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If you are guilty of this, no doubt you have read 1 Timothy 4:1-3, which speaks of "forbidding to marry" as being "doctrines of devils." But you allowed yourself to be deceived into believing that the text is applicable only to Catholics who deny their priests marriage, and that if YOU do it then it is not the same.
At some point you had to read Paul's command to let every man and every woman have a spouse so all people can avoid fornication (1 Cor. 7:1, 2). But you latched onto the quibble that this means only that an individual cannot have someone else's spouse.
What was your response when you read Paul's answer to questions regarding the "unmarried" (which by definition includes the divorced, verses 7-8)? Did you really fail to notice that he commanded, "Let them marry"? Maybe you did notice, but you somehow came to argue that this text applies to those who have never married.
The Corinthians asked Paul some important questions. He labored hard to make sure they, and you, not misunderstand. But even when he contrasted those "bound" (married) with those "loosed" (divorced) and said the loosed do not sin if they marry, you did not get it. Rather, you swallowed the quibble that this text is applicable to virgins, even though it is clearly dealing with persons who have been married.
No doubt your mentor(s) taught you that Romans 7:1-3 teaches that only death ends a marriage. But, since verse four was left out of the picture you did not catch the fact that Jesus actually married Israel ("them that know the Law," verse 1), who was God's divorced wife (Jeremiah 3:8). So you never gave thought to whether the text actually teaches that divorce does not end a marriage. Instead, you were deceived into believing, and teaching others, the opposite of what Jesus taught. And instead of allowing the passage to teach that divorce actually ends a marriage, and frees the parties, you have gone along with perverting it to justify the devil's doctrine, categorized in the Scriptures as "forbidding to marry."
When confronted with conundrums for the devil's doctrine you simply dismissed them because of the feeling in your heart that all the things you were taught had to be true because you believed Jesus said, "Anyone that is divorced commits adultery in a second marriage because the divorced person is still married in God's eyes."
If you actually have a love for truth and do not look to human tradition for authority, maybe you are not totally blinded YET (2 Thess. 2:9-12). If so, you would do well to actually do some searching to see if Jesus really said what is attributed to Him. When you do, you will discover, if you do not already know, that He did not say nor teach what is in quotes above. It is all a false assumption based on the idea that Jesus contradicted Moses’ teaching that allowed the divorced woman to "go be another man's wife" (Deut. 24:1, 2, KJV). Maybe it will be helpful to learn that the best versions, like the American Standard Version and several others, never translate the word "apoluo" as divorce.
The truth is, Jesus was seeking to correct an evil-putting away but not divorcing according to the Law (Deut. 24:1,2; Jer. 3:8). The devil would have you believe and teach that Jesus actually said those divorced must remain celibate, and if already married must divorce.
Now, after some real soul searching, does it not make sense that a woman merely separated from her husband would indeed commit adultery if she took up with another man? It does, and you know it. But perhaps you love tradition more than truth; and like the "chief rulers" of the synagogue you are not willing to confess the truth, lest you be cast out (John 12:42). (See Joel 3:14; Joshua 24:15.)
The true follower of Christ will not ask, "If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?" Rather he will say, "This is truth. God help me to walk in it, let come what may!" --A.W. Tozer
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