I am glad you, "a preacher of many years," want to be sure you are teaching "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27) about second marriages, since "fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). You have asked four questions:

1. Does Paul, in 1 Cor 7:15, make an exception for remarriage (from abandonment) additional to the condition of Matthew 19:9?

If Paul gives a second exception, then he alone among the apostles is excused from teaching baptized disciples "to observe all things whatsoever" (Matthew 28:18-20) that Jesus had taught.

If Paul gives a second exception, he makes God a respecter of persons, for two believers separating must "remain unmarried," but a deserted believer may marry again.

2. An argument in the brotherhood against the "Pauline privilege" centers around the Greek word for "servant" in the passage. Do we have a great enough sampling in Paul’s letters to determine the meaning of "servant" in this passage as it pertains to remarriage?

I have heard our brethren argue against German higher criticism that the critics do not have enough of a sample to draw the conclusions they do.

It is true that "the critics" do "not have enough of a sample to draw the conclusions they do." But if God has given us "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3) in the Bible, then we do have "a great enough sampling in Paul’s letters to determine the meaning of ‘servant’ in this passage as it pertains to remarriage."

The word is douloo, "to make a slave of, reduce to bondage" (Thayer). Paul used the word in its verbal form 6 times and in its nounal form doulos 28 times. The word in Hebrew is `abad in its verbal form and `ebed in its nounal form. God used the Hebrew verbal form in telling Abram that his descendants would "be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years" (Genesis 15:13, NASV; cf. Acts 7:6).

With that background, it is not surprising that we have enough of Paul’s "sampling" to know exactly what he meant in 1 Corinthians 7:15 in mentioning the enslavement in marriage. He was not speaking of forced slavery, but of a willing, voluntary bondage. Paul identified himself as a "slave of Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:1), and he wrote to the Corinthians, "Though I am free of all, yet I have enslaved myself to all, that I might gain the more" (1 Corinthians 9:19). And he wrote to the Christians in Rome,

You were slaves of sin; and since you have been made free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness (6:18). ... since you have been freed from sin, and have been made God’s slaves, you have your fruit in dedication, and the outcome is eternal life (6:22).

Similarly, in marriage, each spouse is a willing slave to the other until death parts them:

When God joins a couple, no longer is either spouse free, but is in consensual loving bondage to the other, whether the marriage is of an unbeliever to an unbelievers, or that of a believer to a believer, or that of a believer to an unbeliever.

However,

The vow of the believer, a commitment to willing bondage, made at the beginning of the marriage, is in force (dedoulotai, Greek perfect tense) until the unbeliever departs. "In such cases" (as when the unbeliever departs) the bondage of the believer is no more.

Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:15 are a release from a willing bondage, not a privilege for a second marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7:11 he had shown that believers separating are to "remain unmarried or be reconciled," which makes it unreasonable to say that if one of the spouses is an unbeliever, then the believer may remarry.

3. Foy Wallace, Jr., Alexander Campbell, Raymond Kelcy, and other brotherhood luminaries of the past believed in the "Pauline privilege." Do you believe their position was ill founded?

Those brotherhood luminaries unintentionally have changed the Pauline release to a "Pauline privilege," making Paul contradict Jesus.

4. How important do you consider this matter to be? Is it your opinion that this is such a hair splitting matter that a mistake one way or the other may not be significant, in light of the grace of God?

(1) To add a sanctified remarriage privilege to God’s word, and (2) to make Paul contradict Jesus, are not "hair splitting" matters, but are abuses of the grace of God, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; (Titus 2:11-12).