Tag Archives: society

An important institution (Mark 10:3-12) August 18, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Proverbs 17-18

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Mark 10:3-12
Jesus: What did Moses say to you?
Pharisees: Moses permitted us to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce her.
Jesus: Moses gave you this law as a concession because of the hardness of your hearts. But truly, God created humans male and female in the beginning. As it is written in the Hebrew Scriptures, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother to marry his wife, and the two of them will become one flesh and blood.” So they are no longer two people, but one. What God has joined together in this way, no one may sever.
In the privacy of their dwelling that evening, the disciples asked Him about this teaching, and He went even further.
Jesus: If any husband divorces his wife and then marries another woman, he commits adultery against her. And if a wife should divorce her husband and marry another, then she commits adultery against him.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Jesus must have been mistaken when He said this stuff. God certainly didn’t mean for us to be stuck with the same person forever if we can’t get along, right? God wants us to be happy and if that means we need to get away from the person we married divorce is okay, right? These words are just an old fashioned, arcane philosophy that only prudes believe in. No one believes this stuff anymore, right?

We certainly act that way as a society. We even act that way within our churches when you look at the statistics. In fact, there are now more divorces in our churches than outside our churches. I hope that is because we still believe more in marriage than the rest of the world and we not just living together, but that’s another message. Even in the church, divorce is no longer the taboo it once was. If we don’t like our spouse any more, we just quit. We don’t spend the effort to make marriage work. We just jump in and out of relationships as if God doesn’t care.

All you need to do is read Jesus’ words again and you’ll see that God does care, though. He intends marriage to last for as long as you live. He intends for marriage and family to be the bedrock of our communities and our society. When you take a look around at the number of broken homes, is it any wonder we have the problems we have today?

Family and home is where we should feel safe and learn about love and security. But if husband and wife are bickering, failing to understand love and work on relationships, then how will their children learn to love? If husband and wife decide that their spouse is not important and can be thrown aside, with all the damage that broken relationship brings, how can their children learn differently as they grow?

We have bred a society that accepts divorce and brokenness as the norm. We have decided as a society that it’s okay to jump in and out of relationships as quickly as you change careers or jobs. We think it doesn’t hurt anyone, so why not try another spouse and throw the old relationships away. We have decided if our current spouse isn’t making us happy for the moment that it’s okay to find someone else who will.

The problem is that no one can make us feel happy or sad or wanted or discarded. We own our feelings. It’s time we figure out that we can control our feelings and feelings are not what love is about. Love and marriage and family is about a lifelong commitment to each other. Remember what Jesus said about the marriage relationship and divorce? The certificate of divorce that Moses inserted into the law for strict reasons unfaithfulness were allowed by God only as a concession because of the hardness of their hearts. Divorce was never part of His plan. It was never something He wanted or condoned.

God allows divorce just like He allows sickness and disease and sin and death. Does He want those things in the earth? Absolutely not! But He allows them because we choose not to abide by His law. We fail to follow Him and so suffer the consequences that come with it.

Our society is suffering the consequences of forgetting what Jesus said in these few verses. We have taken marriage vows lightly. We jump into marriage without taking seriously the responsibilities and commitments that come along with the vows we took. We let Satan lure us into thinking relationships don’t matter. And so we see the rise of divorce and the dissolution of families. Our children and their children pay the price. Those broken homes permeate our society and result in the broken lives that just continue the cycle of disruption in the home, the school, the workplace, everywhere you look.

Divorce affects everyone. It have never been God’s plan. We need to turn this ship around in our society and make marriage the important institution God intended it to be once again. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Take care of the children (Matthew 19:14) May 1, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – 2 Corinthians 4-5

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 19:14
Jesus: Let the little children come to Me; do not get in their way. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to children like these.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

A few days ago I talked about the characteristics of children that we should observe and emulate. The things that Jesus saw in them that make them ripe for the kingdom of heaven. Characteristics like happy, trustworthy, inquisitive, and knowing where to go when they are hurt. Jesus saw in the children around Him the innocence God wants to see in us but we seem to run away from far too quickly.

Let’s go back and look at the scene and see what we learn from it. Some parents wanted Jesus to bless their children. So they began to push through the crowd with holding on to their toddlers’ hands or tightly holding their precious bundles in their arms. But as Jesus’ disciples, those wanting to be like Him remember, saw these parents dragging their kids toward Him, they assumed He wouldn’t want to be bothered a bunch of little rug rats that throw up on your shoulder and ask a thousand questions and run around your feet wanting to play, never listening to what you have to say (or so it seems).

Things haven’t changed much in society today. Take a look around the world and see what happens with children in almost every society. Children and the elderly are the throw-aways of society. In poverty stricken areas, it is the children who starve. In areas rampant with disease, it is the children who die in droves. In areas with the most evil crimes, children become the target of kidnapping and sex slavery.

Societies at large have little regard for children and the elderly. But Jesus turns the tables on His disciples who, like many around them, want to push them aside and pretend they just don’t exist. They are the ones who die of starvation in famine raked countries. They are the ones denied scarce medicines in disease ridden sections. They are the ones left on doorsteps or locked in homes to fend for themselves while those who should be caregivers selfishly go party.

Because children and the elderly are non-productive members of our societies, we push them to the curb and forget about them when things get tough. We often talk a good game and tell ourselves we have great programs to help. But when it really comes down to it, thousands of kids, even in our country are left alone, left in the cold, forgotten because they are just kids. They are the invisible human beings of our society.

But not to Jesus. He says, “Let them come to Me.” Jesus wants the children by His side. He knows that they make up the kingdom of heaven. Jesus know s that unless we become like them, our character keeps us from reaching the promised land just like the adults that left Egypt never made it to the promised land. Those grown-ups couldn’t get past their old ways and old beliefs and died in the wilderness.

Jesus says even more about children, though. He says, “Don’t even get in their way!” Don’t become a stumbling block to them. Don’t put obstacles in their path that would keep them from reaching Him. Don’t do anything that would hinder them from finding and coming to Him. In other places, He says it would be better to have a millstone put around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little one to lose their way to heaven.

Do you think Jesus cares about children? There is no doubt in my mind He does. When He talks the way He did to His disciples and the crowd around Him, I know they held a special place in His heart. In fact, I think His wish is that all of us would emulate them. He wants us to understand how important they are. He wants us to care for them and love them as much as He does. He wants us to realize they are not disposable, but rather they are vital to our future. When we treat them as insignificant, disposable pieces of our society, we are in danger of destroying ourselves from within. Children are not our future, they are our present. The way we treat our children reflects our love of God and our love of each other because as Jesus said, “Such as these make up the kingdom of heaven.”

Don’t be one of those that push the children away. Remember they make up the kingdom of heaven. Learn from them. Be like them. Teach them God’s way. Children are loved by God. Be careful how you treat His loved ones. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Divorce should be a dirty word (Matthew 19:4-12) April 30, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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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. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.