“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?”
The second and significant reason for not divorcing a non-Christian mate is that the spouse might come to Christ through remaining married.
For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband?
If the Christian wife stays married to her non-Christian husband, her husband may become a Christian. However, it may turn out that he is irreconcilable to the marriage and wants a divorce. In that case, she cannot demand that the unbeliever remain married.
Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
Divorce makes the possibility of leading one’s wife to the Lord very difficult. If the unbelieving wife wants to stay in the marriage, the husband should remain married to influence her for Christ.
PRINCIPLE:
People come to Christ through human agency.
APPLICATION:
Ruth, the unbelieving Moabite, became a believer because of her relationship with her husband and especially with her mother-in-law. We win close family members not by pushing church but by living the Christian life with integrity. God uses the instrument of family members to reach their non-Christian family members for Christ. God’s plan of salvation is to use believers to reach people on earth. God does not send a messenger from glory to win them. Believers cannot do this without the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, for the subject of saving a soul is ultimately God’s.
Ro 11:14, …if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.
1 Co 9:22, …to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
Jude 22, And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.
1 Peter 3:1, Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, 2when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.
