When Should I Give Up On Reconciliation?

Can I remarry if my spouse has left me? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

You might want to make note of that so you can have it for future reference 833-THE-CORE, or you can dial it at 833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can watch us right now on YouTube, and you can email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com.

First up today, let's go to a voicemail we received from one of our listeners. We baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us in Matthew 28 that we are to go out into all the nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But then in the book of Acts chapter 2, Jesus commands them to be baptized in Jesus' name. And then a little bit later on, in Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 10, Acts chapter 19, anytime someone was baptized in the book of Acts, we're baptized in the name of Jesus. Why is it that we baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but yet the early church baptized in the name of Jesus?

If you could please explain that to me, I would very much appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for that question and for giving us a call. I'm glad to hear that your church baptizes in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That is the formula that Jesus gave us in Matthew chapter 28, right before he left his disciples.

The great commission. And he said, go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And so that's what the church is called to do.

That's what the church has always done since the very beginning. And it sometimes seems as if there's a discrepancy when we read the book of Acts, because frequently there in the book of Acts, you mentioned, I think Acts chapter 8, chapter 10, back in Acts chapter 2, you have the disciples baptizing in the name of Jesus. And I think one of the reasons that Luke records it that way is because you have to remember, this is the early advancement of the Gospel, and in particular, many of those who were converting to the faith were coming from a Hebrew background.

And so this focus here is on being associated with, aligned with Jesus Christ himself. I don't think it's that they didn't baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I think that they were leading people to the Lord Jesus Christ, and so that's why Luke uses this language. In fact, it's kind of interesting because in Acts chapter 19, you have this whole discussion about the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus.

It says in Acts chapter 19, beginning in verse 1, and it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. And there he found some disciples, and he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, no, we have not heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said, into what then were you baptized? And they said, into John's baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus. And on hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And so you see there the focus on aligning yourself with Jesus Christ, in particular for this audience.

And so I don't believe that there was any contradiction at all. They were baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and it really is such an important thing for us to grasp this. In baptism, friends, God places his name on you. You belong to the Lord by faith.

You are a representative, if you will, of the triune God. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and so it's really important for us to grasp these things. But that's why you have this language of being baptized in the name of Jesus in the book of Acts, written by Luke.

It's to stress or to focus on that early alignment with Jesus Christ coming out of Judaism, not the baptism of John. This is aligning ourselves with Christ. Thank you for your question. Great question. Thanks so much for listening and for submitting your question to us.

By the way, you can always email us a question at questionsatcorechristianity.com or leave us a voicemail with your question 24 hours a day. You can call us and leave the message at 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Dale in Olathe, Kansas. Hi, Dale. How do I say the name of your town correctly? You say it, Olathe. Olathe! It's the Indian name that means beautiful. Oh, that is so great.

I love it. I have a question for Pastor Gabriel. Pervenient grace, I brought that up in a Bible study, and I was challenged on that because it doesn't say that in the Bible, but I heard it from the pulpit at one point, and so I wanted to get your take on what pervenient grace is and how it can be explained. Yeah, so this is really a theological question, and when we're discussing the idea of pervenient grace, we're thinking in particular about maybe the grace that an individual experiences prior to their conversion that helps them embrace Jesus Christ, that kind of a thing.

And there's all sorts of debate in the church about this. Is it that the Holy Spirit is giving you a little bit, and you respond to that little bit that he gives you, and then he gives you a little bit more, and then you respond some more, and maybe you do some good works, and you're sort of preparing yourself for your salvation, that kind of a thing, for that moment where you receive the Lord Jesus Christ. I think, honestly, Dale, the best way to look at this is what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2. He says, look, here was our spiritual condition prior to embracing Jesus Christ. And it's actually kind of shocking when you think about it because typically we think, that was a pretty good person, you know, I was sort of seeking the Lord, the things of the Lord, and I stumbled upon the faith, or I embraced Jesus because I really started to understand these things.

But Paul says, look, spiritually speaking, apart from Christ, apart from the Holy Spirit, here's where we were, Ephesians 2, 1, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and feed us with him in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ. That's the grace we want to talk about. It's the grace that raises sinners from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. So one of the things I think that we're all recognizing is that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, apart from the regenerating, life-giving work of the Holy Spirit, friends, we would not know the Lord.

It really is a work of God. And even faith, we would say, I mean this is something that Paul goes on to say there in Ephesians chapter 2, is this gift that the Lord gives to us. And the result of this, Dale, is we are humbled. We should come to grips with this and realize, Lord, it wasn't anything in me that caused you to be gracious to me. It was solely your love, your power, your spirit. And as a result, God gets all the glory. And so this really is a humbling reality. But I think it gives God maximum praise because we recognize the depths that we were in.

We were dead in trespasses and sins, and yet it's there in that state that God loved us and made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Thank you for your question, Dale. Great picture. You painted for all of us there, Adriel.

Thanks so much. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. By the way, we want to issue a special thank you to our great listeners that are part of what we call our inner core. These are folks that support us on a regular basis. And if you join the inner core, we'll send you a copy of the book Core Christianity and some exclusive content before anybody else gets it, including some wonderful devotionals from Pastor Adriel. You can find out more by going to our website corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. Well, let's go to Elizabeth, who left us a voicemail a couple of days ago.

Hello. So I recently joined this marriage ministry online, whose foundation and sole purpose is to provide encouragement for marriages and the marriages that are going through a really tough time where the spouse has either left the home to be with another person or gone astray. They call them prodigals. And in some extreme cases, divorce has already occurred and the spouse is waiting for God to save or open the eyes of the ex spouse. And in other extreme cases, the spouse has remarried. They're teaching that if you wait and if you pray and if you fast, that God can do the impossible and restore your marriage back to his covenant. My question to you is, is it healthy for an individual whose husband has been gone for 15, 20 years for them to wait?

Elizabeth, my personal opinion is no, that doesn't seem to me to be very helpful. I mean, really the core of the question here is, you know, how long is too long? When should I give up on reconciliation? Well, I think the question is, is charging the Corinthians with, and us, the wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife. But if there's a situation where a husband has abandoned his wife, Elizabeth, and has gone and gotten remarried, well, they're no longer married, the original couple.

That marriage has been dissolved. And so in that situation, I think if the initial wife was abandoned, the husband has left, has married someone else, she's free to not be married. I mean, if she can wait, obviously, you know, we can always say God can do whatever he wants. And we've all heard stories of, you know, these miraculous, I mean, God bringing two people back together. But the wife in that case would be free either to remain single or to marry in the Lord.

But I don't think it's helpful. I'm not familiar with this ministry that you're talking about in particular. It seems like they're taking a very hard stance and saying, no matter what happens, if your husband abandons you and goes and marries somebody else, you just have to wait in order to be reconciled.

One, that's not what the Bible teaches. You're not bound in that situation. And two, I think that that can be, Elizabeth, quite unhealthy if you are as an individual wanting to be married and you've been left, and you're just sort of waiting and waiting and waiting and putting this expectation on your ex-husband and on this new family that they've started.

That doesn't seem to me to be the right way. Now, of course, as I said, you're free. An individual would be free to be single and to serve the Lord there, and there's nothing wrong with that, or they'd be free to marry someone else. So thank you, Elizabeth. And let's just say, I mean, marriages, man, such a blessing from the Lord. But we need a lot of support. We need a lot of encouragement. We need good people speaking into our marriages and into our lives coming alongside of us.

So I'm grateful that this is something that you're interested in, Elizabeth, and that you want to partner with people in. God bless. This is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, our phone lines will be open for another 10 minutes or so. So now's the time to call. Here's the number, 833-843-2673.

Or if you want to spell it out on your phone, it's 833, the CORE. Well, one of the things that we want to mention with summertime just around the corner and a lot of families taking road trips is that we have a wonderful CD for families that we're offering. It's a CD you can listen to in the car or listen to at home as part of a family devotional time. Yeah, I like the way you put it there, Bill, part of a family devotional time. One of the, I think, easiest ways for families to do devotions is with music.

It's easy to keep the kids involved that way. We have four young kids, and I've found that it's one thing to sit down and try to read them a Bible story. And that happens, praise the Lord. But a lot of times it's sort of more catchy to sit down and listen to some music that's God-honoring and focuses on the Lord, on His Word.

And it's a great way to teach the truths of Scripture to our children and to ourselves as well. And so this CD is called Evensong. It's put together by the Gettys, wonderful hymn writers. And we want to make it yours, and it is yours for a gift of any amount.

Here's what you do. You just go to our website at corechristianity.com forward slash offers and look for that CD called Evensong by Keith and Kristen Getty. As Adriel said, just wonderful hymn writers and performers. We've heard them in person, and we just love their hearts. So look for that at corechristianity.com forward slash offers or call us for that offer or any one of our offers at 833-843-2673.

That's 833-The-Core. Let's go to Kenny in Smithville, Missouri. Kenny, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes, yesterday it was being discussed that verse 26 of Genesis 1, God said, Let us make man in our image. And it was mentioned that angels and so forth. But you know, we need to go down to verse 27 because we're not in the image of angels or anything else. So God created man in his own image in the image of God created him male and female.

I think it got left. And maybe I'm the only one that thought that but it got left that we could be possibly created like the angels. Yeah, I always say this, I really appreciate when we get follow ups to questions Kenny and so thank you for giving us a call. You know, there are some who will point to the reality that there's a sense in which there are things that we do share with the angels. In particular, you know, this sort of call to render judgment and rule. Psalm chapter eight does talk about God making us a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowning us with glory, a really wonderful text of Scripture. But yes, in terms of our being made in God's image, the focus is on the fact that we reflect the holy triune God or we're called to reflect the holy triune God in our lives, in our vocation, in what God calls us to. We didn't get really too in depth into what it means to be made in the image of God.

There's a lot that we could say about that. But yes, surely, I mean, this is Kenny, as I'm sure you know, one of the things that makes us the primary thing that makes us unique among God's creation is that we are made in the image of God, the animals are not made in the image of God. And this is also, I think that this is a great sort of apologetic point that we can make is so many people in the world today, right, they embrace this belief that mankind is special, mankind is unique, we shouldn't hurt one another, we should love one another, we should respect all people.

Well, where does that come from? Why do we have that sort of innate sense of there's something unique about humanity, it's wrong for us to harm one another? Well, we would say it's rooted in the fact that we were created in the very image of God. And we aren't just animals, we're image bearers. And so that's why we're called, one of the reasons why we're called to love and respect and show dignity to one another. And so I appreciate you bringing this up.

And thanks for bringing in verse 27 there as well, Kenny, and thanks for listening. You know, at some point, man, we will get into all the aspects that we do reflect God's image, because there are several the fact that we're, we're moral beings, unlike the animals, and certainly we're relational beings. And there are a variety of other ways we're creative beings. I mean, it's pretty amazing when you think about the ways that we reflect God's image.

Of course, we do it poorly because we're still fallen. But isn't it cool? It is very cool, Bill.

Glad you agree. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a call about the Bible or the Christian life, we would love to hear from you at 833-843-2673.

Let's go to Walter in Winfield, Kansas. Walter, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hey, greetings, brother.

Yes, I was listening to what you said just a little bit ago. And I agree with what you and the gentleman that called in said about baptism. And the Bible does say the baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. It also says the baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the name of Jesus.

At our church, we don't believe that there is any harm done in doing both because in Colossians 3.17, the scripture says, Do all, and all means all that you do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So my pastor baptizes, and he says, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. I baptize you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And we just do it that way. Hey, Walter, sounds like you guys are trying to cover all your bases, brother.

I kind of like that. Look, I think, based on what Jesus said in Matthew 28, we are to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As I said already, the baptisms in the name of Jesus Christ, recorded in the book of Acts, are really focusing on aligning people with Jesus, coming out of the Hebrew faith, coming out of Judaism, and so we are called to baptize in the name of the triune God. I do think it's interesting, you know, bringing up Colossians chapter 3, verse 17. I'll start in verse 16, where Paul said, Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I think that, in particular there, Paul is just talking about the way in which we live our lives, in all things giving glory to the Lord, in everything that we do, doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. And what a wonderful encouragement that is for each of us as we think about how we live our lives and how we conduct ourselves. We can ask ourselves that question, Am I doing this in the name of the Lord Jesus? Is this honoring to him?

And that's really what Paul is getting at in Colossians chapter 3, verse 17. But thank you for giving us a call, and may the Lord bless you, brother. Thanks, Walter. We appreciate having you as a regular listener here on Core Christianity. Let's go to Steve in Springfield, Missouri. Steve, what's your question for Adriel? Yes, sir.

Thank you for taking my call. My question, some preachers teach that there are greater rewards for people when you get to heaven than others. And so I'm curious as to how that relates to the story of the workers in the vineyard, how they work different periods of time for the same amount of money throughout the day. And then, you know, in my father's house there are many mansions. I'm kind of confused how you could say, if you put the human perspective of, oh, well, hi, it's great to see you in heaven. And then, oh, you know, you've got a better house tonight. That type of thing.

That's right. And I think most of us, Steve, would say, like, I'll take whatever. I'll take the one bedroom, one bath in heaven.

I'll take the studio. I don't need a big old mansion. So long as I'm in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm going to be happy. It's like what the psalmist said in Psalm 73.

Whom have I in heaven but you, and on earth there is none that I desire besides you. A couple just interpretive points. One, when it comes to the parables, you know, we want to be real careful that we understand them in light of their context and what they're trying to communicate. Sometimes people try to build a lot of sort of complex theology out of parables that maybe is just going a little bit too far. Some people will point to other passages of scripture, like in 1 Corinthians 3, where Paul says, If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, this is verse 14, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

And there he's talking about pastors, ministers, and how they conduct themselves in the ministry proclaiming Jesus Christ. And in scripture it does talk about these different rewards or crowns that the saints, that believers, will receive. You have the imperishable crown described in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 25. A crown of righteousness in 2 Timothy 4, verse 8.

A crown of life in James 1, verse 12. But I think this is all just the prize of eternal life. Now are there varying rewards or commendations in heaven? You know, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. I think that God is going to commend us when we stand before him for particular things that we did. But we have to be careful that we're not creating some sort of heavenly caste system. And sometimes when people talk about rewards in heaven, that's how they can make it sound. You know, some people are going to be real blessed.

They're going to have the front row seats to the throne of God and other people are going to be way in the back. Well, that's not what the Bible teaches. And so we want to be careful that we don't read too much into it. And it sounds to me like that's exactly what you're also trying not to do, Steve. So I appreciate it.

I think you're on the right track. And may the Lord bless you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here's an email we received from one of our listeners named Olivia Adriel. She says, what does it mean to abide in Jesus?

Yeah. Well, to abide in Jesus, I mean, it's something that we see mostly in the Gospel of John. John's writings, that kind of language.

And John will say various things. He'll say, you know, we abide in Jesus by believing him. John chapter 6, it talks about eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood. Jesus says, if you don't do that, you don't abide in me.

Coming to Christ, following him, obeying him. You know, even you have that kind of language in particular in John 15. But really, it's this imagery, this organic imagery of the fact that we are united to him and we are in him.

And apart from him, we can do nothing good. That's precisely what Jesus says in John chapter 15. And also, that word abide simply can mean to rest. We are called, you are called to rest in Jesus, in what he's done. And it's his life that flows in and through you to bear fruit. And so it's this wonderful call to rest in Christ and in the Gospel. As we explore the truth of God's Word together.