Participants: Yvonne Lewis (Host), Tom Shepherd
Series Code: HPOV
Program Code: HPOV000044A
00:16 Hello and welcome to Heaven's Point of View.
00:18 My name is Dr. Yvonne Lewis and I have the privilege 00:21 of co-hosting this Series of Love, Marriage, Sex, and Divorce 00:27 from the New Testament perspective 00:29 with Dr. Tom Sheperd 00:32 and Dr. Sheperd is a Professor of New Testament Interpretation 00:36 at Andrews University 00:37 and the Director of their Ph. D. and Th. D. religion programs 00:42 so, thank you so much Dr. Sheperd 00:45 for what you've been giving us in this Series... 00:47 Tom: All right. 00:48 We have some very interesting 00:50 information today too, as well, to share. 00:54 So, last time, we ended up with Matthew 19:9 00:58 and we were talking about that, 00:59 where Jesus talked about hard hearts and hardened hearts 01:04 can you just kind of expand on that a little bit? 01:07 Okay, well, we noticed that the Religious Leaders of Jesus' day 01:12 were using the Old Testament "Case Law" 01:15 to make rulings allowing them to divorce their wives 01:19 for a whole, wide variety of reasons 01:22 and they came to Jesus to see what He thought about the matter 01:27 and we found that the Case Law 01:30 was found in Deuteronomy 24 verses 1 to 4, 01:34 we've looked at that already and it was actually 01:38 that Case Law back in Deuteronomy... 01:40 was designed to protect women. Yvonne: Hmmm... 01:42 Not to abuse them as the Law had been twisted to mean, 01:46 now, in Jesus day, they were using this to... 01:49 to actually go the opposite direction of what Deuteronomy 01:53 has been built for, 01:55 Deuteronomy was there to protect women 01:58 and what happened by Jesus' day was 02:00 they were using Deuteronomy's Law as... like an excuse 02:04 for divorcing their wives for almost any reason at all 02:07 according to one of the Schools of Thought in Jesus' day 02:10 so, Jesus restored the Command to its original intent 02:13 and He pointed back further to Creation 02:17 so, what I'd like to do is... 02:19 is to go back and read the whole passage, 02:21 it's always good to just refresh and see where we've been 02:24 and maybe somebody hasn't seen the whole Presentation 02:27 so we hear the whole passage and get it in context. 02:29 Right. Matthew 19 verses 3 through 12. 02:32 Verses 3 through 12, 02:34 "The Pharisees also came to Him, 02:36 testing Him and saying to Him, 02:38 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife 02:40 for just any reason?' and He answered and said to them 02:44 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 02:47 made them male and female and said: for this reason 02:51 a man shall leave his father and mother 02:53 and be joined to his wife 02:55 and the two shall become one flesh 02:57 so then, they are no longer two but one flesh 03:01 therefore, what God has joined together, 03:03 let not man separate. ' 03:05 They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command 03:08 to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?' 03:11 He said to them, 03:13 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, 03:16 permitted you to divorce your wives, 03:18 but from the beginning it was not so. 03:21 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, 03:24 except for sexual immorality, and marries another, 03:28 commits adultery: and whoever marries her 03:31 who is divorced commits adultery. ' 03:33 His disciples said to Him, 03:34 'If such is the case of the man with his wife, 03:38 it is better not to marry. ' 03:39 But He said to them, 'All cannot accept this saying, 03:43 but only those to whom it has been given. 03:45 For there are eunuchs 03:47 who were born thus from their mother's womb, 03:49 and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, 03:52 and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs 03:55 for the kingdom of heaven's sake. 03:56 He who is able to accept it, let him accept it. '" 04:00 Okay, well the last section... maybe we'll have a few minutes 04:03 at the end... we can just talk about that a little bit. 04:05 I'd like a little clarification on that myself. 04:08 But right now, we are focusing in on... 04:11 around verses 8 and 9 to take a look at them 04:15 and we need to kind of unpack this pretty carefully 04:18 because there are a lot of questions that people will raise 04:21 about what Jesus has said. 04:24 The Pharisees had asked Him 04:26 whether it was okay to divorce your wife for any cause 04:29 and that really was linked into Deuteronomy 24 04:34 as we noted before 04:35 and their particular interpretation of it, 04:38 Jesus had taken and said, "Well now, you need to look back 04:42 to God's plan in Creation, 04:43 and the Creation pattern was one man and one woman 04:47 and that... the man leaves his father and mother 04:51 and is joined to his wife... the two become one flesh. 04:53 He says, "What God has joined together, 04:56 let not man separate. " 04:58 So, you're not supposed to divide up... 04:59 you're supposed to stay together, 05:01 just like we said from Deuteronomy... 05:03 I'm sorry, not Deuteronomy but from Malachi... 05:06 God says, "I hate divorce," 05:07 okay, so then this brings them to their question 05:11 in response to Him, they say, 05:13 "Well, but then why did Moses command us 05:15 to give a Certificate of Divorce?" 05:18 And the perceptive reader will notice that Jesus says, 05:22 "Well it was because of the hardness of your heart 05:27 that Moses allowed you to divorce... " 05:29 so he permitted it, it wasn't a command. 05:32 Right and so, there was no real command for divorce. 05:35 Correct, in fact, throughout the Bible, 05:37 there is no command to divorce, 05:41 we noted that there are two different kinds of Law 05:44 one is called "Apodictic" that's a great word, 05:47 Apodictic Law. Yvonne: It has a ring to it. 05:50 And it has a ring to it, the other one is Case Law. 05:52 Apodictic Law is a law that applies to everybody 05:54 in all situations, 05:56 so, this is like the Ten Commandments. 05:57 Yvonne: Okay. 05:59 "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy... " 06:00 "Don't commit adultery," "Don't steal," 06:01 those things apply to everybody at all times in all situations 06:05 then you have things that are Case Law, 06:08 Let's say, "Well, if a man's ox 06:10 breaks down his neighbor's fence and goes and eats his corn, 06:16 then you should do this. " Yvonne: Right. 06:18 Right, so that's a particular 06:20 case situation that deals with it. 06:23 Right, specifically targeting certain situations. 06:26 Yeah, certain situations... so we've said that there is no 06:28 command in Apodictic Law in the Bible to divorce, 06:33 it's an important concept, 06:35 there's knowing these overall things... because, why? 06:38 Because divorce is not God's plan 06:41 for all marriages. Hmmm... 06:43 You see, He says, 06:44 "Don't commit adultery," that's Apodictic Law, 06:46 but there's only "Case Law" 06:48 that deals with the question of divorce, 06:49 so, Deuteronomy 24, actually, assumes the presence of divorce 06:56 and then it makes a Law 07:01 in order to control the bad situations that result from it. 07:05 Hmmm... 07:06 Okay, it's not there to say that divorce is okay, 07:09 it's there to minimize the bad effects of divorce 07:13 that were already present in their Society. 07:15 It's like we say in Christian Theology 07:19 what is needed is not a change of partner, 07:22 what is needed is a change of heart. 07:25 Hmmm... 07:26 And so, our hearts need to be converted 07:28 and you can learn to love, you can learn to love again, 07:33 if you fell into love or you make a choice about love 07:38 and then you came to the place 07:39 where you didn't love your spouse anymore, 07:41 you can learn to love again. 07:43 And you know, it's an interesting point, 07:45 Dr. Sheperd... because, sometimes you hear a spouse say, 07:48 "Well, I just don't love my husband or my wife anymore, 07:52 I just don't feel that anymore" 07:54 and what you're saying is, "You can... " 07:57 well, I hear you saying a few things... number one, 07:59 you can get that again, 08:01 if you had it before, you can have it again. 08:03 Tom: Yes. Yvonne: And it is a choice. 08:05 It is a choice, yeah, love is a choice 08:07 and remember we talked about... before... 08:09 sometime back in these programs 08:11 about the meaning of how the Bible 08:12 uses the term "love" 08:14 when it says... "to love God with all your heart, 08:15 to love your neighbor as yourself. " 08:17 Those were not just romantic... 08:20 those were not romantic kinds of concepts, 08:22 now, some people will say, 08:24 "Yeah, but, marriage is supposed to be all... all romantic," 08:28 well, it's romantic but there's more than the romance 08:32 you know, there's a certain 08:33 choice you make 08:35 to affirm and to support 08:37 and to bless the other person around you. 08:39 So, we should note that in this whole dispute with Jesus, 08:45 there were two different schools of thought 08:47 that we talked about, 08:49 the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai, 08:51 these were schools of thought 08:54 among the religious leaders of Jesus' day, 08:56 and the School of Hillel said that 09:00 they would let you have divorce for almost any reason, 09:03 you could burn the toast and you could get a divorce, 09:05 the School of Shammai said, 09:06 "Only for sexual immorality. " 09:08 Now we might suppose that what would happen is 09:11 there'd be a lot more people flocking to the School of Hillel 09:14 and getting divorces because they were unhappy. 09:17 But what happened was the School of Hillel... 09:21 they lengthened the process for getting a divorce 09:25 which made it harder to do, 09:29 where the process was more simple in the School of Shammai 09:32 because their standard was higher, 09:34 so the two schools that are... 09:35 Yvonne: Pro's and cons... 09:38 You cannot destroy marriages 09:41 and expect the Society to stay healthy. 09:44 That's very true. 09:47 And we in America... and we in the church in America 09:51 of all people need to understand this 09:54 and we need to help make changes about this 09:57 because our Society 09:59 is having more and more trouble with this. 10:01 All right, now, this brings us to verse 9, 10:03 so let's read verse 9 one more time. 10:05 Okay, verse 9 says, "And I say to you 10:07 whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality 10:10 and marries another commits adultery 10:13 and whoever marries her who is divorced 10:15 commits adultery. " 10:16 All right now, this statement of Jesus, 10:20 people study it and study it and study it, 10:24 and they parse it and pull it apart 10:27 but we're going to talk about 10:29 some of that kind of relationship 10:32 but let's just focus in on the basic compounds and make sure 10:36 we get the basic message. 10:37 If you divorce... and then... except for sexual immorality 10:41 and marry another, that's the same as adultery, 10:43 Jesus had a formula you might say, 10:46 divorce plus remarriage equals adultery... 10:50 Hmmm... 10:52 Unless there's sexual immorality involved. 10:55 Now exactly what does He mean 10:57 when he uses this term? 10:58 Sexual immorality or porneia, 11:01 we'll have to unpack that a little bit. 11:05 But Jesus is very much against divorce 11:08 now, is it the same as adultery to just get divorced? 11:13 No, the answer is no, a person who has divorced 11:20 it's a tragedy, it's a tragic situation 11:23 but it is not adultery, so they haven't like... broken 11:26 one of the Ten Commandments when they do that. 11:28 Now, we have a tendency... I don't know why it is... 11:31 but we have a tendency... as humans 11:33 to look down on people who have been divorced. 11:35 Hmmm... hmmm... 11:36 And sometimes the divorce happens 11:38 because of no fault of their own... does it occur 11:41 the other person just... went off and just did... 11:45 and just departed and just created a situation 11:49 that caused great heartache in their home. 11:51 They didn't want that, but we always tend to look 11:54 and say, "Well, but they are probably to blame" 11:57 you know, and we in the church need to step back and say, 12:00 "You know what? It doesn't matter what happened 12:03 we got to love them, we got to care for them, 12:05 we got to support them. " 12:06 Now if they need to commit you know, 12:09 if they need to repent of their sin and say, 12:12 "I did something wrong," they need to confess that 12:15 that's part of Christian life as well. 12:17 All right, but Jesus' statement here, 12:19 "Divorce by itself is not described as adultery, 12:22 divorce is not the will of God, 12:25 but if one remains single afterwards 12:27 it does not call for censure by the Community of Faith. " 12:29 It seems divorce is its own censure. 12:33 That is very true, after divorce, many times, 12:36 you find that people kind of tend to take sides. 12:39 They do. 12:41 And then if you had friends as a couple 12:43 prior to your divorce, then who becomes... 12:46 who's still your friend and who's not. 12:48 Tom: Yeah. Yvonne: So people... 12:49 it is its own censure. 12:51 Tom: Yeah, yeah. Yvonne: That's true. 12:52 Okay, so now we've got to walk through a little bit 12:55 about what goes on here and press forward, 12:58 sometimes... sometimes... not always... 13:01 sometimes to remarry after divorce, 13:05 is the same as committing adultery. 13:08 Okay, why would that be? 13:11 Probably because the first marriage was not dissolved 13:15 in a court and through the will of God 13:16 and thus, to remarry would be 13:18 the same as committing adultery against the first spouse. 13:21 Hmmm... 13:22 Okay, so, you know, we have to think about this, 13:25 now, there's a linkage here to Deuteronomy 24, 13:28 Jesus' statement does not affirm divorce in the Torah 13:32 we've already noted... 13:34 there are no Apodictic divorce laws 13:36 and it wasn't God's will for them to divorce 13:39 and so, Deuteronomy 24 13:41 limited the damage that was there. 13:44 Now, when we come to Jesus' "exception clause," 13:47 He says, "Except for the case of porneia or sexual immorality" 13:53 what does He mean? okay... 13:55 Sexual immorality... this term was a bit of a 14:00 flexible term, it could mean, having sexual intercourse 14:03 with somebody who's not your spouse, 14:04 okay, in general, it could also mean incest, 14:08 having sex with a child in your family, 14:11 sex with a prostitute... 14:12 is the way the term is used sometimes... porneia... 14:15 okay, the question is, 14:16 what is the meaning here in Matthew 19? 14:20 The linkage to Deuteronomy 24, 14:23 in the context of the Pharisees' question to Jesus, 14:26 is helpful in this regard, okay? 14:29 Their question arose from the debate between the two schools 14:32 of Hillel and Shammai. 14:35 Now, they were both looking at the same Old Testament text. 14:38 Yvonne: Right. Tom: Deuteronomy 24. 14:40 And they came across a phrase that we translate as 14:45 "a matter of indecency" a matter of indecency... 14:50 okay, now the two different schools 14:53 focused on the two different terms. 14:56 The School of Hillel focused on the term, "matter," 15:00 "matter of indecency" 15:03 so they said, you could divorce for any cause, 15:06 it's a matter of indecency... matter... 15:09 the School of Shammai focused on the word, "indecency" 15:12 it's a matter of indecency, okay, it's kind of... 15:16 put it in colloquial terms 15:18 or kind of terms that are easier to understand. 15:22 So they focused on... 15:23 one focused on the word "matter" 15:25 the other focused on the word, "indecency. " 15:27 That Matthew has the term, "porneia" would suggest 15:32 that Jesus comes down, actually, on the School of Shammai's side 15:36 that is... it's the... "a matter of indecency" 15:39 that porneia is the indecency which is... 15:41 the sexual immorality 15:42 has some kind of sexual evil involved here 15:46 where somebody has done something sexually wrong 15:49 so, the question is 15:52 what does Jesus affirm here? Right? 15:55 He says that marriage has a divine component, 15:59 right, it is not simply a contract 16:02 between a man and a woman, it is a link to God. 16:07 God is the one who affirms a marriage when it takes place. 16:11 So, it's not just a contract between people. 16:14 So, it has this divine component. 16:16 Jesus acknowledges the shift that took place under Moses, 16:20 He said that he permitted this, it wasn't something he commanded 16:24 it wasn't God's will but it was because of hard hearts 16:27 that this took place. 16:29 That cannot be God's ideal. Hmmm... 16:33 God doesn't want hard hearts, God wants changed hearts. 16:35 Right. Right... 16:37 He calls people back to Creation order, 16:41 He says that from the beginning it wasn't that way 16:44 and he calls them back to live as God wanted them. 16:48 But then He has this exception, 16:50 it's the allowance for a release from a marriage commitment 16:52 based on gross moral failure. 16:55 So, He's not doing it for light matters like Hillel, 16:58 it has to be something serious okay... that is taking place. 17:01 Now, this actually is also not a command, 17:04 that's very important to notice. 17:05 He doesn't say, "You have to get divorced 17:08 if your spouse has been sleeping with somebody else. " 17:11 He doesn't say, "You have to get that," 17:14 He says, "You can but you do not have to. " 17:16 Sexual sin can be forgiven, divorce is not required 17:21 but it is allowed on these grounds. 17:24 If the "hard-hearted" refers to the person 17:26 who committed adultery, 17:28 then the release given to the innocent party 17:32 is justice in the face of sinful defiance. 17:36 Somebody who will not change, they will not repent, okay. 17:40 So that is... if you're in a marriage 17:43 with someone that is a serial adulterer 17:45 and you keep saying, 17:46 "Look, I can't deal with this anymore" 17:48 and the person just continues on, 17:52 then, you do have Biblical grounds... 17:54 to divorce. Tom: Yes, to divorce. 17:56 Yeah, right, so, if the hard-hearted is actually 17:59 the innocent party, some people take it that way 18:01 that it is the innocent party, calling them to forgive 18:04 then Jesus' command goes even beyond the School of Shammai 18:07 where they say it is a command to divorce such people 18:11 when they commit adultery and you divorce them. 18:13 Jesus indicates that while that is permitted, 18:15 that that was not God's original idea 18:18 and He wants healing and it is the innocent party 18:20 who has the ability, by the grace of God, 18:22 to actually bring healing by forgiving the offender. 18:26 Of course, if the offender doesn't repent, 18:29 there's an interesting thing 18:33 that we can stop and mention here 18:34 and that's the issue of forgiveness. 18:36 Hmmm... 18:37 Forgiveness sets us free 18:41 from the control of the sin 18:44 that has come into our life or into the life of other people. 18:48 If that person still isn't repentant, 18:52 if you forgive them, 18:54 it sets you free from their control in your life. 18:58 That's right. 18:59 Yeah and it's a deep topic, it's a deep thought 19:03 but it's a hard thought, I've seen that... 19:08 I have seen that to forgive somebody 19:10 when they've really done you really wrong, now, you know, 19:13 if they just did some minor... small thing, that's like nothing 19:16 but, I mean, if they really did something really terrible to you 19:19 and they don't... they're not sorry for it... 19:23 that's the hardest situation but if you forgive them 19:27 and you're saying... 19:30 you're recognizing that it's wrong 19:32 because you don't forgive something that's not wrong... 19:34 Hmmm... hmmm... 19:36 you're recognizing that it's wrong 19:37 but you're actually giving it over to God 19:39 and letting Him take care of your life. 19:40 This is so important in so many aspects of life. 19:44 It is because it holds you in its grip, 19:49 if you don't forgive... the anger and all that 19:53 holds you in its grip and it has power and control over you 19:57 but once you release it and you give it to the Lord 20:00 and you ask the Lord to give you a spirit of forgiveness, 20:03 it sets you free. Tom: That's right. 20:05 It's really not so much for the other person... it's for you. 20:09 And what I've discovered is 20:11 that when they've done you wrong really badly wrong, 20:14 you have to forgive them over and over again. 20:18 Hmmm... hmmm... 20:19 You know, Jesus one time said to Peter that your... 20:22 Peter said, "How many times should I forgive my brother, 20:24 if he sins against me, up to 7 times?" 20:26 And Jesus said, "No, Seventy times seven... " 20:28 And we say, "Well, that's just like... 20:29 don't stop... stop counting... " kind of a thing 20:32 well, I've kind of discovered a new meaning for that 20:34 it's like, sometimes when somebody 20:37 has really done you wrong, 20:38 you have to forgive them 490 times 20:40 for it to sink in to in your own life... in your own heart... 20:43 you know, to kind of settle into you, 20:45 that you say, "Yeah, I don't... you know... I have forgiven" 20:49 and that's by the grace of God but it's something 20:52 you sort of... go over and over and over again, 20:55 and this kind of hurts... 20:57 it can really take a long time to heal. 21:00 And again, we in the church 21:02 should be thoughtful of such things. 21:07 All right, now, this exception clause 21:11 is rather challenging sometimes 21:15 it's kind of expressed in several different ways 21:18 and some people wonder "what does it really refer to. " 21:21 A man who marries an invalidly divorced woman commits adultery. 21:26 If you follow the same passage in Luke 16 21:30 or you look at Matthew 5 you see this. 21:34 Anyone in Jewish Society would agree with this position, 21:36 in fact in Judaism, 21:38 if a woman accidently married two men, 21:40 she was treated as an adulteress 21:42 even if the fault were not hers. 21:44 Yvonne: Wow! Tom: Which doesn't seem right 21:46 but that was the kind of thing... 21:48 so a man who married an invalid divorced woman commits adultery, 21:51 a man who invalidly divorces his wife, 21:54 causes her to commit adultery, 21:56 there seems to be a nuance of that in Matthew 5 21:58 and again in Matthew 19. 22:00 In Matthew 5, if the woman remarries 22:04 and thereby commits adultery, 22:06 then her former husband seems to be... partly to blame 22:08 because he shouldn't have divorced her in the first place. 22:10 Right... right... hmmm... hmmm... 22:12 another way of looking at this exception clause 22:16 has to do with the idea 22:18 that a man who invalidly divorces his wife 22:21 and marries another commits adultery. 22:24 This kind of turns it in the other direction 22:26 and in Mark chapter 10 and Matthew 19 and Luke 16... 22:29 all seem to have some of that kind of flavor. 22:31 What I'm doing here is I'm... 22:32 I'm actually talking about comparing the different ways 22:35 that Jesus talks about divorce in the Synoptic gospels. 22:37 Yvonne: Right. 22:39 Sometimes people worry about that... that you know, 22:41 it's not exactly the same words here than it is there 22:44 but actually, if you were to take people into Court 22:47 you know, four witnesses into Court, 22:49 and they all said exactly the same thing 22:51 about an accident, 22:53 you would say, "I think they were outside 22:56 talking together and making the story up. " 22:59 Right... 23:01 But when we come to the four gospels 23:02 and we find that they say things not quite exactly the same 23:05 it doesn't exactly match, we say, "oooh... oooh... no... " 23:08 but we can't trust the Bible then... really? 23:11 It should make us trust it more. 23:12 Hmmm... 23:14 Because it's not exactly the same... 23:15 they don't exactly match, it's more like four witnesses 23:19 that are presenting the information, okay, 23:22 so, over in Mark and in Luke, even in Matthew 19, 23:27 "A man who invalidly divorces his wife," 23:29 so, he's at fault now, 23:31 "and marries another... commits adultery" 23:33 for Jews this would be difficult to accept actually 23:36 because in Jesus' day, it was technically impossible 23:39 for a man to commit adultery by marrying an unmarried woman 23:44 because polygamy was allowed, that also wasn't God's idea. 23:47 Right... right... 23:48 But that's somewhat what could happen, 23:51 but Jesus taught that marriage should be monogamous. 23:55 He puts together the text from Genesis 1 and 2 23:58 and He says, "Male and female and the two become one flesh" 24:01 so since... for Jesus... there's only monogamy 24:04 in an invalid divorce followed by a remarriage 24:07 it would be adultery against the first and only wife, 24:09 all right, now, there's another case 24:12 if you look at Mark 10, 24:13 a woman who invalidly divorces her husband 24:15 and marries another commits adultery. 24:17 This is just saying now it's the woman who is doing the divorce. 24:19 Right... right... 24:21 Now, some people will want to say that 24:22 "Ah, well, Mark must have made this up 24:24 because in Jesus' day 24:25 women couldn't divorce their husbands in Judaism," 24:30 well, you know what? 24:31 If you look in the gospels 24:34 you will find a lady named Herodias. 24:36 Hmmm... 24:37 She was married to a guy named Philip 24:39 and then she divorces her husband, Philip, 24:43 and she marries Herod... Yvonne: Right... 24:46 And, obviously, that took place in the context of Palestine, 24:52 all right, so, the Herodian women actually did this 24:55 all right, so, when Jesus says, 24:57 "a woman who invalidly divorces her husband 24:59 and marries another and commits adultery... " 25:01 He might be winking and saying, 25:02 "Ah yeah, don't forget that Herodias did that, okay. " 25:05 Now, the exception clause is really the clue 25:13 to why Jesus said that divorce is invalid 25:15 when somebody does this, 25:18 Matthew 5 and 19 have the exception clause 25:20 Mark 10 and Luke do not... Yvonne: Hmmm... 25:23 Now people wonder about that, well, why not? 25:26 In the first century, in the Jewish setting 25:29 of discussing divorce 25:30 the question about the School of Hillel 25:31 and the School of Shammai 25:33 would have been the matter of discussion 25:35 they would've been saying about when they talked about divorce, 25:37 so, the new Hillel ruling that you could divorce your wife 25:41 for any cause, okay, 25:43 did not require any valid grounds 25:46 for the divorce and allowed divorce for any reason 25:49 therefore, when contemporary Jews heard the question, 25:51 "Is it lawful to divorce your wife?" 25:53 They would have mentally added the words, 25:57 "for any reason... " 25:59 because that's what Hillel was talking about. 26:02 Similarly, when they heard the reply, 26:04 "Whoever divorces his wife... " 26:05 they would have mentally added the phrase, 26:08 "except for valid grounds. " 26:10 It's not unlike reading Matthew 5 26:15 when Jesus... we talked about this before... 26:17 "looking at a woman lustfully and everything," 26:19 okay, "I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman 26:22 with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her 26:25 in his heart... " the missing implied phrase is, 26:27 "except for his own wife," Yvonne: Right. 26:29 It's all right to look at your wife that way. 26:31 Right. 26:32 You know, in fact, we used to tell... 26:34 "it's encouraged," so, from our previous thoughts 26:38 we can say, "Jesus calls divorce... invalid 26:40 if and when there are no valid grounds," 26:42 but what does that mean? 26:44 The contextual meaning... and we're running out of time... 26:49 the contextual meaning of this... 26:51 we can just kind of summarize in this way 26:53 since we're short on time, 26:55 Jesus taught that marriage is for life. 26:56 Hmmm... hmmm... 26:58 He opposed divorce 26:59 but he taught that there are valid 27:01 and invalid reasons for divorce. 27:04 The valid reasons are in the case of... 27:06 when somebody is sexually... 27:09 has sex with somebody other than their spouse. 27:12 Sex with someone other than the spouse 27:14 permits... but does not require divorce. 27:16 Divorce for invalid reasons 27:18 plus remarriage is the same as adultery. 27:22 And that really... basically summarizes 27:26 what He's saying in Matthew 19. 27:27 Yeah. 27:29 It is critical for us to really study this 27:32 and ask for the Holy Spirit's guidance on it 27:36 because so many people are contemplating divorce 27:39 and before doing it, really... we need to... 27:42 really get in the Word, 27:43 I know, because I've been divorced 27:46 and it's not an easy journey. 27:49 Well, for those of you 27:51 who are married and contemplating divorce, 27:54 get into the Word and tune in next time 27:58 as we continue to unpack these wonderful topics 28:01 and from our Word. |
Revised 2016-04-21