Remarriage and Divorce: Seven Minute Seminary

this session is not so much about divorce in a sense it is about exceptions it's about the question of remarriage and so on it's uh it's dealing with some of the traditional teaching the church that sometimes doesn't take these things new into account but we still need to take it in context with Jesus larger teaching on divorce the way God made us he didn't make our hearts to have to endure betrayal and most of us who've experienced betrayal and in some sort of relationship know that it's a very painful thing and that's something Jesus wanted to to prevent so Jesus has very good reason for calling for security commitment covenant in marriage but today we're going to be talking about the other side of it because covenant involves two people what happens when one person opts out what what happens to the other person and so on Jesus is clear that we should nurture preserve and where possible restore marriage but let's let's begin looking at the texts mark chapter 10 verse 11 Jesus says anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her first I want to notice what it says against her again it's not a matter of just an arbitrary rule it's because God cares about us it's it's a matter of wrong wronging someone it's a matter of betraying someone in the case of the the Pharisees who brought up this question to Jesus to begin with in the context in mark chapter 10 there were two schools of Pharisees one school of Pharisees the shemites said the demand could divorce his wife for the cause of her being unfaithful the Hillel it--so ever said that a man could divorce his wife if she burned the bread she burned the toast and and the wife once divorced in that society was a severe economic disadvantage so there were a number of reasons why this betrayal would have heard the wife but what does it mean when Jesus uses the word adultery here what is the word adultery mean when we use it literally when we use it literally it's something like well Dedrick is married to Shonda but he runs off with Shameka he commits adultery with Shamika even though he's married to Shonda likes women his names begin with Sh Jesus says it's not just adultery if he's married to Shonda and sleeps with Shamika he says it's also adultery if he divorces Shonda and marries Shamika the question here is is Jesus using adultery literally or as using it hyperbolically now that's an important question because when you go through Jesus teachings he uses hyperbole so often that somebody who just automatically dismisses the possibility that he's using hyperbole here needs to spend I think more time reading Jesus teachings but Jesus often uses hyperbole he uses hyperbole in the very context of one of these divorce sayings also we have exceptions that are noted in the New Testament and also the very context of this particular divorce saying leads us to believe that this is hyperbole hyperbole is rhetorical overstatement a graphic way of making your point but not meant to be taken legally literally in all respects so we need to look at the context of this Jesus often used hyperbole that can be easily Illustrated most of his early followers didn't move literal mountains most Pharisees didn't go down a camel hole and it was pretty hard to squeeze not just a rich person but any like a camel getting through the eye of a needle some of those actually were hyperboles that were known within the culture and some cases Jesus is using hyperbole that wasn't already known in the culture in Matthew 5:32 Jesus talks about remarriage being adultery talking about faithfulness to your to your marriage but the very context of that includes some hyperbole for example in chapter 5 verse 28 Jesus says whoever looks at a woman to desire her sexually has committed adultery with her in his heart and I usually tell my students I know that none of you have done this because if you had I'm sure you would have followed the the remedy that's specifically stated for this in the text in in the next few verses it goes on to say that if you have a problem with this then you should rip your eye out and since my students normally have both of their eyes I understand that they've probably never committed this no we understand that this is hyperbole it's a graphic way of driving home the point and Jesus drives home the point in a graphic way in this case also in John chapter 4 and verse 18 Jesus doesn't say to the woman at the well you were married once and you've been living with five men since then he says you've been married five times and you're not married to the person with whom you're living now now of course we can say well he didn't mean that literally well we can say that but in one case or the other he doesn't mean it literally we can't take both sayings completely literally we have to decide which one is meant completely literally in Matthew 5:32 and 19 9 Jesus makes an exception for the innocent party if if the wife has been committing adultery with someone then the man is is free now some people say well the word there isn't doesn't specifically mean adultery and they try to make it more specific than adultery but in fact the Greek term that's used there is broader than adultery and there's nothing in the context that limits it to something narrower than adultery so for the cause of the other person breaking the Covenant it's permitted but if the innocent party is no longer married to the guilty party how pray tell can the guilty party still be married to the innocent party that would suggest to us that this is hyperbole that that marriage is not something we should dissolve but it doesn't mean that it's something that's ontological impossible to dissolve it's like not saying that if the other person dissolves it you are not free also Paul cites the saying of Jesus in 1st Corinthians 7 and applies it to normal situations but then he has to deal with an exceptional situation an extreme kind of situation what happens if the other person isn't following the teaching of Christ they're not a believer and they leave and under Greek and Roman law either party had the right to divorce and the other person couldn't stop it so Paul says what happens if the other person walks out of the marriage in chapter 7 and verse 15 Paul says the believer is not under bondage in such cases now in the context of divorce which this is in divorce contracts that always meant that the person was free to remarry to not be under bondage meant freedom to remarry so in 1st Corinthians 7:15 explicitly given the way the Greek language works in the specific context of divorce contracts Paul is saying that the believer who has been wronged because the innocent party is free to remarry and I suspect that there may be analogous kinds of situations today that didn't come up that Paul had to address in that letter which would be something like physical abuse and so on but the point is both of these exceptions have something in common and what they have in common is that you're not breaking up your marriage the other person is the one breaking up the marriage so Jesus is not giving us permission to break up our marriage but Jesus also is not punishing the person whose marriage is broken against their will also the context of the verse that we started with mark chapter 10 verse 11 the context in mark chapter 10 and verse 9 what God has joined together let no one put asunder if what Jesus really meant was you can't put it asunder that if you pretend to put it asunder it's just adultery then he said the wrong thing here because here it doesn't say that it's impossible to break it apart rather he gives us a command that we should not break it apart all this leads us to believe given everything else the New Testament says about divorce given everything else Jesus says about divorce that the language of remarriage being adultery is hyperbole it's a rhetorical overstatement the point of hyperbole is not so we can say that's just a probally we will ignore it the point of hyperbole is to drive on the point so we take it very seriously so we work to nurture and preserve and insofar as possible restore marriages the narrowness of the explicit exceptions reminds us that Jesus wants us to value and be committed to marriage at the same time sometimes churches have abused those or the innocent parties remember what Jesus said he said Moses allowed you to divorce because of the hardness of your heart you missed the point of what it was about and I think sometimes by proof texting a verse here and a verse there from Jesus not taking them in the larger context of what Jesus actually said sometimes because of the hardness of our hearts we take the innocent person that Jesus was defending and we become the repressors just like the person who's between them you

Channel: Seedbed

Views: 40,793

Rating: 4.3499999 out of 5

Keywords: Seedbed, Christianity, Asbury Theological Seminary, Divorce (Taxonomy Subject), Remarriage, Craig Keener, Bible, Theology, Asbury, Seminary, Holy

Id: 837o4On3g24

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2014