1 Corinthians 7:10-12 - He must not divorce her

7:10,11

Paul now turns to divorce, and here he does give a command. Getting married or remaining single is a matter of personal choice, though a decision, either way, that should be made with wisdom. However, a wife must not separate from her husband, nor a husband divorce his wife. Different Greek words are used for the wife separating, and the husband divorcing. This may reflect the legal system of the time. Anyway, in either case it should not be done. Paul is basing his teaching on that of Jesus. Now Jesus did allow divorce in the case of adultery, and I think we can also extend this to cases of an abusive, especially physically abusive, partner (most often, but not always, the man). However, it does teach against divorcing because things aren’t “working out”. I.e. it should not be done frivolously.

7:12

Paul has dealt with Christian couples, now he turns to the situation where one partner is a believer and the other isn’t. I think it is safe to assume that we are talking about the situation where the couple were married before one of them became a believer. “I say this (I, not the Lord)”. This does not mean that Paul’s instructions here carry any less weight, but simply that Jesus did not say anything about the issue at hand. Some may have argued that since the other partner is not a believer, they are in some way defiled, and so the believing partner must divorce the unbelieving partner. Paul commands that they must not divorce the other partner as long as he or she is willing to continue to live with them.