Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 219F — Obeying Divorced Parents
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: My question is: If a family is divorced, do both parents have rights to giving blessing over marriage and future activities of the children involved?
HC: The question is, If the parents are divorced, do both parents have responsibilities or authority over the children, insofar as their future plans are concerned?
This of course is one of those questions that arises out of a sinful, sinful situation, that's becoming more prevalent throughout the world today. It's one of the sad questions, because actually this ought not to be. The Bible doesn't really get into this question. People who are divorced normally are living in very great sin. The children are still children, and they are to be obedient. But they don't have a household anymore. They don't have a father as the head of the house.
I really don't know. This is the bewildering mess that comes with divorce. It reminds me of what we read in Judges, again and again. "There was no king that ruled over them, and each man did what was right in his own mind."
CALLER: What about children of divorced parents, where the father is not living a Christian life? Do they still obey him, or should they ask the Lord to lead them?
HC: Having said what I've just said, if a parent is divorced, even though he's unsaved, he's still a parent. And I think the children should still be obedient to the father, even though he is a divorced father, even though he is unsaved. Incidentally, nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are to obey our parents only if they are born again. We have to obey our parents regardless of their relationship to Christ.
And I would think that they still must obey their parents, but of course it will be very difficult, because you have such a messy situation.
CALLER: Are there any suggestions for children, scripturally, either to listen more to the mother that's saved, and not to the father? Or how would you work that out? Or what if they both don't agree in a situation, for instance on a marriage partner for the child, when he gets older? If one gives his blessing and one doesn't, how would you work that out?
HC: The question is, where you have a father and mother who are divorced, and now the youngster grows up and is facing such questions as the choice of a marriage partner, and so on, and if the mother is saved and the father is unsaved, who is the child to listen to?
Obviously, of course, the mother who is saved is frequently going to give the more Biblical advice and direction, because she will be conditioning her advice by the Bible, whereas the father, if he was unsaved, would not. In the case of marriage, for example, if the mother was saved, she would certainly counsel her son or daughter to marry a saved person, whereas the father could care less, in all likelihood, as long as the person his child was going to marry was rich, or had some other attribute that appealed to him. And obviously, the son or daughter must obey God, which would be to marry someone who is saved.
The question, however, becomes more difficult if the father says, no, you should not marry this one that is saved, and the mother says yes, you can marry him. Now we come to a point where the son or daughter has to really pray the Lord for wisdom. And it would be very difficult to give a blanket answer to that kind of a question.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you very much.
HC: Good night.