Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 19

I could probably get started without George. I've done it a decent time. Real imbalance here. It definitely seems that the sheep are on the right, and the... Well, there does seem to be a chasm affixed between the two, so George will definitely help balance stuff up again if he makes it.

Of course, if little Billy Miller moves over there, that'll pretty much balance it out, too. The world's coming to an end. Is that what you're saying? So the whole idea is you sort of aim in the middle someplace, and something's going to come down back then, but now you've actually got to hit something.

I actually had dove once. It was fun picking all the shot out of it, but... A little extra lead in your diet. The one in the west? You were born in the wrong year, Mr. C. Yeah, there ain't no doubt that you and technology would have gotten along real well back about 1870.

You've got to fix the horse. This is true. This is true. I saw a shadow walking around the windows there, so that's why I've been waiting for whoever's in the shadow to arrive, but I guess they're not coming here, so...

Travel, Debates, and Upcoming Teaching Schedule

All right, we continue with our study. I believe we are in the... That's why I want George here. It's been so long again. And I'm going to be gone again next week. I'm going to be in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I'm doing two debates on... I did two debates last weekend, which were really interesting. One with a Roman Catholic at a Roman Catholic high school, but the Roman Catholics didn't show up, so it was pretty much just Protestants there.

I guess Roman Catholics weren't overly concerned about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and sinlessness of Mary. But that was very interesting. I was debating a fellow I'd never debated before.

He's an attorney. And boy, is he an attorney. I mean, everything you think about attorneys, you know, twisting your words and doing all sorts of stuff like that, that's what the whole debate was about.

It was interesting. But then Monday night, we did a debate at a sort of charismatic church, and man, they really rolled out the carpet. I mean, when I got there, they had people out in the parking lots directing people where to park, and when I walked through, they had assigned a person to me, and is there anything you need, and I had a room I could have gone to.

I didn't, but I could have gone to for preparation and stuff, and it was a perfect setting, videotaped facilities, and it was really, really nice. But I had a good group show up for that one, and I debated the Vice President of the American Atheists, and that was interesting.

Is the New Testament evil? His whole presentation was, it's evil because the God of the New Testament is evil to judge people because there's nothing they can do about it. He basically said that even, God even judges you for your thoughts, but there's nothing you can do about your thoughts, and so God's evil.

It was interesting. He totally devolved into, at one point I said, so what you're saying, because I asked him to even define evil, what's evil? Well, it's what people in a particular group at a particular time think is evil.

So he didn't have any problem that people in China might have a completely different morality than we do, and that like in World War II, there wasn't anything moral about that. There was nothing right or wrong about defeating Hitler.

So I said, so I could stay at the gates of Auschwitz, and from your perspective, all I can say as I stand at the gates of Auschwitz is, I am currently personally offended by this. That's the best I can do.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks. Appreciate that. So it was very, very interesting. He had obviously never debated a presuppositional approach, because he showed no reflection upon his own worldview at all.

He really didn't. He really struggled at that point. So we'll have to bring that in. You might find it interesting to watch, because it wasn't... It went well. Anyway, so this weekend, on Friday, I'm debating Robert St. Genes again.

Really hadn't intended to do that, but we can't get any other Roman Catholics to debate anymore, basically. So I'm going to be defending the doctrines of grace, and then we're going to be debating the bodily assumption of Mary, which isn't really going to be a debate on the bodily assumption of Mary, I can tell you right now.

I can tell you exactly what his argument is. He's going to say there's very little in scripture, there's very little in the early church, but the reason it's true is because we don't need to have any of that.

The church has spoken. That's basically going to be the argument. So that'll be on Friday, but then I'm speaking at the conference that follows that on Saturday and on Sunday morning. So I'll be back Sunday evening.

And then two days later, a week from Tuesday, here in Phoenix, we'll be recording at the Jewish Voice broadcast a debate, myself and Michael Brown, some of you. In fact, I think, Mr. C., you went to the debate that Michael Brown did with the rabbi at ASU in 1995.

Okay. Michael Brown is a former, well, he's a convert from Judaism, and an excellent scholar. He's a solid Arminian. He and I debated that subject on his radio program, Nationwide Radio Program. We did it on my program for two programs, but it was respectful.

But he's also very good on issues like the deity of Christ and the trinity and things like that. So he and I are going to team up to debate Sir Anthony Buzzard and a fellow by the name of Good. I don't know anything about Good, but I know Buzzard real well.

Buzzard and I debated on the unbelievable radio program in London when I was over in London back in February. So I have three, and then I have ten days before I debate Abdullah Al-Kunda on ABN. So I have four debates in the next 19 days, I think, something like that.

So I'm going to be busier than a one-armed paper hanger. It is interesting. In one of them, our text today might show up, and I've now stretched as far as I can for George, and he ain't coming. I think we're in 254.

I think we're in Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18. I don't remember, though. I thought we had finished that section. Well, we'll back up then. July? That long ago, huh? All right. I guess we can back up to that point then.

We've been in this section for a long, long time then. That's why I figured we had gotten past that, because we were doing Matthew 19 many, many moons ago, at least as far as this section went. All right.

Well, get my mind wrapped around a different section here. My recollection is fairly strong that we've spent a lot of time in this portion. I know we covered verse 7 of Mark 10. This reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

They are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together with no man put asunder. So, picking up with verse 7 then, they said to him, Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?

And I'm pretty certain, I do recall now that I'm looking at it, that we did discuss this, because we discussed some of the things that Rashtuni had said in regards to issues relating to de facto divorces in the Old Testament that involved if you were married to someone who committed a capital crime, and many of those capital crimes under the Old Testament law were moral issues, such as if your husband or wife were to become involved in homosexuality or any issues along those lines, that that person would be executed, and that's not exactly the same thing as divorce, but has the same effect.

And hence, we discussed a little bit of what's called many things, but the clause found in verse 9, after Jesus says, They said to them, For your hardness of heart, Moses is allowed to divorce your wives.

But from the beginning it was not so, taking us back to the positive command that has just been exegeted by Jesus, and recognizing the issue of the hardness of man's heart and the issue of sin. But then you have, And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for unchastity, and there is the specific term found in verse 9.

Let me go over to Matthew and what I had here. Matthew 19 verse 9. And it's sometimes called the adultery clause. It's pornia is the term that is used, as translated in this translation as unchastity, some type of sexual sin.

And that's where we had discussed the rather broader interpretation of that that flows from the entirety of the Old Testament. And so what Jesus, of course, is saying here is talking about those hardness of heart, Moses is allowed to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

I say to you, whoever divorces his wife. So the hardness of heart defense is insufficient. Whoever divorces his wife except for, and then you have that term pornia, and marries another commits adultery.

So a man, obviously in this situation, it was the man, just as you have, interestingly enough today, in Islamic law. I've often said Islam is a U-turn going back away from the higher revelation of Christ, back toward old ways.

But it was the man's prerogative to initiate divorce proceedings, at least in the understanding of the Jews at this time. I mentioned before there were two different schools at this time, Hillel and Shammai, and they argued incessantly about what the various methodologies were.

One was more liberal, one was more conservative than the other. One had more liberal rules. One said that if she burns the toast, that's a sufficient reason. Though I'm not sure they really had toast in the way that we understand it.

And then the other said, no, there has to be a significantly more relevant reason. Jesus here indicates that there are situations that arise, given what pornia means, that leads to this tragic situation.

But the real issue that he's addressing is those people who look for lesser reasons, primarily, as you see here, and marries another, primarily reasons of sexual lust, to get rid of the original wife and then move on.

We see this all the time. It goes both directions in our culture, obviously. Middle-aged men, middle-aged women, who dump the spouse of their youth looking for the new model, shall we say. This happens constantly and consistently.

Jesus identifies this as nothing less than adultery. You'll notice in the Mark and Luke parallels, you do not have the pornia statement. He said to them, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

The rare instance, maybe when a woman had some connections, a daughter of a powerful rabbi, something like that, it happens. I see it happen all the time. I remember when Donny Osmond, as I recall, it's Donny or Marie, which one was it, or was it both?

I forget, one of the two of them got a divorce, but they're temple Mormons, and temple Mormons aren't supposed to ever have that happen. Well, when you've got connections to the religious authorities, things happen, and it's sort of like in Roman Catholicism.

No divorce in Roman Catholicism, but you can have marriages that have produced children and lasts for 20 years, annulled for various other reasons. Again, if you pull the right strings, find the right people.

You can get it done, and the woman could do the same thing if she had the connections. Both Mark and Luke have the exact same phraseology at that particular point. Now, this went totally against what was basically the practice of the day, the understanding of the day as is clearly seen in the disciples' response, but I think it's important before we move to the response.

I don't think that there is an issue in Mark and Luke not having that phrase because, again, we look at these texts. I've actually heard some people. I remember a guy on radio. Oh, I don't know. This is probably over a decade ago at least, but I remember a guy on the Marty Minto show here in Phoenix back in the late 90s, I think, who was arguing.

Remember Marty Minto? Yeah, the guy they got now is... but who was arguing that there is no grounds for accepting this phrase. He was actually claiming this phrase because it's not found in Mark and Luke.

It should not be there. There's no textual basis for that. Clearly, Matthew does include it, but why does Matthew include it? Well, a couple of possibilities, but I think the main thing to remember is that these writers are writing within the context of what is called Second Temple Judaism and within the context of the Old Testament.

And the range of issues raised under pornia in verse 9 would be well known to anyone who actually knows the Old Testament. Anyone who knows the Old Testament law would be aware of the fact that there were things that were just taken for granted.

I mean, in our society today, I mean, we've seen this over the past... well, it's certainly my lifetime. When I was young, there was no question that homosexuality was a shameful thing. And, you know, most of us are old enough to remember about the phrase outing someone, coming out of the closet.

Well, you know, even that phraseology is beginning to pass away because there's been such a massive shift in the moral perspective within our own society. Within the context in which these words are spoken and hence recorded, it was a given that there were certain things.

I mean, if your husband or wife came home with a bail idol, you knew what the penalty of the law was supposed to be under the Jewish law, under Moses. The same thing with homosexuality or child abuse or whatever else it might be.

There is a wide range of things. And so, I don't think that Mark and Luke are trying to... you know, people always pit these against each other and say, well, you know, Matthew must have had a reason to put this here.

Well, in the sense that if he's thinking that his audience needs a reminder, or something like that, yeah. But, again, I don't think we can necessarily climb into people's minds and figure those kinds of things out.

It might be, given that Mark and Luke are written to primarily non-Jewish audiences, that the Old Testament background of Pornia just simply wouldn't be a part of their thinking. So, as far as what he wants to express, it would take too long to re-summarize all of that.

Who knows? But, just the fact that it's in one and not in the other two, the primary reason that scholars end up, you know, then questioning it is because they're locked into, and we have to go back years and years from when we first started talking about this, they're locked into the idea that Mark is written first, and Matthew and Luke are just sitting there, and they are slavishly, you know, they have Mark sitting in front of them as a written document, and then they have this thing called the Q Source, which no one can ever find, of Jesus' sayings.

And so, if there's any difference between Matthew and Mark, or between Luke and Mark, well, I need to be able to get into their minds and figure out why they're editing Mark, and stuff like that. If we don't go that direction, and we have, instead, you know, Luke does say that he was using written sources, so that's fine if you want to go that direction, but they're primarily drawing from the oral teaching, the oral traditions of the Church at that time, then a lot of those issues go away, and it's just simply Matthew gives a fuller discussion of the question, and we're glad that we have all of them.

The Disciples' Shock at Jesus' Teaching on Divorce

So, with that said, it's clear the disciples' response is a very strong one. The disciples said to him, as such is the case of a man with his wife that has not experienced marriage. Now, we kind of got to stop for a second and go, eh?

How can you say that? What is behind a statement like this from the disciples? As such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry. Have you ever given thought to what they're thinking about there?

Of course, I realize this is a dangerous question to ask in light of the fact that some of you are married, and your wives are nearby, so you might want to look down at your, pretend that you're very tired, it was a long night last night, and not comment whatsoever on this subject, but some of you, your wives are not here, so you might be able to get away with it, even though I am wearing a microphone, so you might want to keep that in mind.

But seriously, what does this represent in your thinking? What are the disciples saying here? I mean, to us, it sounds like Jesus is simply laying out something that's been true from the garden. But what are the disciples saying here?

It will cause problems. Yeah, but for whom? I mean, yeah. Did the law really put the woman in that position? Yeah, it didn't. But the traditions of the Jews had. There were some other hints. Oh, you've got to be really careful here, son, because you're engaged.

It did happen a lot, yeah. Yeah, you don't want to commit adultery, because you do recall, even though it's not canonical, in the sense of I don't think it was original, but the story of the woman caught in adultery is certainly representative of what could happen in that society.

And, you know, dragged out and humiliated and people picking up stones to stone her. So you didn't want to be accused of adultery. But what had happened was mankind, over time, finds a way to remain religious and yet find ways of satisfying his or her lusts within the context of remaining religious and hence not being brought under the opprobrium of shame within the society.

And so it's not a real good reflection on how far the disciples have thus far come in their growth. Of course, the Spirit has not yet come to indwell them and to lead them into all truth, either. But it is a sobering reflection on the cultural, traditional corruption of marriage, so far from its biblical roots, amongst the most religious.

The most religious. I think it comes out in the Corban rule as well. The dedication of your property to the temple so you don't have to take care of your parents. I think that's why Jesus pointed to that.

It's just this fundamental corruption of this idea of tradition that makes the Scriptures with no avail. So he's gone to the Scriptures and now he's demonstrated that their understanding of it, but still their understanding is incredibly sad to observe.

Well, you notice the whole translation here is not expedient to Mary. When was marriage a mere matter of expediency? Now, please note something. They are reacting like this is the first time they've heard this.

And it might be. In the sense of from Jesus' lips. So it's not like... This isn't one of those situations where you have like you do have on the subject of who's greater. Remember, in that situation, they just go over that over and over and over again.

They just don't get the message. All the way into the Garden of Gethsemane. But it sounds like this is really the first time that Jesus has focused upon this issue. And when they hear it, they're blown away by the application that is made.

The very strong application that is being made here. Now, back in chapter 5, on the Sermon on the Mount, there had been the one reference. But that was in a whole string of things. Here you have this very strong emphasis being presented on the part of Jesus.

And their response is, wow, we've had a fundamentally wrong view of marriage. In the sense that it is not expedient to marry. Jesus' response then is interesting. Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth. And there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men. And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the King of Heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.

Celibacy, Eunuchs, and the Kingdom of Heaven

Now here Jesus is talking about the issue of celibacy. And he recognizes celibacy is not an option for all people. There are three groups here that are mentioned. Those who are naturally eunuchs, those who are impotent, those who cannot engage in sexual activity.

There are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men. And yeah, that happened. In that culture, when you wanted, as you're a king, and you wanted your harem taken care of by someone who wouldn't be raising up offspring to himself, and they didn't have video cameras and GPS locators back then, so the king can only be in so many places at once.

So if you're going to put some guy in charge, you wanted to make sure that the offspring that you were getting from your harem were actually yours. That was extremely important to a king because these are the people that are going to be taking over from you and the kingly line and royalty and all the rest of that stuff.

But the last, and then there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs to the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Unfortunately, there have been those in history that have misunderstood that phrase. And we are familiar with the story of Origen, early church writer.

Talk about an early church writer. We don't even have all of his books translated as yet. I feel sorry for the few people left that are actually learning Latin so as to translate what hasn't been translated.

I have heard that there's as much as 6 ,000 volumes of Origen's writings. He was just followed around day and night by people that were writing down everything he said. Personally, I don't want to know everything that Origen said.

But hey, what can I say? If it keeps people employed. But you may well know the fact that Origen, as a youth, and I believe he regretted this later in life, but Origen did make himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven.

That is, physically do so. Not sure how you do that, but he did. That became illegal in church law eventually, I think for also good reasons. But I don't think that's what the Lord is referring to here.

I think this is more what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he talked about those who put off or do not engage in marriage so that they may engage in the spreading of the message of the kingdom of God.

And so you have three different groups and notice that he who is able to receive this, let him receive it. Peter was not an unmarried man. We know that because he has a mother-in-law. Generally those only come by marriage.

I've never seen anyone gathering mother-in-laws by any other means than that. And one would assume that many of the other disciples likewise were married. It would be extremely unusual for Paul not to be married.

He may have been a widow. Some people would certainly indicate by the end of his life that he is not married because of the reference, but it would be extremely unusual to sit at the feet of Gamaliel and be in the circles he was in without being married.

There was almost no celibacy within that context. No, I wouldn't agree with that. I think that it is definitional in the sense that it is part and parcel of that, but I would not limit it to that because I think you can have situations where, as unusual as it would be, there would be, because of physical limitations, individuals who could be married, older individuals.

Obviously I think if two 75-year-old people that are not physically capable of intimacy marry, it's still a marriage. Not only that, but there is a commitment that is made when it says, this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.

There's certainly much more to that than the mere act, though that is definitional thereof. And, as Paul says, you are defrauding your husband or your wife if you refuse to give to them their due, which involves sexual union.

So, it's very important, but it's not the only thing. I don't think the Bible needs to give us a chronological timeline. Those things are taken together and attempting to separate them out and say, well, it's right there, is to ask far too much.

Marriage, Sexual Union, and the Creation Order

Okay, so, there's the Matthew 19, Mark 10 section and the point is, obviously, though we want to ask a lot of questions of the text, which we haven't even covered, the point is that, in that day, the traditions of men had thoroughly overgrown the biblical teaching on one man, one woman, committed together, foundation of family, source of life, source of society, culture, etc., etc.

And that, within the context of the most religious people who had the most light of God's revelation. That's the thing to keep in mind, is that these are people who have the greatest amount of revelation and yet, in light of that, they still find a way to pervert the revelation that's been given to them.

That is, to me, an absolutely amazing thing to ponder and to consider. It is a sobering thing to consider. It really is. Now, very quickly, we have just enough time here. Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray.

Disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for as such belongs the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them and went away. This, of course, proves infant baptism.

We can move on from there. No. Though, shockingly enough, as most of us all well know, this is often used as a proof text for the subject of infant baptism. Spurgeon was exactly right when he rather strongly ridiculed such an idea.

But, it is, you know, it is obviously a touching scene, and I think we do need to at least understand, Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for as such belongs the kingdom of heaven, is meant to be a picture not of immaturity on our part, but of the simplicity and the element of trust that is a part of real saving faith.

Adults do tend to replace the trust part of faith with the assent part of faith. The part of faith that is focused upon the doctrine and the truth and things like that. And all that's wonderfully there, but we all tend to, in history, there's been a tendency to fall off the two sides in balance regarding what faith is.

And when people say, Well, we need to have a childlike faith, that's quite true. But what element of childlike faith are we supposed to be emulating? Clearly, it's not the ignorance part. It's not the, well, you know, I remember when at two years of age, my daughter kept having ear infections.

And so, was that it? You had a problem with that? Yeah, you remember it? Yeah. And we had to take her to the hospital. And I will never, ever, and this is her first memory of childhood. It's great. She's been scarred ever since.

Is, you know, some big guy in goofy looking gowns taking her from my arms and dragging her away from her parents into this room that seemed cavernous to her and putting this thing over her face and then waking up not being able to see.

So that's her first memory of childhood. Like, ah, great. And I remember all of it, you know. But there is this trust that she had for us that she did not have for these people. Now, that wasn't a trust based upon knowledge.

She didn't want me doing the surgery. I can guarantee you that. But actually, she would have at that age because, you know, the mental part, the facts part ain't there. There is an implicit trust of the child for the parents.

That implicit trust that says, Mom and Dad will do what is best for me and doesn't necessarily have to know how all the rest of that's working out is the part of real faith that we struggle with, but we are here strongly encouraged to cultivate.

When you hear about people, quote, unquote, losing their faith, most often it's because they've already lost that element of faith, the intimate element of faith, and are only looking at, well, if I can't get the answers to these questions, then I'm not going to believe.

And it's the element of faith where the one believing recognizes that the one being believed is wiser and knows more and has a better plan than we can always understand. And that's what becomes harder for adults than it is for children.

But that's a matter of knowing someone and trusting someone. And I would say it's something you grow in over time when you see that God has been faithful to you over the years. That's the element of faith, I think, that is found here in this text.

And I agree that the text has absolutely nothing to do with infant baptism, especially little teeny tiny infants who are not coming to Jesus. They are being carried to Jesus and getting dribbled on. And that's all there is to that.

So, with that, we will next time, which is not next week, but I think it is the week after that. I think I'm actually here for like three weeks in a row, if you can believe that. Yes, on the 19th, because I know I'm preaching on the 26th, so the 19th, we will pick up with section 254.

And one of the most well-known synoptic parallel questions is in portion 254 of the synopsis, which I forgot to tell you we were going to be using, and that's sat over there the whole time anyways. But that's life.

We'll fix that next time around. Let's close the Word of Prayer. Once again, Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity of looking into your Word and considering your truth. We ask that you once again, this would not just be an exercise in gaining knowledge, but that, Lord, you would likewise help us to cultivate that kind of faith where we trust you, we look beyond ourselves, and we look to you and your goodness and your long track record of faithfulness to your people.

We ask that you'd be with us now as we go in to worship you, that you would lift up our hearts and our minds to pray in Christ's name.