Tag Archives: lawful

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING

August 10, 2020Bible Studydivorce, hearts were hard, lawfulLuella Campbell

CHAPTER 10

GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING

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.” Mark 10:1-9

Something that stands out in this passage comes clearer as we go through this gospel. The religious leaders focussed on the way things are now. Jesus always went back to God’s original intention. It is clearly seen here in this discussion about divorce. The rabbis concentrated on the law – the boundaries God set to regulate the people’s behaviour so that they would understand God’s character and not live in a way that unravelled their lives and caused chaos.

Jesus held up the pattern that God had set up in the beginning. He asked a question to answer a question. Their question: “Is it legal…” His question: “What did Moses command?” This question was designed to expose the heart of the matter. Moses’ command was a concession to man’s hard-hearted attitude to his spouse. The ketubah (marriage contract) entered into before a couple married was not intended as bondage but as freedom. Its purpose was to protect the love and ECHAD that marriage embodied. The provisions of the ketubah were a fleshing out of these two qualities in marriage that was intended to reflect the image of God.

God’s command is that a man and a woman break their connection with their birth family and create a new unit with a new loyalty that overrides their original family loyalty and develops a safe place for a new family to grow. This is not possible unless both parties:

Leave and cleave – no unity with their spouse is possible until they do that;
Understand that the goal of marriage is unity in diversity – self-centred and selfish attitudes will hinder that process;
Keep their focus so that this bond remains intact. God has done the joining. It is not man’s right to break it.

If two people make the choice to marry, it must be with the understanding that marriage is not about living together for legal sex; it’s not about compatibility or incompatibility. It’s about two people choosing to become one and then meeting each other’s needs at their own expense to grow and express that unity.

The Pharisees’ question revealed how far they had moved from understanding God’s purpose for marriage to looking for loopholes to satisfy their lustful intentions. How tragic that many in the church today follow the attitudes of the Pharisees rather than the purpose and intentions of the Father.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – A MAN WITH A SHRIVELED HAND

May 29, 2020Bible Studylawful, shriveled hand, synagogueLuella Campbell

CHAPTER 3

A MAN WITH A SHRIVELED HAND

¹ Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. ² Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. ³ Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

⁴ Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

⁵ He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. ⁶ Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Mark 3:1-6

The Pharisees’ dispute with Jesus over His attitude to the Sabbath was turning into a running battle. It was almost as though Jesus was baiting them by purposely healing people on the Sabbath. The rift between their definitions of righteousness and His was becoming more clearly defined and was widening into a chasm.

The Pharisees’ “righteousness” was defined by what they did not do. By contrast, Jesus was showing them both God’s heart and theirs by using the Sabbath as an opportunity to help people who needed help. His attitude was: “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?”

God’s vision is always filled with compassion for people who need help. The greater violation of His law is not doing what is right rather than doing what is wrong. A lot of the time, people engage in sin in order to manage their emotional pain. Jesus had more to say to the Pharisees who engaged in religious rituals to cover up their failure to be merciful than to people who engaged in sinful behaviour to cover up their pain. He redefined sin by modelling mercy. To Him, sin was not doing good rather than doing evil. The most wicked behaviour was to ignore someone in need rather than to commit adultery.

This speaks loudly to us because our most natural behaviour is to look inward and keep taking care of our own needs and our own “reputation”. This is what the Hebrew people called the yetzer harah – the evil eye. The eye of light keeps looking at God and sees other people’s needs. God’s greatest measure is: what do I do when I see another’s need and I have the power to meet it? That is the righteousness which flows out of the righteousness imputed to me by faith. They are two inseparable sides of the same coin.

Marriage Is God’s Idea

July 28, 2015Bible Studydivorce, lawful, one flesh, PhariseesLuella Campbell

MARRIAGE IS GOD’S IDEA

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.

Some Pharisees came and tested Him by asking, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ ‘What did Moses command you?’ He replied. They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’ ‘It is because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. ‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female.”

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ (Mark 10:1-9).

How sad that arrogant human beings think that we can improve on God’s idea of marriage. You see, God created man in His own image, and then He gave them the institution of marriage to reflect that image.

From the moment a Hebrew baby was born it would hear the Shema – the “creed” of the Hebrew people, repeated over and over again. Every time the baby’s mother would nurse him at her breast, she would whisper the Shema to him while he drank.

Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut. 6: 4-5).

The Lord is one. What does that mean? Our God is one – three persons in perfect unity. Not three Gods. One God, three persons united in essence and in purpose. Jesus could call the Holy Spirit “another Counsellor” because He was exactly like Jesus – the same divine being, the same nature, character, disposition, vision, but not the same function.

The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. The Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son and a yet He is perfectly one with the Father and the Son. I know we find this difficult to understand. That’s why God instituted marriage, to give us a visual aid of the unity in the Godhead which is expressed in the whole of creation. He intended creation to function as a perfect, interdependent unit to show forth His oneness.

But what have humans done to the beauty of this visual aid? We think we know better, so we threw out God’s pattern and created our own. We call it freedom, this casual liaison with any and everybody, fragmenting ourselves with every person with whom we have a sexual connection, not realising that we are, in the end, making it impossible to be united to one person because we have left a bit of ourselves with everyone to whom we have been joined.

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” (1 Cor. 6: 16).

Is it any wonder than that marriage does not work today? How can two people establish a permanent union when they have had casual connections with so many? So what do they do? They throw marriage out instead of returning to God’s original purpose.

Did you notice that Jesus did not approve Moses’ solution for disunity – divorce? He took the Pharisees back to God’s original intention. There were two schools of thought regarding divorce in Jesus’ day. The House of Hillel, the followers of Hillel, who was a liberal rabbi, taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason. The House of Shammai taught that the only reason for divorce was what Jesus called “marital unfaithfulness”. This referred to any infringement of the marriage contract – the ketubah, which regulated the terms of their marriage relationship – and not just adultery.

There was a reason for the Pharisees’ question. It was their practice to send a wife away for any flimsy reason because they had their eye on someone else. They wanted Jesus’ sanction for their practice, but Jesus would have none of it. He reminded them of God’s original intention for a permanent and monogamous union which reflected the unity of the Godhead. It was their sinful hearts that wanted approval for their behaviour, not the desire to obey the law of God.

How tragic that, in throwing out God’s law in favour of their own, people have doomed themselves never the experience the true joy of a permanent union that reflects and experiences the very heart of God.

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Doing Nothing Is Doing Evil

June 17, 2015Bible Studylawful, Pharisees, Sabbath, shrivelled hand, synagogueLuella Campbell

DOING NOTHING IS DOING EVIL

Another time He went into the synagogue, and a man with a shrivelled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched Him closely to see if He would heal Him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’ Then Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful, on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, so save life or to kill?’ But they remained silent. He looked around them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out and his had was completely healed (Mark 3: 1-5).

What if the religious leaders had understood the heart of Jesus and completely agreed with what He was doing? Would His life have made the impact that it did through conflict? Every time the Pharisees attacked Him for healing in the Sabbath or violating one of their rules, His way of mercy showed up their legalistic and callous hearts.

On this occasion He did not even touch the man. A word was enough to release the power of God in response to the man’s obedience. When he stretched out his hand at Jesus’ command, something happened in his body and in his heart. Regardless of what the Pharisees had to say, his faith connected with God and the miracle happened.

Jesus’ action had a twofold purpose. Firstly, it was an act of mercy. The man had suffered paralysis in his hand and heeded healing. Jesus did not miss an opportunity like this to step in with a miracle. Secondly, the people in the synagogue needed to know that the Sabbath was as good a day as any to do good to another. The religious leaders had made the Sabbath into a prison rather than a day of rest. Rest for them had become a straight jacked for rules, instead of a time of refreshment.

By declaring Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus was redefining the seventh day according to God’s original purpose. As Creator, Jesus had rested on the seventh day, not because He was tired, but because His work of creation was done. He invited His people to share His rest by setting apart that day from the normal labour of the other six days. It was not so much about what they could not do. It was about what they could do – take a day off to do something different from the rest of the week.

Doing something different also included acts of mercy. They knew that, because it was legitimate to save the life of a stranded animal on the Sabbath. “So why not a suffering human being? insisted Jesus and He did something; He spoke a word!

His opponents were not interested in what was right. They were only concerned with who was right. Jesus was both angry and distressed; angry because of their stubbornness and distressed because of their example. What were the people seeing in them? Was this the kind of God they represented? One who was so rigid about His rules that He cared nothing for suffering people?

Did you notice how Jesus classified doing nothing as doing evil? Every time we miss an opportunity, either because we are insensitive or selfish, to make the life of someone else better by an act of kindness or generosity, it is as though we have done something evil. Not to do is to do.

We need to heed the lesson of this story. I need to heed the lesson of this story. God’s mercy takes precedence over all other considerations. Like David eating forbidden bread. Like hungry men picking grain on the Sabbath. Like whatever need arises when I have something else to do. Like being interrupted to help someone when I am irritated by their demand. Jesus was never interrupted because He was led by the Spirit.