Like chart 39, and several others used by brother Gwin, this chart served absolutely no purpose at all in a debate with Bill Reeves! Brother Reeves had never said or written anything that would prompt the arguments brother Gwin made from this chart:

   1. This chart was not prepared for the Gwin-Reeves debate, and so it had no bearing whatsoever on the debate. It had no business even being presented. It misled the audience into thinking about brother Reeves’ position that which is not true. It is one of several of brother Gwin’s series that is a generic chart for general use, but not for the debate at hand.

   2. It was bad enough that this chart was ever presented in the first place, and worse that it was not withdrawn after brother Reeves made it crystal clear that he agrees with it.

   3. Brother Gwin asked brother Reeves if he believes that when one is married or divorced that person is really married or divorced, and brother Reeves unequivocally said, Yes! So, why this chart?

   4. Brother Gwin had the occasion of a two and half-hour study with brother Reeves, and another six-month period before the debate, to ask brother Reeves about his beliefs concerning the matter, but did not do so. The day before the debate began he sent this question to brother Reeves: “If a man ‘puts away’ his scriptural wife when neither he nor his wife has committed fornication, and he does not subsequently commit fornication, is the wife really biblically ‘put away’?” Brother Reeves answered Yes to this question. Why then the chart during the debate? It was used because brother Gwin and counsellors just had to see it displayed before the audience! He might as well have presented to the audience a chart giving the five steps of conversion, or the five acts of public worship! Doing so was not only senseless, but its implication was that brother Reeves denied the contents of the chart, and such is misrepresentation. Fairness was not before the mind of brother Gwin in presenting this chart!

   The next chart demonstrates the amount of deception that you can accomplish with a chart by switching divorce scenarios and by defining words in different ways:

   1. According to Webster, the word “address,” in the context of the Hopkinsville debate, means “to communicate directly to.” So, to answer brother Gwin’s question posed in the title, He did not address any scenario except the one that was put to him by the Pharisees, Mt. 19:3. This is the scenario, and the only one, to which Jesus directly communicated.

   2. Our brother, after posing his question, cites Mt. 19:9. This most certainly was said by Jesus in answer to the question put to him by the Pharisees in 19:3; namely, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? Since a scenario is a particular situation to which one directs himself, the particular situation, or scenario, is set up by the Pharisees’ question. This is the only situation presented to Jesus, and so it is the only scenario that he addressed.

   But our brother’s question in this chart implies that there was more than one scenario addressed by Jesus. This is the fatal flaw in his argumentation. He tries, by means of inference, to create a second scenario and then to tell us that Jesus addressed that one also, and then arrive at his desired conclusion as stated in the last line of his chart: “In EVERY scenario she is forbidden to marry another man.” But he can’t find in Mt. 19:3 but only one scenario. The Pharisees did not ask a second question, creating a second scenario: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for fornication and to remarry? Does brother Gwin’s Bible read like that in 19:3?

   3. After quoting Matthew 19:9, which Jesus addresses to the one scenario put to him by the Pharisees, our brother fallaciously affirms the wording in the green block. Since he eats, breathes, dreams and knows nothing but the “'put away' woman,” he claims that “Jesus’ statement clearly includes the scenarios: 1. when she was guilty of fornication 2. when she was NOT guilty of fornication.” This, like so much of his chart-material, is purely his ipse dixit. What Jesus’ statement clearly says is in answer to the sole scenario put to him, and it tells us what the consequence is for two men: adultery for any husband who puts away his wife for every cause (excepting fornication) and for any man who marries such a put-away woman. That is what his statement says! The reader can easily see that brother Gwin ignores the fact that Jesus is directing his remarks to two classes of men, to the husband and to another man, and that brother Gwin’s “scenarios” are only about two classes of put-away women!

   True it is that what Jesus says in 19:9a implies that which we necessarily infer, and that is that should one (man or woman, agreed brother Gwin?) put away his mate for fornication, then upon remarriage he does not commit adultery. But Jesus did NOT address that scenario; it was never put to him by anyone! Brother Gwin creates a scenario that Jesus did not address, and then claims that Jesus did address it, in order to create what he calls “EVERY scenario” (see the last line of the chart), so that he can make an absolute statement that prohibits a put-away woman from ever remarrying!

   What brother Gwin, in his green block, calls “the scenarios” are not scenarios (see definition above) but simple deductions from Mt. 19:9a. Jesus was not asked by the Pharisees about two different scenarios (situations to be directly addressed by Jesus), one in which a man has a wife who has committed fornication, and another one in which his wife has not committed fornication. They presented to Jesus one single situation: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? -- period!

   Furthermore, brother Gwin states in his # 2 (red font) that the “put away” woman “was NOT guilty of fornication,” to which, if he is honest, he must add: “and her husband had not committed fornication against her”! Right, brother Gwin? So, why did you leave it out?

   4. Brother Gwin chooses his language carefully (all false teachers do!). He tells us that “Concerning the ‘put away’ woman Jesus’ statement INCLUDES the scenarios:” (emp. ours). He knows that Jesus did not address two scenarios; he addressed but one. But brother Gwin wants that one to include a second one. In the title of the chart brother Gwin has “address,” but then he switches to “include.” He hopes that the reader will not catch the switch in terms. Why didn’t he stick to his word “address?” Because the reader can plainly see, upon reading 19:9 that Jesus addresses, or communicates directly to, only one situation, the one put to him by the Pharisees. The false teacher employs sound over substance, and so his choice of words (his “lingo”) is very important to his tactics. Discerning people see through it; those who don’t think for themselves do not.

   5. Brother Gwin tries to use brother Haile's statement against brother Reeves, but his effort fails miserably. Brother Haile did not say that Jesus "addressed" two scenarios in Matthew 19:9. In fact, brother Haile denies such! As he does with the Lord's words in Matthew 19:9, brother Gwin has to add to what brother Haile actually said, and totally ignore the statement's context, in order for it to support his view! Brother Haile said, "depending upon the activation of the exception clause..." He did not say that Jesus addressed a scenario in which fornication had been committed! Had brother Gwin read brother Haile's entire article, he would have known this, and would not have attempted to pull this quote from its context and use it against brother Reeves. Brother Gwin did prove one thing: He was just as willing to misrepresent brother Gwin's moderator as he was brother Reeves himself!

   6. Brother Gwin wants to know what “OTHER” scenario could there possibly be? Well, what about the scenario of a wife putting away a fornicator-mate? Brother Reeves’ fifth question (of the five questions which brother Gwin and he agreed to submit to each other before the first night of the debate) reads thusly: “5. Does Jesus teach in Matt. 19:9 that a wife may put away her husband who fornicates, and that she may then remarry?” Consider his reply:

   “Matthew 19:9 is written from the man's point of view, but I believe that it is a generic teaching that would be applicable for a woman as well. However, the woman would not be able to ‘put away her husband who fornicates’ if he had already made her a put away person. In such a case, the marriage is already dissolved”.

   So, he believes Mt. 19:9a (if it has his proviso attached)! He believes that a wife may put away a fornicator-husband, and he believes that she may not if he has not committed fornication. Now we have two more scenarios to what he calls scenarios in his green block.

   Let’s add still another scenario, the one presented by brother Gwin’s proposition. Here is a woman who has been put away not for fornication, but who now has had fornication committed against her (see Mk. 10:11). She is not like the woman of brother Gwin’s #2 in the green block, because that put-away woman there did not have fornication committed against her! Brother Gwin has agreed that both a man and a woman may put away a mate for fornication, and we have here a woman whose husband has committed fornication against her. “But, she is a put-away woman, and Jesus says that whoever marries a put-away woman commits adultery.” Yes, Jesus said that but concerning a different put-away woman. That one, along with her husband, had no right to remarry, nor did another man have the right to marry her, because the putting-away was not for the cause of fornication. But this woman has the cause of fornication! This woman, the one in brother Gwin’s proposition, is the woman of Mt. 19:9a!

   What Jesus puts to the scenario of the Pharisees is the cause of fornication! No wonder, then, that brother Gwin and associates want to make fornication totally irrelevant and inconsequential if it is committed after a putting-away not for fornication. Jesus’ cause of fornication takes way their absolute with exceptions!

   It is amazingly strange that after making his absolute statement (the last line on his chart; see also his chart #49, where he makes Lk. 16:18b absolute), he will find an exception for it: if her husband who unlawfully puts her away should die, then she may remarry. A strange absolute that is! It is kind of like the fellow who remarks: “As I always say most of the time.”). A put-away woman absolutely may not remarry, and yet she may! Absolutes, brother Gwin, do not have “qualifiers!” Two plus two are not four most of the time, nor provided something, nor with qualifiers!

   There is sophistry written all over this chart!

   This completes part twenty-four of our study. Please check the next article in the series.

Introduction | Part Twenty-Three of the Series | Part Twenty-Five of the Series

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