Friday, August 26, 2011
What Jesus Said about Being Good Enough - Anger, Lust, Marriage, Divorce, Part 20 of 34
TEXT: "Furthermore it has been said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 5:31-32).
IDEA: Jesus' statement about divorce sounds unequivocal.
PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that Jesus had a high view of marriage and a low view of divorce.
What is the difference between the "interpretation" and the "application" of a text of Scripture?
I. In our Supreme Court, the justices have the Constitution to interpret and apply.
Why do people get upset with judges? Why is their task so difficult?
How do you explain the justices coming to five-to-four decisions?
Can this happen with Christians who disagree?
II. How do we interpret and apply what Jesus teaches on divorce and remarriage in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:31-32)?
Matthew also deals with this question about divorce at greater length in another passage in Matthew where Jesus was tested by the Pharisees (Matthew 19:3-8). What does that passage tell us?
God's ideal is one man with one woman for life (Genesis 2:24).
Moses required that a husband write a bill of divorce for a wife he puts away. It protected the woman.
How do you think the religious teachers wrestled with Deuteronomy 24:1? They debated the words "for something indecent."
Moses did not give this instruction to allow divorce but to protect a wife from a husband's "hardness of heart."
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:31-32), Jesus has an exception clause "except for marital unfaithfulness." "Fornication" is a wider word than "adultery." It covers a variety of sexual sins.
We debate this application of the passage in the Sermon on the Mount today.
Does this exception allow the innocent party to remarry?
Why do Christian teachers differ about this interpretation?
