About the Author

Joe Porter has been born-again since 1976. He holds to the Westminster confession of faith varying only where the 1689 Confession varies. He converted from Catholicism in 1976, but was in Arminian churches until 1995 at which time he learned about the sovereignty of God in salvation. He has been a reformed thinker since that time. In January of 1997 he began work on his Masters of Divinity from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, which he completed in 2000. He pastored three churches since then all with an unregenerate wife undermining him every step of the way (always behind his back). His wife claimed to be saved, but as he was Arminian in 1984 when they married he had no choice but to take her word for it, which earned him 27 years of extreme frustration with a woman who hated him and hated God all the while claiming to be a Christian herself. He has completed raising five children. His oldest son Michael died on October 20, 2005 from a brain tumor, but praise God that Michael loved the Lord. Michael’s siblings have struggled a great deal as their mother’s unrepentant influence has been a mill stone around their necks. She taught them how to lie, cheat and get away with anything they desired. She offered them cigarettes, alcohol, money for marijuana, condoms, and most of all cover from their father finding out anything about their sinful lifestyles. Without question she was the enemy within their home, and deception and manipulation were her primary weapons with which she worked diligently to destroy the children. In Matthew Henry’s commentary on Nehemiah’s last chapter he said that in unequally yoked marriages the unbelieving spouse would have an undo influence upon the children. Those words were prophetic in the lives of Joe’s children. By 2021 three of them are showing some signs of true salvation and only one continues to be lost in sin. Please pray that God will draw the final child to the Lord Jesus Christ. God showed Joe through scripture and through His providential plan how sinful and foolish it is to remain unequally yoked in marriage.  Joe divorced his godless wife in 2012 and has found much peace in the Lord.

One response to “About the Author”

  • Josiah Portermaine (author of blog)
    April 15th, 2014 at 2:32 PM

    Divorce is a terrible step that is difficult and painful. It leaves scars for years if not for the rest of your life. If it is a true act of repentance because we have taken steps to put ourselves in an unequally yoked relationship, then divorce may very well be the lessor of two evils. It is not an evil decision because it is inherently sinful, but because it is like surgery–destroying living tissue in order to have a chance at becoming completely healed. Paul teaches us to give the decision time. Pray for our unsaved spouse, live loving them as God has loved you and see if it is God’s will to save them as He has saved you. What a blessing it would be to have a front row seat as God brings your spouse into His kingdom. And if it is not to be, then the Holy Spirit will let you know when the right time has come that you must repent of an unequally yoked relationship with your spouse. For my part I gave it 27 years. It should have been much, much shorter, but I was told by church leaders that divorce was never God’s plan. Then I read Ezra and after that Nehemiah. I believe the Holy Spirit sent me the help I needed to show me the way even though my brothers in Christ believed it to be a path of sin. My own brothers in Christ threw me under the bus and supported my godless wife. She slandered me worse than I could even describe. She called almost every member of the three churches that I preached in for ten years and told them awful lies about my motives and my actions. My brothers on there part pretty much took the same action as her, but there lies had a more spiritual tone. Even good children of God are very biased against the divorced. They behave badly because they see those who divorce as traitors to the faith, so they treat them as one would treat a treacherous man. But the people in Ezra’s day were different. They supported those who divorced out of the obedience to repent of an unequally yoked marriage and a decision to find a truly saved spouse with whom they could share the rest of their life. That is what this blog is all about: There is all the difference in the world between the many reasons for divorce that the godless person has and the need to repent of a sinful marriage to a godless spouse who corrupts our own good morals and does serious damage to the potential faith and obedience the children involved. My kids were utterly destroyed not by the divorce but by being exposed for years to their mother’s evil and wicked ways. She literally trained them in deception both by example and with words. They have all slowly come around in the two and a half years since the divorce, and I thank God for the opportunity to speak to them without their mother making faces and telling them their father is a religious fanatic who should be dismissed. This blog is not intended to defend every decision to divorce, but it is intended as a lifeline for those who know that they are in an unequally yoked marriage. Second Corinthians 6:14-7:1 saved me in so many ways. My greatest desire in my divorce was that I could be more righteous and more holy once I was in a godly relationship where partnership, fellowship, harmony, commonality and agreement were actually possible. I thank God that after years of crying out to Him I have been set free from a godless wife. Perhaps I will some day be able to say that God has now provided me with a godly wife of whom I can say, “As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.” Praise be to God.

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