Tag Archives: adultery

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – NOT THE ACT BUT THE MOTIVE

Bible Study, ,

NOT THE ACT BUT THE MOTIVE

1 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” Mark 10:1-12

What Jesus said about divorce and the way it is generally interpreted are two different things. He focussed, not on the act of divorce but on the motive or reason for divorce. Long before divorce separates two people who have been married, ECHAD has been ruptured by thoughts, attitudes and actions that have already destroyed the unity in the heart. The act of divorce is merely the confirmation and completion of what has already happened in the heart.

In Matthew 19, Jesus pointed to marital unfaithfulness as the reason for breaking the ECHAD, not only adultery but anything that violates the marriage agreement entered into freely by both parties antenuptially. Jesus made it clear that the marital unfaithfulness was not as much the issue as the reason for it. It seems that the Pharisees were looking for a legal loophole to legitimise divorce on the grounds of marital unfaithfulness. He recognised their hard-heartedness as the reason for divorce. They were not looking for ways to uphold the ECHAD but to break it so that, according to them, divorce could be “legal”. For Jesus, in line with His teaching in Matthew 5, what constituted adultery was what lay in the heart long before it was acted in the behaviour.

It is not the act of marrying someone else that is adultery but divorcing one’s spouse in order to marry someone else that is the problem. It was this inward thing that Jesus was exposing in the religious leaders and this was what they hated most about Him. He was able to see right into their wicked hearts and tell them the truth that offended them so that their hearts were exposed.

God established marriage as a visual aid of the ECHAD that exists within the Godhead. To protect the love that fosters unity and the unity that reflects the image of God should be our highest priority because it is God’s priority. When we look for excuses and make choices that destroy ECHAD, we attack the very essence of who God is and how the entire universe functions.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD OF GOD

Bible Study, , ,

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD OF GOD

“‘The sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve before a single letter of God’s Law wears out.

Using the legalities of divorce as a cover for lust is adultery; using the legalities of marriage as a cover for lust is adultery.'” Luke 16:17-18.

This seems like an odd combination of ideas, the eternal nature of God’s word and a warning against using legal ways as an excuse for adultery. But there is never anything random about Jesus’ thinking. He always came from the perspective of God and His ways rather than the natural, human way of thinking.

The concept of adultery has far wider implications than simply breaking a marriage relationship. It is a violation of the essence and nature of God Himself and the power that holds the universe together.

According to the Shema – the Hebrew confession of faith – “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV), which an Israelite would recite more than once every day, God is one (echad – in Hebrew), not in uniformity but unity in diversity. Those who deny the Trinity or reject the deity of Jesus or the personality of the Holy Spirit have not grasped the significance of this unity. God is three persons, separate, but in essence and nature, perfectly one.

This oneness is reflected in the universe. Everything in the universe is interactive and interdependent. Everything on earth functions as one; man is a unit – every system in his body functions as one and when one system malfunctions, the whole body is affected.

God created a man and a woman and brought them together in marriage to function as one as a perfect reflection of His being. So, according the Genesis 2:24, marriage is primarily to be a visual aid of the unity of the Godhead. “For this reason (that the woman was fashioned from the body of the man), a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” The purpose of marriage is not primarily for companionship, procreation or legalised sex but to express the unity of God. 

Is it any wonder, then, that Satan targets marriage and the family as his most potent expression of hatred against God? Our so-called sexual ‘freedom’ has done more damage to the fabric of society than any other deviation from the ways of God because it has caused the whole of society to unravel.

Adultery is not just the disruption of a marriage partnership. It is a denial of the nature of God and attack on society as a whole and every human being in particular. The consequences of adultery are not only individual, they are universal.

Since God’s word is the manifestation of Himself in another form, it cannot be destroyed. It is as eternal as He is. His word is not broken – those who reject or disregard His word are broken by it and whatever is broken will land up in the trash.

Jesus warns that we must not think that we can get away with lust by disguising it under a legal divorce or even a legal marriage. Using divorce as a way of getting free to marry someone else does not fool God and neither does legal marriage as a cover-up for lust. These are the ways in which the selfishness that breaks ‘echad’ can be expressed. The only legitimate motivation for marriage is the sincere purpose of becoming one as a true, though imperfect, expression of God’s echad-ness.

Here is the Apostle Paul’s take on marriage. “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord…Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy…and to present her to Himself as a radiant church…In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies…’For this reason a man must leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and His church.” Ephesians 5:22-32 (NIV).

God’s word on marriage does not change because society has decided otherwise. Unity inside a monogamous union is the only way in which marriage can flourish because tha’t the way God planned it and that’s what He said.

Jesus The Family Man

Bible Study, , ,

JESUS THE FAMILY MAN

When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.’

People were bringing little children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to each of them. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

 And He took the children in His arms, placed His hands on them and blessed them (Mark 10: 13-16).

We tend to think of Jesus as the rabbi, the homeless, wandering teacher who spent three years roaming Israel from north to south and east to west, but we don’t think of Him as a family man. He may not have had a wife and family of His own (in spite of what Dan Brown may have written) but He was at heart a family man. How do we know this?

First of all, His attitude and behaviour towards woman elevated them from the lowly position they occupied in society to people with dignity who had the right to be treated with honour and respect. It was the women who travelled with Him who took care of His needs and even provided for Him and His disciples from their own means. He healed many women. He spent time in the home of Martha and Mary, enjoying the company and their hospitality. He forgave their sinful practices and treated them with compassion.

Secondly, He protected the sanctity of marriage. He came down hard on the Pharisees for their hard-hearted attitude towards women. They favoured the rabbis who either sanctioned divorce for any flimsy reason, or even for a legitimate reason, marital unfaithfulness, instead of upholding God’s original intention. They were obviously looking for an excuse to cover up their own practices.

He loved and blessed the children. He saw in them, not immaturity but potential. They were the ones who would accept the kingdom of God in simple faith without doubts and questions. The disciples treated them with disdain, as though they were an intrusion into Jesus’ time and space. This annoyed Him because He was never put out by interruptions, especially from the ones who needed Him.

Jesus rapped His disciples over the knuckles for their hard-hearted attitude towards little children. Like the rest of Jewish society, as far as they were concerned, women and children were just there and had no significance except in the home where the women served, had babies and raised them. When the sons reached adulthood at the age of twelve, they were accepted into adult male society as young men but, until then, they were insignificant.

Unlike us ordinary mortals, Jesus looked beyond who and what people were to what they could and would become, given the opportunity to be exposed to the Word of God. But we, in the church, have not absorbed His outlook and attitude, in the main. Ministry to children in the church does not take precedence over ministry to adults. This reflects the same attitude as the disciples. We treat the children as peripheral and not central to the kingdom of God.

Our ministry to children is run as a rescue ministry rather than as foundational to their lives as they grow up in a very evil world. What would happen, for example, if parents made it a priority to focus on their children above everything else, and raise them to know and follow Jesus? Instead of treating them as peripheral, treat them as the very reason for their living until they have grown up and left home.

Let’s take to heart Jesus’ rebuke. ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to each of them.’

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Caught In The Act!

Bible Study, , ,

CAUGHT IN THE ACT 

“But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn He appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around Him, and He sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’  John 8:2-5 (NIV).

How convenient! Just when they needed some way of catching Jesus out on some (perceived) breach of the Law, one (or some) of them “happened” to come across this woman in a little liaison. Would these guys stop at nothing to nail Him? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it! Was this woman part of their trap? Were they willing to sacrifice her to get their way? And what of the male member of the conspiracy? Where was he? It takes two to tango.

In this whole debacle, what kind of a god were the religious leaders representing? Was this the God who rescued them from slavery in Egypt; the God who led them; cared for them; protected them; fed them and entered into a marriage covenant with them in the wilderness and gave them the Promised Land? Is this the God who taught them about loving Him and loving their neighbour as themselves? Was God’s Law intended to turn them into monsters or to show the world what kind of God He really is, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness?

Jesus was, along with rabbis Hillel and Shammai, a rabbi with authority. How often did the common people not wonder at His authority because He showed, them by His words and works, the true nature of God, and they marvelled. The other rabbis perpetuated the tradition of a God of law and justice who wreaked vengeance on those who stepped outside the Law, especially the way they interpreted the Law. They made a fetish of the Law and twisted the nature of God to suit their distorted version.

Jesus’ yoke was different. He portrayed a God of mercy and compassion, one who was on the side of the poor and oppressed. He was not out to destroy but to restore. He had forgiveness and mercy for those who repented and healing for the sick in body and mind. His kingdom was built on love, God’s limitless and unconditional love for all people, and man’s love for each other because all barriers had been removed.

The Jewish leaders hated Jesus because He made God too nice. It didn’t suit them because a “nice” God took away their power to control the people through fear and stripped away their cloak of hypocrisy.

How insensitive these men were! Imagine them dragging this poor, half naked, wretch  in front of Jesus, flinging her down on the ground and loudly demanding that He pronounce His “Guilty!” verdict on her or else…! ‘Come on, Jesus. We caught her IN THE ACT! Moses said we must stone her. What do you say?’ They were confident that they had Him. If He showed mercy to her, He would be deliberately acting against the Law of Moses. If He agreed to their stoning her, He would be applying their yoke, not His own. He would be going against His own authority and bowing to theirs.

Was Jesus caught off guard? Would He have an answer that would vindicate Him and be merciful to the poor victim who lay trembling on the ground, waiting to hear her fate?

I can imagine the self-satisfied grins on the faces of these men as they looked at one another in triumph. ‘We’ve got Him now,’ they must have thought. ‘There’s no way that He can wriggle out of this one!’ In full view of their audience of people eager to listen to the gracious teaching of the rabbi whom they admired and followed with expectation and enthusiasm, they waited for their answer.

But they didn’t know Jesus. He knew exactly how their minds worked. There was one small part of the Law they had forgotten….

The Indestructible Word of God

Christian Life, ,

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD OF GOD

“‘The sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve before a single letter of God’s Law wears out.
Using the legalities of divorce as a cover for lust is adultery; using the legalities of marriage as a cover for lust is adultery.'” Luke 16:17-18 (The Message).

This seems like an odd combination of ideas, the eternal nature of God’s word and a warning against using legal ways as an excuse for adultery. But there is never anything random about Jesus’ thinking. He always came from the perspective of God and His ways rather than the natural, human way of thinking.

The concept of adultery has far wider implications than simply breaking a marriage relationship. It is a violation of the essence and nature of God Himself and the power that holds the universe together.

According to the Shema – the Hebrew confession of faith – “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV), which an Israelite would recite more than once every day, God is one (echad – in Hebrew), not in uniformity but unity in diversity. Those who deny the Trinity or reject the deity of Jesus or the personality of the Holy Spirit have not grasped the significance of this unity. God is three persons, separate, but in essence and nature, perfectly one.

This oneness is reflected in the universe. Everything in the universe is interactive and interdependent. Everything on earth functions as one; man is a unit – every system in his body functions as one and when one system malfunctions, the whole body is affected.

God created a man and a woman and brought them together in marriage to function as one as a perfect reflection of His being. So, according the Genesis 2:24, marriage is primarily to be a visual aid of the unity of the Godhead. “For this reason (that the woman was fashioned from the body of the man), a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” The purpose of marriage is not primarily for companionship, procreation or legalised sex but to express the unity of God.

Is it any wonder, then, that Satan targets marriage and the family as his most potent expression of hatred against God? Our so-called sexual ‘freedom’ has done more damage to the fabric of society than any other deviation from the ways of God because it has caused the whole of society to unravel.

Adultery is not just the disruption of a marriage partnership. It is a denial of the nature of God and attack on society as a whole and every human being in particular. The consequences of adultery are not only individual, they are universal.

Since God’s word is the manifestation of Himself in another form, it cannot be destroyed. It is as eternal as He is. His word is not broken – those who reject or disregard His word are broken by it and whatever is broken will land up in the trash.

Jesus warns that we must not think that we can get away with lust by disguising it under a legal divorce or even a legal marriage. Using divorce as a way for getting free to marry someone else does not fool God and neither does legal marriage as a cover-up for lust. These are the ways in which the selfishness that breaks ‘echad’ can be expressed. The only legitimate motivation for marriage is the sincere purpose of becoming one as a true, though imperfect, expression of God’s echad-ness.

Here is the Apostle Paul’s take on marriage. “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord…Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy…and to present her to Himself as a radiant church…In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies…’For this reason a man must leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and His church.” Ephesians 5:22-32 (NIV).