able to work, redemption, restoration, healing, togetherness back into that marriage and they come back together one, even stronger. I mean, you can use all kinds of biological like scar tissue and like then it gets even stronger now because we've been through that and we don't ever want to go there again because God's given us a testimony, because now we have ministry to other couples that cheat on each other. And look, we're a witness. We've been there. God healed us. We're even strong. We're better than we were before he cheated on me. Stick it out. You've already been through the worst part.

  (50:54):

  Why not now he's repentant and stick around for the good part, like when God actually changes his heart, all those things. I think that brings God the most glory. And so I just say that to say like for the offended spouse checking their own heart of like, "Am I just looking for a way out? Am I just looking for an escape hatch?" Because I think you definitely, as much as the, let's say pornography use, a husband who's a couple times a year using pornography and broken up about it, as much as I don't want to take away from the harm that that could do to a spouse married to him, her heart, if she just is frustrated because didn't pan out the way she thought and she really thought he was going to be making more money than this and give her more kids than this and be more romantic toward her forever or ... I mean, I just imagine her grievance list of grievances that are really beneath the surface and so this becomes all of a sudden the thing that's like, "Oh, okay.

  (52:12):

  Well, I can press that button and be out of this marriage." And that kind of mentality is arguably just as sinful. I mean, is she pulling away from the marriage just as much as he has? So again, yeah, does that ...

  (52:35):

  Yeah, totally.

  (52:36):

  I don't think I even probably ... We could go down, we could probably make a list of, "What about this? What about this? What about this? Would this fall under the umbrella of Pornea?" Yeah, the emotional fear, the flirting, the Instagram model that you follow that ... I don't know, just like any number, the old high school fling that you look back up and now you're back in touch and ... It's just like any number of things that aren't good and then when does it cross that line? And I think that line is going to be different for each marriage, for each individual. And God gives us some principles, but as much as anything, he gives us wisdom and discernment and his spirit so that we can discern the truth case to case. So anything else?

  (53:33):

  I think you gave three categories, correct me if I'm wrong, persistence, egregiousness, and repentance, kind of posture of the heart, violence of the content or action, and how often it was happening. I think those are helpful things to think about. And again, pointing to the wisdom of going to your elders to understand and to work through what it means for your specific application with all those things. I think that's really good wisdom.

  (54:08):

  Yeah. I think wherever those knobs are turned on the repentance knob, the egregiousness knob and the persistence knob, I think that you're dealing with different recipes based

  (54:22):

  On

  (54:22):

  Those three ingredients and where they lie. And so that's what you just ... Yeah, it's a little bit case to case on where you say, "Yeah, I don't think that this marriage..." Not that it can't be redeemed or came out, but if she's, or he's either been offended and violated in this way, I think this is what Jesus is talking about when he says, "Yeah, there are some of these cases that it's not great to get divorced, but it's permissible." And I understand and I, Jesus, am not appear in heaven like I'm crying because I hate divorce and I hate that he did that to you or whatever, but I'm not crying at you. I'm not mad at you in your decision because again, frankly, he's given up on the marriage. It's not like you're giving ... And maybe that's another and a helpful way to kind of summarize and put it at the end is like, who gave up on the marriage?

  (55:42):

  I think when it crosses the line either in egregiousness or unrepentance or yeah, just persistence that like whichever those three or multiple knobs get turned up so much that it's like you gave up on the marriage, then I think that's where that line is.

  (56:10):

  Makes sense. Well, that's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills or by asking them online through our website at www.westhillstl.org and join us next week where we'll likely address the question. Do you think crypteds are real? And if you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button. And

  (56:34):

  Google what cryptids are.

  (56:35):

  Figure it out. Let us know.

  (56:37):

  Subscribe. A little bit of a different EpiPocket. That's the great thing about this podcast. Vibe shit. We can do Pornea and then cryptids the next

  (56:45):

  Week. Yeah. Thanks for listening and looking, we hope to catch you right back here next week.