Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Mark 15-16
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 19:4-6, 8-12
Jesus: Haven’t you read that in the beginning God created humanity male and female? Don’t you remember what the story of our creation tells us about marriage? “For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” If a husband and wife are one flesh, how can they divorce? Divorce would be a bloody amputation, would it not? “What God has brought together, let no man separate.”
Pharisees: Why did Moses explain that if a man leaves his wife, then he must give her a certificate of divorce and send her away, free and clear of him?
Jesus: Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But divorce was an innovation, an accommodation to a fallen world. There was no divorce at creation. Listen, friends: if you leave your wife, unless there is adultery, and then marry another woman, you yourself are committing adultery. Only if there is adultery can you divorce your wife.
Disciples: If this is how it is, then it is better to avoid marrying in the first place.
Jesus: Not everyone can hear this teaching, only those to whom it has been given. Some people do not marry, of course. Some people are eunuchs because they are born that way, others have been made eunuchs by men, and others have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who can embrace that call should do so.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Our society has fallen far short of God’s design for marriage, hasn’t it? Does that mean it’s okay to lower God’s standard because society thinks it’s an archaic command? Just ask the families traumatized by divorce. The translation you’ve heard today describes the consequences of divorce pretty well. We think everything will work out so much better when we sever ties with the one we married because we found we’re not compatible any more, but listen to Jesus’ description. Divorce would be a bloody amputation… And just about every divorce I’ve ever seen has looked like that in the end – a bloody amputation.
The emotional scars are always deep and long lasting. It’s something from which you never fully recover because as Jesus says, you were one flesh and when you were torn apart, an amputation occurred. We have become so flippant about marriage, though. It is no wonder we are just as flippant about divorce. We think it’s okay to just though away relationships and don’t worry about the damage it causes to families, children, parents, siblings, friends, and others we touch. Divorce affects the whole of society as it breaks down the very fabric of our community, the bond between a husband and wife.
The marriage relationship is at the core of our community. It should be the relationship from which all others spring. When we disregard the importance of marriage and begin to trivialize
or minimize God’s directions for us in regard to marriage, we stand on shaky ground in regard to the whole of our society. It isn’t long before the family unit dissolves as we have already seen in our country. In fact, our rules for welfare support seem to encourage the dissolution of families rather than support them.
Now we see a small minority working feverishly to change the definition of marriage to include the union of any two people regardless of sex. But such a union was never in God’s plan for the procreation of the earth. It just doesn’t make sense in His plan. His mission for the first couple was to populate the earth. That marriage, that union, required them to become one flesh. To procreate. To expand the population. Adoption doesn’t procreate.
As Jesus says, divorce was contrived because we live in a fallen world. It was never God’s plan. We fall away from each other in marriage primarily because we fall away from God. If God is first for both partners in a marriage, it is unlikely the marriage will fall apart because the closer we come to God, the closer we come to each other as we keep God as the head of the home. The geometry of that marriage triangle always works. We just don’t like to put the effort into it in this fallen world that we need to.
Remember, Jesus gave these words to the people living in a community in which most had no choice in who they would marry. Marriages were arranged. Daughters were given to sons of others in the community and neither had a choice in the matter. Neither had any say in who they would wed. They were told. Fathers got together and determined the two would be a good fit and the engagement was set. The father of the groom had his son begin building rooms for the new bride on the family property and when complete, the father would send his son to retrieve his bride.
That was the culture in which Jesus said, the only acceptable reason for divorce was adultery. Have we become so civilized that the rules no longer apply? If we look at our society, I’d say we would do well to apply the rules God gave us. We’d be a lot better off. The evil rampant in our society would be a lot less if we paid attention to God’s word. It’s not any more, but divorce should still be a dirty word.
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