Paul’s prayer and focus is that the ones hearing him will become Christians. We see this in his words, “You believe, King Agrippa, in the prophets? I know that you believe,” and “I pray to God even in a little or a lot of time, not only you, but also all the ones hearing me today will become even like I am.” Paul’s mindset is confirmed elsewhere in Scripture, as in his letter to the Philipians, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (Philipians 1:12). Paul’s desire was for people to hear the gospel, and he was confident that this trial advanced the gospel. His bonds are not his focus.

In Paul’s parektos (“besides”) sentence, the bonds are de-emphasized in consideration. Not only is the clause de-emphasized, but the clause is not essential to Paul’s point. In fact, we can remove the parektos clause from Paul’s words and his point remains—“I pray to God that in a little or a lot of time, not only you, but also all the ones hearing me today will become even like I am.” Paul desired that those hearing him would be saved.

In Agrippa’s ei mē (“except”) sentence, the focus is on the fact that Paul had appealed to Caesar. Ei mē emphasizes that it was Paul’s appeal to Caesar that kept him from being released—the clause is essential to the meaning and cannot be left out. Without the clause, the verse would merely say, “This man was able to have been released,” and we would have been left wondering why he was not released.

What a gift these few verses are to the divorce discussion! They help us see:

• the meaning of parektos
• the difference between parektos and ei mē
• that “besides” and “except” do not mean the same thing
• that a parektos clause is not essential to the meaning
• that in Matthew 5:32, the parektos clause is a not essential to Jesus’ point
• that in Matthew 5:32, we must not translate parektos as “except”

A parektos clause should be placed in parentheses. Further, when we are trying to find the meaning of Matthew 5:31-32, we can omit the clause from the discussion and work from there.