Nope, you still can't divorce (1Cor 7:15-16)

Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? (1Cor 7:15-16)

This is a very controversial piece of text, since many are very eager to read into it something that isn't there. But let's start with the easy part. What everyone can agree on is that if the unbelieving spouse leaves, then let them leave. You don’t have to club them over the head and drag them to a dungeon in your basement so you can keep them around. When you have done everything you can to win them over, and at the end of it all they still decide to leave, then there’s nothing you can do about it.

The part that gets controversial is the question of what it means that the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases. Most theologians say that it means they are free to divorce their unsaved spouse and marry someone else. The text doesn’t specifically say that though. It just says they are not under bondage. That could very well mean under bondage to live together as husband and wife. After all that was the command the whole chapter started with. That is the basic doctrine that Paul is expanding on in this context.

And from looking at the Greek text a very strong case could be made for saying that the bondage referred to is not the marriage bond that God has bound them together with. First of all the word used here, dedoulotai - a form of douloo, is not the same as the Bible uses elsewhere when it talks about the marriage bond. Actually the word used means slavery, which is why some translations instead say that the brother or sister is not enslaved. I’m sure you’ll all agree with me that being bound to a spouse is not the same thing as being enslaved, even if they are an unbeliever.

In addition the phrase “not under bondage” is written in the perfect passive indicative tense. And we all know what that means, don’t we?

*chirp, chirp*

Well if we don’t we can do like I did and read about it on the Internet. It means that it is a present condition arising out of a past action. Which means that the believing spouse neither is, nor has been enslaved in such cases.

That means that if you are going to say that not enslaved meas free to remarry, you are saying that the spouse is not bound to the marriage, and never has been bound to the marriage. Even before the unsaved spouse leaves. But that would totally contradict verse 12-13, which say a marriage to an unbeliever is still valid. And that means we have to discard that interpretation.

So that that all this verse says is that a believer is not enslaved to an unsaved spouse who leaves them. They are free to not live together as husband and wife. Nothing more, nothing less.

Verse 16 confirms this interpretation. “For how do you know whether you can save your spouse?” What interpretation of the previous verse makes sense in combination with this one? Try it! If they leave, you are free to remarry, because you don’t know that staying single is going to save your spouse? That doesn’t fit together. This does: If they leave, you are free to let them go. But am I not responsible for staying with them and bringing them to Christ? No. How do you know whether they ever will be saved, and whether you’ll be the instrument to bring them there?