Synoptic Gospels - Matthew 19:1-12

Matthew 19 and the Question of Divorce and Marriage

Alright, we are back in the synoptic study, if you wish to find the synoptics over there. We are in section 251, after having gone through John chapter 10. We have been working through the synoptic gospels.

At least from what I'm feeling here, we're a lot closer to the end than the beginning now. Let's put it that way. In fact, from page 215, it ends on page 338, and part of that's John, so we're getting toward the end, believe it or not.

I realize that some had felt that this was going to be a lifetime study from this point on, but that's okay. We have a transition then in Matthew chapter 19. Now, when Jesus had finished his things, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

So, Judea beyond the Jordan, if you have your maps in your mind, or most people don't, unfortunately, but if you have your Bible maps in your mind, then we would probably be talking about beyond the Jordan.

Almost always in biblical geography, Jerusalem is the center, so everything is seen from Jerusalem. You go up to Jerusalem, even if you're going down to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center, so beyond the Jordan would be on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

And this is the context then of the discussion in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. Matthew 19 and Mark 10 on the subject of divorce and celibacy. And I don't want to rush through this too much because I do believe that, especially in our day, this is one of the key texts in regards to the understanding of marriage.

As we think of the opportunities of bearing witness to gospel truth in our society, probably one of the most commonly raised questions today has to do with the nature of the family and marriage. And so, as our society moves farther and farther away from its foundations, from its roots, and embraces more and more of an anti-Christian perspective, this creates all sorts of difficulties as the law was created on the basis of a Christian worldview.

And therefore, its view of the family, marriage, property, and all the things that relate to the family and husband and wife, and medical issues related to that, and just the whole plethora of things associated with that.

As you change the culture's view of those things, there's going to be a lag. There's going to be a period of contradiction between the remains of the law that reflect the views of the past generations and the current views.

And we're all told that the younger generation, represented by our front row here, excluding the far ends, sorry. I could have said the whole front row and it would have made both George and Ed feel good.

But we are told that the younger generation has a massively changed view of such things as marriage, sexuality, homosexuality especially. I mean, we all can just trace the frontal assault that has been made by homosexual activists over the past 30 years.

A lot of us are old enough to remember when you could actually watch television without being assaulted by constant positive presentations of homosexuality. Of course, that has been willingly aided and abetted by the media, which almost never shows us the actual practice of and public revelation of homosexuality in places like San Francisco.

Anyone who has actually watched at least unedited video of a gay pride march, they don't want that scene. They don't want that scene because there is a natural revulsion to the behavior that is shown there.

Anyway, in light of all these things, we have all sorts of opportunities now where in essence we will be being challenged by our society. And we will either be silent or we will speak the truth. And if we want to speak the truth, we need to be prepared to speak it in such a way that is understandable to our society and also speaks to the misapprehensions they might have concerning the Christian faith.

One of those is the constant statement, well, Jesus never addressed and then fill in the blank. Sometimes we hear that when Jesus did directly address it, but often that is just simply based upon abject ignorance as if the recording of Jesus' ministry and teaching is meant to be an encyclopedic, exhaustive, MP3-based, complete discussion of everything Jesus ever said and did.

And of course, we've already seen in the Synoptic Gospels, we've already seen in comparing Matthew with Mark that Matthew frequently will give us less of what Jesus said than Mark did for his own purposes.

So, clearly they're not attempting to provide us with a C-span type coverage of Jesus' ministry, which is one of the reasons why no one watches C-span as well when you think about it. So, they also seem to be ignorant and we tend to be ignorant as well of the fact that to say, well, Jesus never addressed that subject, therefore, the default is if Jesus never addressed a subject, then whatever the Scriptures had already said about it is enough.

Given his own teaching as we saw in the Sermon on the Mount, where he does not do away with the moral law of the Old Testament, he expands upon it and personalizes it and closes down the loopholes that the Jews had created to allow them to, on the one hand, say, I have followed the commandments, and on the other hand, entertain in their hearts and by their practices the very concepts the moral law was saying don't do.

You think about the young man who comes to Jesus, what must I do to have eternal life? And Jesus goes through the second portion of the Decalogue, do not commit murder, do not steal, etc., etc. It's interesting, he didn't go through the first part, which is about idolatry.

He did that purposefully, and the young man says, all these things I've kept from my youth up. Now, Jesus knew that wasn't true, and when you look at the Sermon on the Mount, that's what Jesus is saying there as well.

When a man says, oh, I have kept those laws from my youth onward, that person is either lying through his teeth or has no meaningful insight into his own heart. And that's what the Sermon on the Mount is about.

Do not commit adultery, but I say to you, if you look at a woman to lust after, you've committed adultery in your heart. In other words, shine that light not just on the outward actions, but on the thoughts and intents of the heart.

That wasn't some radical new thing. It wasn't like everybody in the Old Testament was going, wow, I hadn't thought of that before. I've been lusting after my neighbor's wife all along, but I didn't commit adultery.

Now, you can't read Psalm 51 or Psalm 32 and get away with that kind of thinking. But the externalism of the pharisaical system had come into full bloom at this point in time, and so Jesus closes down those loopholes.

Well, when you think of what Jesus' view then is, when someone says, well, Jesus never talked about homosexuality. He didn't have to. He said, anyone who teaches you to lose any of the law of Moses. I've come not to destroy it, but to fulfill it.

But anyone who teaches against the least of these things will be called the least of the king of heaven. So, there wasn't any question about what the law was. There really isn't, even though people certainly try to say that there is.

There's no question about what the Scriptures say about things like homosexuality. But we have to be prepared for the fact that they are prepared to deal with us. Now, we've talked about this before, and I'm not going to go into the whole homosexual thing right now.

We may need to do that again, because it's been a number of years since we addressed it. But they have their own arguments. They have their apologetic argumentation. The same is true in regards to marriage.

Getting us back to the text here. I saw a quote yesterday. I don't know how it reflects the individual who said it, to be honest with you. But I found it somewhat humorous. It was attributed to the outgoing governor of California, Governor Schwarzenegger.

But I think the quote was something along the lines of... Oh, now it's not going to work for me. Basically, he was saying, oh, I think gay marriage should be available for any man and woman couple. Or something along those lines.

He was basically saying, marriage is a man and a woman. And therefore, whatever word you want attached to it should be available for everybody who's a man and woman to get married. And not a man, a man, a woman, a woman.

We know that in our society, and when I say our society, I don't just mean the United States of America. I think you're probably aware of the fact that this is sweeping Europe as well. And that formerly extremely conservative nations are adopting, as the rule of law, the application to female-female and male-male relationships, the concept of marriage.

And we know, in light of what happened with Proposition 8 in California, that those who are pushing this kind of radical revolutionary change in society are tireless in not only their prosecution of their cause, but in the prosecution of those who would stand against them.

Or, shall we say, the persecution of those who would stand against them. This is their life. It's what defines them. The rest of us have lives. This, for them, is life. And as a result, we sometimes wonder at their willingness to sacrifice.

Well, if this is all you've got, then you sacrifice for it. And especially in the area of homosexuality, the rest of us have kids. Homosexuals generally don't, unless they steal ours. And so they tend to have a whole lot more discretionary income to contribute toward various political causes.

The result is that when this subject comes up, many on the other side are willing to invoke the name of Jesus. Well, Jesus never addressed gay marriage. Well, he never talked about space aliens either.

He never talked about GPSs. I mean, the whole mindset of that kind of thought should immediately strike us as absurd as it really is. But we need to have a response. Especially if we want to use this as an opportunity of witness.

And I think Matthew chapter 19 is probably one of the best places in the world to go. Now, you know and I know that in our society, it is politically correct to say Jesus approved of something. But it is politically incorrect to say Jesus disapproved of anything.

Jesus can always be a positive thing. But we don't like the Jesus who disapproved of anything. And while you can get away with summarizing your views of Jesus, listen to a radio talk show. And what's going to get you shut down faster than anything else in the world?

Quoting scripture. Going to the Bible. Because the vast majority of people don't want to hear it. Don't want to hear it. Have no interest in it whatsoever. So, the opportunity of actually going to this text, sitting down with someone, might require some ingenuity on your part.

To be able to actually say, well you know, when you say that Jesus did not address this subject. Could we look at what Jesus actually did say? Because I think it's really important. He did address this subject and he addressed it with great clarity.

And I don't hear many people talking about it. Do you know where Jesus addressed it? That's what I like to try to do. In a conversation type thing, you can use, in legal terms, they're called leading questions.

They're set-ups, is what they are. And I'm not talking about being dishonest. I'm talking about controlling a conversation. I'm talking about dealing with people who are ignorant of our scriptures and yet are behaving as if they are not.

And in a situation like that, if you want to try to open a door long enough to get something accomplished, you might want to sort of put the responsibility upon them. You know, you've made a statement.

You've said something about Jesus. Are you aware that he actually did address that? I've found it extremely effective in witnessing situations like with Mormons. The way to get into the text and to purchase the patience of the person you're talking to long enough to get there is to utilize something they've said and put them under sort of an obligation to allow you to do that.

It only buys you a certain amount. It doesn't give you time to read all of 2 Timothy or something. But when a Mormon comes up to me and says, so you think we can just sin all we want and go to heaven?

I'll say, you know, did you know that the Apostle Paul addressed that very thing? But he said that his enemies falsely accused him of that. You want to see where he said that? Because you just said that.

I think you might want to see where the Apostle refuted you. Okay. What are they going to sit there and say? No. I'm not going to sit there. Well, I've had some do that, but you know, you weren't going to get anywhere with those folks anyway.

But you've opened up the opportunity. So you might have to maneuver your way into it. But this is where I would go. Matthew chapter 19. Some Pharisees came to Jesus testing him and asking, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?

And I'm just going to read it and I can comment. We'll go back and comment on it as we have time to. And he answered and said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, the two shall become one flesh?

So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. They said to him, Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?

He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, Whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery.

The disciples said to him, If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. But he said to them, Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given.

For there are eunuchs who are born that way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who are made eunuchs by men, and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

He who is able to accept this, let him accept it. Now, a couple of things. The background. And by the way, again, and I'm just being very practical here, because I do think this is an area where we can have a lot of conversations these days, because this is the kind of thing that's discussed in our society very frequently.

I have found that a second way to expand that window, to get some more time to control the conversation, to get where you want to go, whatever terminology you want to use of that, one of the ways to do that is when you explain a text, if you provide background and context, you demonstrate to the person you're talking to that you're not just sitting here as an ideologue, and this is the only text in all the Bible you know, and you're just repeating a pre-memorized approach.

I mean, honestly, if you're sitting there with an index card, and you're going, so we see in this text that Jesus teaches, how far are you going to get? I mean, someone comes up to you in the airport, you know, Hi, my name is Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, and I would like to tell you about Transcendental Meditation.

I mean, you're going to be going, excuse me, late for my flight, even though your flight's three hours from now, and you're going to be heading down Concourse A, when you actually have to get to Concourse D, you're going to be doing anything you can to get away from this person.

And people can tell that. They can tell when you're flipping to the back page of your Bible, and okay, so the next verse we need to look at is Judges. They can tell when you're just going through a program, or when you actually know the text, and can handle it and say, well, now, we know the background here of why these men are coming to Jesus.

The Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Because that was one of the major conflicts of the day. Here was a situation where there was a major argument between the two leading rabbinical schools of the day, Hillel and Shammai, and they had differences of interpretation of the traditions and the scriptures as to how and why and upon what grounds divorce was to be handled.

One was more conservative. One was more liberal. One would allow you to divorce your wife or burn the toast. One did not. And so this was one of the major discussions going on at that time. It was a cultural conflict just as it is today.

And so Jesus was willing to address these issues, and notice what they're trying to do, because notice they were testing him. They were testing him. And so they were trying to, in essence, pigeonhole him, to push him into one side or the other, so that one side would go, hey, he's on our side, and then you can just start all the old arguments all over again.

A lot of the questions that were asked of Jesus were along the same way. The same thing, they were tempting or testing Jesus when they talked about paying the poll tax and all the rest of that stuff. And Jesus' answer is completely outside the realm of the current argumentation.

Notice he does not say, well, Rabbi so-and-so is said to have said to Rabbi so-and-so, who told this to Rabbi so-and-so, this. However, Rabbi so-and-so interpreted the third word of that to mean this, and therefore this.

And that's what the Mishnah is. That's what the codification, the collection of the traditions of the Jews about 200 to 250 years after Christ, which sometimes reflects what was going on then, sometimes doesn't.

We have to look, but that's what the Mishnah is like. Reading the Mishnah is, I mean, you've got to do it to dig through and find the stuff that is relevant to the backgrounds of the New Testament, but sometimes it's just like, I'm really tired of Rabbi so-and-so and Rabbi so-and-so and Rabbi so-and-so.

That's not Jesus' response, and we know that was never Jesus' response. That's why the crowds saw him as one who had authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees, because the scribes and Pharisees were always answering questions by saying, well, the opinion of some people is this, and the opinion of some people is this, and the opinion of some people is this.

What's your opinion? Well, you know, the opinion of some people is this.

And that's still a lot of rabbinic Judaism to this day. And so they saw him differently because he was different, and he answered in a different fashion. And very clearly, Jesus' answer here is not one of a tradition-bound individual, because his response, the very first words of his response, have you not read?

Not have you not heard from Rabbi so-and-so, or have you not heard this from this traditional source, or heard that from that traditional source. But Jesus goes directly to the Scriptures. And I hope you're always noting, and one of the things I, the New American Standard Bible, which is what I was reading from there, it's great in reading, but it's a pain in citation electronically, because you can always see Old Testament citations in the NASV, because they're in all caps.

So they just stick out to you, and you're going, I'm reading the Old Testament here. That's very important. You always need to note that. That should be one of the first things you're noting as you're reading the text of Scripture.

What I say, it's a pain in electronic form, is it's also a pain to quote the New American Standard electronically, on your blog or in your books, because it's all in caps. It looks like you're screaming.

So it's like, that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this reason. You know, and that doesn't, you know, most people are like, hey, hey, it's okay, calm down.

No, no, no, it's just the Old Testament. So, you know, so it's, I frequently use the ESV because, you know, then I don't have to retype everything into large letters and small letters and stuff like that.

But it is good to notice, and you'll notice, starts in verse 4, all of verse 5, and then again you have verse 7 are all citations from the Old Testament, and specifically from the Law of Moses. And so Jesus' answer to a modern question about marriage is to say, marriage is defined by God.

First institution, he goes back to what's called a creation ordinance. There are those things that God establishes in the creation of man, that then become foundational to all of man's activities from that time forward.

And there may be, you know, changes and modifications in practice, but the foundations remain the foundations from the beginning onward because they reflect a creative purpose of God. That is one of the first things that we have to realize is completely missing in the mind of that 20-something person we're talking to in our society today.

Because the 20-somethings today are the first generations that have been raised within a context where that concept of creator, transcendent law, and transcendent meaning has been not only wiped from the vocabulary of their entire education, but more importantly from their parents' entire education worldview as well.

We're now dealing with true secularists who have had it pounded into their brains in every possible way. Not just from the boring guy in the front of the lecture hall or in high school or junior high school telling them that they are the random result of random mutation over time and blah blah blah.

That's not the only way it's come to them. It has come to them through their music and through art and through television and movies and the internet and YouTube and tapped out in the 100 trillion text messages that they've produced over their lifetime.

And so you need to realize and hence need to enunciate and explain even though it's part and parcel of your own thinking. This is hard to do. This takes effort on our part. But you can't just assume those commonalities.

Now at the same time, what is the connection we have with any unregenerate person? Religious, non-religious, post-modern, new age, whatever. What is the connection we have with them? It's not some neutral moral ground.

There is no such thing as neutral moral ground. Not from a biblical perspective, not from a Christian perspective. If anything is a fact, it is a fact because God made it a fact, because it's created by God.

There's no neutrality in that sense. What is the common ground we have? What's the connection point? The connection point is the fact they are made in the image of God. And while they may be a true secularist in their thinking, they cannot live consistently with that because God has revealed himself to them.

They're suppressing that knowledge. Now they think everybody else is doing the same thing so it's easier for them to do. When you live in a completely secular society and everybody around you is doing it, that's an aid and assistance to you in that suppression.

But you still got that conscience in there. And if you listen carefully as they speak, if you watch them carefully as they act, there are so many times when they give silent testimony to their suppression of their knowledge, the existence of God.

Watch them when they experience death. They say things, you know, when they really think it through, they try to be good secularists. But many times they will say things that give telltale signs that they recognize that their friend who died is not just a bag of randomly produced protoplasm.

There's something more to this. And so they're not consistent. So when you're speaking to them, as soon as you start here, have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

There's an immediate disconnection. I submit to you that the entirety of the perversion of marriage, and that's what it is. God defines marriage, you change it, that's a perversion. The perversion of marriage that is taking place in Western society could never have happened before Darwin.

Could never happen before Darwin. Because as long as you have a transcendental creator, as long as you have a creator, then you have a creation that has purpose, meaning, order, law, and regularity. You have to have a creation that is purposeless and without meaning to allow you then to apply whatever meaning you want to creation.

Because don't tell me these folks don't know that they are engaging in revolutionary activity in the redefinition of marriage. They know that. But what they have to do is you have to implant in the minds of people that all the generations before mine were a bunch of closed-minded bigots anyways.

They weren't nearly as smart as we are. They were not nearly as intelligent as we are. And so we have the right to change all this stuff because we're so much better. Modern man's hubris. Every generation does that until it gets old enough to realize that it was foolish all along.

But you normally have to get to a certain age to come to that realization. So the person you're talking to, there's an immediate disconnection. So somehow, and I don't think that there's a plan that I can give you to do this.

I know how I would do it, but you have to. This has to come from your own conviction. This has to be something you've thought through. Somehow you have to communicate what it means to you and what it should mean to them that there is such thing as a creator and hence there is such thing as a creative purpose because that's what Jesus says.

Now you might want to, if they've shown some kind of respect for Jesus, which of course we would find to be somewhat inconsistent if you actually respect Jesus. If you really respect him, why don't you really take the time to find out what he said?

It's an odd thing. But if there's been some expression of some willingness to hear what Jesus has to say, then you might say, you know, it's so clear that in all of Jesus' disputations, not only does he believe that God has spoken and spoken with finality and clarity and authority in Scripture, that God's a communicating God, but that it's not just a New Age woo-woo communication.

It is an objective revelation that he can hold men accountable to. Have you not read? You can give other examples of this. Have you not read? Have you not gone to the Scriptures and seen what God has said and what God has done?

So you might want to just point out, you know, if we're concerned about what Jesus said, we've got to start where Jesus started. And Jesus started by the recognition that God is the creator of all things and that he had a purpose in how he created.

And if you and I are his creation, then you and I should be first and foremost concerned about, in essence, living in accordance with the owner's manual. You know, we know how dangerous it is to ignore the owner's manual.

We've heard the stories of people, and I'll admit, all the stories I've heard about this have been about the ladies. But I know some guys that can just pull a stunt like this, who, you know, call up the car dealership after they buy a new car and, you know, well, my car just stopped running and I need you to, you know, I've got this warranty thing and they get out there and the engine is just absolutely seized.

And, you know, it's got, you know, 24 ,000 miles on it. And they start looking around and there's not a drop of oil left in this thing. Because, oil? I just thought you put gas in it. You know, and we think there's actually people that would be that naive about the ownership and operation of a motor vehicle.

Yes, believe it or not, there are. They ignored the instruction manual. Well, God's provided us with an instruction manual. If God created us, he knows how we are to operate and what's good for us and what's bad for us.

Driving your Jeep into the middle of Lake Pleasant will not be good for it. Ask Rich. It doesn't have to be Lake Pleasant. It can be underpasses under I -17. It can be all sorts of things like that that require extensive replacement of all fluids in the vehicle once you get done doing things like that.

There are things you do and don't do. And the same way there are things you do and don't do as human beings if we're created. Now, if we're not created, all that stuff goes out the window. Not only is there no owner's manual, but who cares if you abuse your body?

Who cares if you shorten your life by two decades or three decades or five decades or anything else? I mean, you're just taking up fewer natural resources that way and we all want a green planet. So, you start where Jesus was.

And I would suggest that in almost a couple decades ago, a couple generations ago, the simple citation of the text was enough because there was a latent respect for the Bible as a divine revelation in our society.

That's gone. You might still find it among some people. In talking to Hispanic people with a Roman Catholic background, there's a religious veneration for the Bible as almost a superstition. And so, you might find some of that.

But in most of Western society, they've seen enough Bart Ehrman to go, so, don't care. Some ancient guy said some words. Doesn't matter to me. And so, you have to start where Jesus starts. If you just simply read the text and then don't make application to the person you're talking to, you're not going to get very far.

I mean, you might be able to explain why you believe that, but then you need to be prepared to explain, well, so, why do you care about what some guy is supposed to have said in a book written after he died by someone Bart Ehrman says never even saw him, blah, blah, blah.

There's all the objections that go that direction. But even the person who hasn't been poisoned to that level, there's still the idea that, yeah, but, you know, the Muslims, they have their thing, and the Buddhists, they have their thing, and the Hindus, they have their thing, and, you know, it doesn't seem very scientific, and la, la, la, la, la.

And so, obviously, we're not going to get very far today because we're almost out of time. But he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

Let me just make a few comments on that, and then we'll wrap up and come right back to this when we have opportunity to be together again. This citation is from the very section of the Old Testament that is such a football today in debates and dialogues and discussions.

Not only the Pentateuch, but especially the first chapters of Genesis have come in for a tremendous amount of scrutiny and reinterpretation. And as such, in our society, when there's much controversy about a particular text, we tend to shy away from putting much weight upon it any longer.

But controversy over text should not impact our utilization of it. The only thing that should impact our utilization of any Old Testament text is if we really aren't sure what it's talking about. There are, you know, for example, flora and fauna in the Old Testament.

There are a number of texts we're just not sure. A rock badger, are we sure about that? You know, a certain kind of flower, you know. Certain practices, a few things we can't find any parallel use of languages and other things.

Oh, okay, that, you know, the term's only used once in the Old Testament. We're not really sure. Okay, fine. But none of that has anything to do with Genesis 1 and 2. The language isn't difficult. The context isn't difficult.

The problem is the meaning is difficult in our society. That's where the controversy comes from. You've got to differentiate between meaningful controversy because we need to do more work on a subject and the fact that there's controversy because what the Bible's saying conflicts with the societal norm.

Huge difference between those two things. Huge difference between those two things. So, we will pick up with that assertion that male and female is God's intention and purpose. And we're completely out of time.

So, we'll need to wrap up. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful for this time. We ask as we go into worship now that you will lift up our hearts and minds. We might understand your truth. And, Lord, that you would be glorified and honored in what takes place during this next hour.

We pray in Christ's name.