JOINED AND NOT JOINED

Nearly everyone is familiar with the phrase of ‘not separating what God has joined together.’ It is speaking of a man and woman becoming ‘one flesh’ and being so joined that they are ‘no longer two, but one.’ That’s a pretty tight union. According to the text, it is God who ‘joins together’ those who desire this union. Even though preachers, priests, rabbis and judges announce that they ‘join people together’ in a ceremony of some kind…they really don’t. Only God can do that. We are also told that no one should ‘separate what God joins together.’ This includes men and women, leaderships, teams, faculties, businesses and any other thing truly joined by God.

On the other hand, ‘no one can join what God has separated.’ We should not separate what has been joined and we should not join what has been separated. We cannot undo what God has done and we cannot do what God has not done. Some things have been joined and some have not been joined. Some things go together and others do not. Some things are in order and some are out of order. One of the Corinthian letters advises ‘that right and wrong, light and darkness, and Christ and the devil’ cannot be joined. We can only join what God has purposed and all else is not joined for the same reason.

“Man must not separate, then, what God has joined together.” Jesus