Hi everyone. Welcome back to logical bible
study. This is the podcast where we do
an exegesis of the Gospel text, we're really dive into the
words. And the way we do it, is we look
at the gospel text that is set aside for the day's Mass.
So if you go to today's Catholic mass, you would hear from
Matthew 19, verses 3 to Of and this is a really interesting
passage in, there's a lot to say about it.
So let's get straight into it. Some Pharisees approached Jesus
and to test him they said, Is it against the law for a man to
divorce his wife on any pretext? Whatever he answered.
Have you not read that? The Creator from the beginning
made them male and female. And that he said this is why a
man must leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and
the two Become one body. They are no longer two there
four, but one body. So then what God has United, man
must not divide. They said to him, then why did
Moses command? That a writ of dismissal should
be given in cases of divorce? It was because you were so
unteachable. He said that Moses allowed you
to divorce your wives but it was not like this from the
beginning. Now, I say this to you, the man
who divorces his wife. I am not speaking of
fornication, and marries another is guilty of adultery the
disciples said to him, if that is how things are between
husband and wife, it is not advisable to marry But he
replied. It is not everyone who can
accept what I have said. But only those to whom it is,
granted there are eunuchs born that way from their mother's
womb. There are eunuchs made so by men
and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves that way for the
sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone except this who can
now, this passage is one of the most profound in the New
Testament for helping helping us understand quite a few things,
the relationship. When the Old Testament and the
New Testament, Jesus view of the law, Jesus view of himself,
Jesus view of marriage, and all sorts of other, sacramental
implications, which are really quite fascinating.
And there's a whole lot of stuff to say.
And the church has said, a lot about this particular text, this
is the single most important texts in the Bible for
understanding the Christian view of marriage and some have even
gone so far. As to say, that Jesus is the
biggest offender of lifelong marriage.
Thanks to this particular verse the biggest offender in history
of marriage. So, let's talk about the
context. So Jesus has just begun his
journey to Jerusalem From Galilee and he's in this big
crowd of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem for Passover.
So, he's in amongst big crowds here.
They're moving From Galilee down to Judea, which is where
Jerusalem is. But to get there, they have to
go through the region of perea. So the moving through the region
of perea, now schools are pointed out.
The fact that Jesus has this conversation that we're about to
hear in perea, that might not be a coincidence.
Korea is where John the Baptist preached and he was actually
executed eventually for condemning divorce and
remarriage of someone. If you remember, John the
Baptist directly addressed Herod Antipas and his mistress
herodias because they were getting divorced and remarried.
So he told them that that was not appropriate and that's what
got him killed. So it was divorce and remarriage
that got John, the Baptist killed and he probably preached
that in Korea. That was certainly his main base
of preaching was in prayer and now he's Jesus in perea, perhaps
the Pharisees deliberately recognize.
Wow, Jesus is in perea, Jesus is a fan of John, the Baptist, I
wonder if we can get Jesus in trouble for the same thing that
John, the Baptist got in trouble for, so that might be at the
back of the Pharisees mind here. We often miss that.
So verse 2 says large crowds followed him and he healed Of
there. So there's huge crowds here.
A lot of them on the way to Jerusalem for the Passover
probably. And probably also a lot of the
people are not from the region of perea.
There's probably some there From Galilee who know, Jesus quite
well. Also, some from Judea who've
come out to the Wilderness to see, Jesus and Matthew here
tells us he healed them there. So there's huge, huge crowds.
And Jesus is, as he always does his healing as many people as he
possibly can. Verse 3, the Pharisees
approached Jesus. So the Pharisees are the common
teachers of the law for the common Jewish people and they
usually take issue with Jesus because Jesus by now is an
influential teacher of the law and he interpreted the law quite
differently from them often radically so.
And so they're quite afraid that he's going to show them up and
in fact, they might lose some followers because people might
start following Jesus rather than them.
And the text here says that they To test him.
So, this is not a genuine question.
Sometimes people come to Jesus with genuine questions as well.
See, later in this chapter, but here the Pharisees, they're
trying to trip him up there. Trying to get him to say
something that will discredit him.
And we already know that the Pharisees were resolved to
destroy Jesus. We see this in 12:14.
So here's the question that they asked him that sets it off.
Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife on any
pretext, whatever, or some other translations there will say for
any reason, Now what is why they asking him?
This question is it lawful is it against the law for a man to
divorce his wife for any reason at all?
There's two different views about why the Pharisees might be
asking him this. The main view that most people
have gone for is has to do with this conflict that existed
within the Pharisees at the time.
So, a bit of background the Mosaic law did allow divorce.
And particularly in Deuteronomy 24, it talks about how to go
about doing a But in the time of Jesus, there were different
schools of thought among the Pharisees about when it was
permitted to have a divorce because Deuteronomy 24, where it
talks about divorce and Moses allows divorce.
There's this ambiguous phrase in there.
Deuteronomy 24:1 says, a man may divorce his wife, if he finds
anything indecent in her, but the text of Deuteronomy, doesn't
tell them what indecent means. So in the time of Jesus, there's
these disputes among the Pharisees who were the If the
law are there us, what it means for, you know, what, counts as
an indecent reason, what does it mean for a wife to be indecent.
So, there's there, was this school of thought, at the time
of Jesus called, the Hillel school of thought, which
followed Rabbi Hillel, and he taught that a woman could
divorce his wife for any reason. At all, including burning
dinner, he actually listed in there that if your wife Burns
dinner, that's a good enough reason to divorce her, which is
fascinating. So there were some Pharisees,
who followed that healer or school of thought.
But there was another Rabbi shammai who said that indecency
is a technical term that refers basically to sexual immorality.
So the shammai school of thought said that a man could only
divorce his wife in the case of a sexual immorality, and the
Pharisees didn't agree with each other about this.
There was different schools of thought.
So one scholarly view of this, is that what the Pharisees are
doing here is they're trying to get Jesus to comment on this
disputed issue. And so by doing that, he's bound
to offend some people in the crowd and maybe lose some
followers. That's what a lot of people have
thought. But there's some problems with
that view. There's an alternative you
about. Why the Pharisees asking this
question. And on this podcast, I try and
give you the alternative views. And I think this alternative
view is probably the more correct one.
Think about the first view. We talked about their they're
trying to trap Jesus. Well, Jesus just giving his
opinion on this sort of small dispute amongst the Pharisees
that wouldn't really constitute a trap, but it's not a very good
trap because it was a disputed issue.
All the Jews knew that it was a disputed issue.
So if Jesus came right out and said oh well I support this
school of thought, it wouldn't really be a big deal.
The Jews. Would you say?
Okay, that makes sense. So what's going on then?
Well, on this alternative view the Pharisees by this point have
heard that Jesus does not allow divorce and remarriage, he's
already said that. Once he said that in chapter 5
in The Sermon on the Mount. So the Pharisees have heard that
he doesn't like divorce and remarriage so now they come to
Jesus with this question, let's read the question again that
they asked him. Is it against the law for a man
to divorce his wife for any reason at all.
So basically they're asking Jesus, whether he thinks Divorce
is lawful at all, they think they're asking him whether he
thinks divorce is even lawful in the first place that would be
what this alternative, you proposes.
And that makes sense, because if you look at the parallel,
passage in Mark, chapter 10 verse 2.
That's exactly, that's exactly what it says.
It says that that's the reason they asked him.
The question they want to know whether he supports divorce at
all and whether he thinks it's lawful at all and so their
reasoning is something like this.
Well, Moses clearly allows divorce But we've heard that
Jesus doesn't support divorce. And if we can get Jesus to say,
to the crowds in front of the crowds, that he does not allow
divorce. Well then everyone will realize
these contradicted Moses and he has discredited himself.
So I think this interpretation makes more sense.
They're not trying to get him to comment on which school of
thought he favors the trying to get him to see whether he thinks
divorce is lawful at all because Moses clearly did.
This is Jesus response verse 4. Have you not read?
Now, that's always an interesting thing for Jesus to
say because he's speaking to the Pharisees that will be an insult
to the Pharisees because they are the experts on the law.
So for him to say, have you not read that would really busy
digging it in. Have you not read the creative
from the beginning, made them male and female?
And that he said this is why a man must leave the father and
mother and cling to his wife and the two become one body or one
flesh is what Says there. So notice what Jesus is doing
here. They have just tried to put a
law of Moses to Jesus to see if he's going to contradict it.
But Jesus, here is clever. He quotes from an even earlier
book of Moses. So something else that Moses is
written. So he's fighting Moses with
Moses to make his point here, he's going right back to the
beginning and he actually makes two separate quotes here.
One from Genesis, 1 verse 27 and then one from Genesis 2 verse
24. So Jesus main point here is that
if you want to God's original plan for marriage.
In fact, Moses original plan for marriage.
Then you need to look at the earliest marriage that Moses
wrote about which was Adam and Eve.
So this is God's model for all marriages.
It's am Adam and Eve Adam and Eve not what Moses said later in
Deuteronomy. So that's the main point.
He's made, then he goes on, they are no longer two, therefore,
but one flesh. So then what God has United, man
must not divide. So here's the the big Point
Jesus wants to make Jesus argument here is that God's plan
as revealed in Adam and Eve in the Torah is that there
shouldn't be any divorce at all. That's clear.
When you look at Adam and Eve as God's plan for marriage and
Jesus says here, he really wants them to understand that when a
man and woman joined together in marriage.
God is joining them. And in fact, that's what Genesis
said, but Jesus reminds them that when a man and woman come
together, God joins them, therefore, he is Jesus.
Man does not have the power to separate it because it's
something that God has joined. Now that would have been quite a
surprising answer for his audience because that's not the
way that the later books in the Torah speak about it.
Exodus and Deuteronomy they don't talk about marriage in
that way. But in the earliest chapters of
the Bible, Jesus says that's exactly what it says.
It says that God joins them together and by implication,
According To Jesus, man does not have the power to separate it.
So notice what Jesus has done here at this point, he's evaded.
The Trap that they try to set for him by China, set up Moses
versus Jesus. And so, what he does, Jesus
does, is he quotes Moses from Genesis?
And so he turns the tables by showing that the Pharisees are
the ones that are out of touch with God's true intention for
married life as revealed in the Torah.
So what he's basically said, is look, if you want to take the
Torah seriously, go right back to the beginning and see what
Moses said at the start. So it's a very clever tactic.
He always tries to do this with the Pharisees, he points them
back to the own Tech, their own texts that they hold in such
high regard. So that's what he said so far.
He said that basically God joins man and woman together and
therefore, divorce is not permitted man.
Cannot separate a marriage because it's something God joins
together. So verse 7, the Pharisees asked
a reasonable question. They say, then, why did Moses
command that have rid of dismissal should be given in
cases of divorce? Now, that's a fair question
because it is true that in Deuteronomy.
Moses actually allows divorce. It's pretty clear that Moses
does allow it. So for them, it's a huge claim
for Jesus to say that God doesn't want divorce.
I mean that makes sense to us as Christians in the 21st century
but for the Jews in Jesus time that's a huge claim because
Moses himself allowed for divorce.
In fact, he even gave laws about how to do a divorce.
So this is a huge bombshell. So they mention here, a writ of
dismissal. So if you read Deuteronomy 24,
verse 12 for talks about the most of the laws that Moses put
in place about divorce and And basically the Jewish law there
in Deuteronomy 24, a requires that in order for a man to
divorce his wife, he had to go through the legal process of
getting a certificate and then giving it to the woman that he
was going to divorce. So this was a legal document
called a writ of dismissal here that the woman would receive and
she could use that to prove that she's divorced.
So basically it was to help protect the woman from abuse.
It was a legal document that protected the woman and that's
actually a huge development can Compared to other cultures at
that time, period. Now in particular, if you read
Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 24, it seems that this Rich of
dismissal. The point of it was to prevent
the original husband, from changing his mind and trying to
get her to come back and marry him again later.
If they have the rid of decision, she has the rid of
dismissal, she can prove that. Actually I've already been
married to this man once so he can't marry me again.
So it's a really interesting kind of way that it works there.
In Deuteronomy 24, it's actually to protect the rights of the
woman. Now we should listen to Jesus
response here in verse 8. I think fundamentalists and
certain Protestant groups could learn a lot from what Jesus
responds here is inverse H. So Jesus directly addresses
their question about why Moses commanded a rid of dismissal for
divorce. He says it was because you were
so unteachable that Moses allowed you to divorce your
wives. Where our translation says
unteachable. It literally says, because of
the hardness of your heart. Interesting, isn't it?
That Jesus kind of groups together the Pharisees with the
original Israelites here because of the hardness of your heart.
Notice this this is really important that we as students of
the Bible. Understand.
This Jesus says, the reason that Moses gave this specific law was
because the people in his time was so sinful, this is something
incredibly profound. God and Moses did not actually
want divorce, but given the sinfulness of man and the lack
of understanding of the Israelites at that point in time
in Deuteronomy, it seemed that the people could not handle
God's ultimate ideal of no divorce.
So God has to compromise, God has to give them a
less-than-ideal law. So God, Allows it allows
divorce, but he puts in requirements in Deuteronomy 24
that will minimize the amount of abuse.
A woman would suffer as a result of divorce.
And of course, compared to other societies at the time, that's a
huge milestone. So let's say that again.
God, Moses did not actually want to divorce, but because the
Israelites sinfulness was so bad at the time.
God actually had to allow it because they just will not allow
able to live up to God's perfect ideal of no divorce.
Jesus goes on but it was not like this from the beginning.
So Jesus reminds the Pharisees that God's original plan for
creation. Even though Moses does allow
divorce, God's original plan was that, man and woman should be
joined for Life. There should be no divorce and
if you look at Adam and Eve in the garden, that's pretty clear.
But over the next few thousand years sin crept into the human
race. To the point that divorce
entered into the picture and then eventually God had to allow
it for a time because of the stubbornness of And so he's a
really important principle for interpreting the Old Testament
laws. When you open the Old Testament,
you'll see all sorts of laws, some of them in Leviticus, some
of them later on. Here's an important principle,
some laws in the Old Testament are more important than others.
Not all laws in the Old Testament are equally as
important. This is something to Jews in
Jesus time, didn't understand. This is something that some
Christians did. I don't understand either.
Not all of the laws in the Old Testament, correspond to God's
will equally some of them did. So for example, The Ten
Commandments, it seems that they correspond pretty closely to
what God's will for man. Truly is The Ten Commandments
are like the gold standard of God's law, but some of the later
ones, particularly the ones in numbers and Deuteronomy, they're
given quite reluctantly by God. Even if you've read The
Narrative himself, God only gives those laws in numbers and
Deuteronomy as a response to some sort of see Full act that
the people are just committed in the wilderness.
So God puts in these laws to deal with the level of sin,
which the Israelite people had accumulated.
That means some of the laws in the Old Testament are
provisional. They're not ideal.
Even from God's perspective. So they don't correspond to
God's Ultimate Will. That's actually stated later in
the Old Testament. If you look at Malachi chapter 2
verse 6, it actually says that God gave them some laws which
are not good. That's actually in the Old
Testament. Aunt itself, but the Jews and
Jesus time had sort of forgotten that principle.
But now Jesus comes along and he's come to reveal, what God's
Ultimate Will is the things which best correspond to God's
will, which means overturning some of the Old Testament laws,
which do not correspond to God's Ultimate Will.
Now, the region beyond the Jordan there in Korea, here,
remember? Interestingly, that's the place
where Moses gave Israel. Many of the laws of Deuteronomy.
If you go to Junior on Deuteronomy chapter 1, this is
basically where he gives them these Deuteronomy laws.
So it seems like more than a coincidence that Jesus is about
to repeal the Deuteronomy Deuteronomy, concession for
divorce and remarriage in the very place where Moses basically
gave it. It's interesting, isn't it when
you look at it from a geographical perspective, So
here as Christians, we believe that Jesus with his words he's
just said restores Mary's to its original integrity and he
elevates it to a New Covenant Sacrament prior to Jesus
marriage was a thing that was part of the natural order.
But it wasn't a Sacrament here. Jesus makes it a Sacrament.
Jesus is about to intensify it though.
There's more verse 9 Jesus is going to now make it very clear
that God does not want divorce and in fact, he's going to add
more To that. He's going to say that divorce
and remarriage is a Gravely sinful matter.
It's equivalent to adultery. So he says, now I say this to
you notice, he's speaking this on his own authority, just as he
did on The Sermon, on the Mount. I say this to you, this is the
same teaching that he's already given in The Sermon on the
Mount. Actually, if you look at chapter
5, he's already said these words once.
But now he says it to the Pharisees Here's what he says
the man. Who divorces his wife.
I am not speaking of fornication and marries another he is guilty
of adultery So that's what we have here.
Other translations, add in another phrase.
So there might be a missing phrase here which is he who
marries a divorced woman commits adultery and that same teaching,
is something Jesus said earlier, in the Sermon on the Mount.
So, even if this phrase is not in the original, it is something
Jesus said earlier, in Matthew anyway, so there's no loss here.
If it's not supposed to be in this spot, but what he certainly
does say, is the man who divorces his wife and marries
another, he is guilty of adultery.
Now, you might think. Why do we what's the focus on
men? All about well Matthews version.
When he narrates it for his audience here he focuses on men
because he's a Jew and he's writing to Jews and in Jewish
culture, only men had the right to divorce.
Now, if you look at marks version of this, which is in
Mark chapter 10 verse 11 to 12, it seems like marks version is
more word for word accurate here because he mentions the Jesus
clearly intended this to apply to women as well or talks about
how women. Here do the same thing.
They also commit adultery but Matthew here focuses on the men
because he's writing to Jewish audience who had this structure
of divorce that revolved around men.
So what does Jesus say? It means if someone gets a legal
divorce and marries another according to this passage here,
he says, anyone who does that is guilty of adultery.
Now notice this, it's not if you get divorced, you are committing
adultery. If you get divorced and then
marry another, that's what makes you guilty of adultery.
So here with one sentence, basically Jesus overturns the
legislation in Deuteronomy and he overturns all the debates in
his time between different Pharisee.
Jesus gives a definitive interpretation.
He gets rid of the legal allowance for divorce all
together. He says, it's not permitted.
Here Jesus clearly teaches that a legal divorce does not affect
the status of marriage in the eyes of God.
So I will say that again, legal divorce does not affect the
status of the marriage, in the eyes of God.
Now, that's not the same as saying getting divorced, is
equivalent to adultery, but it is saying that getting divorced
does not affect the status of the marriage in the eyes of God.
So in other words, According To Jesus, if two people get
divorced, they actually still married, they're still one flesh
joined by God. So this is the basis of the
Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.
Jesus says, this is the reason why you can't get remarried if
you're divorced because the one flesh still exists, and that's
the Catholic teaching today. If someone gets divorced and
attempts of remarriage, According To Jesus, and
according to Catholic teaching, that is equivalent to adultery
because they're still joined to their original partner.
If they were, in fact, legitimately joined in marriage
to someone. One prior to that.
So many scholars have said that here.
Jesus makes himself History's. Greatest defender of the
sanctity and permanency of marriage.
This is something that wasn't taught in the Old Testament.
Jesus, he reveals God's Ultimate Will for marriage, which is that
it's just into soluble. And to remarry again, after
divorce is a grave sin. This teaching is binding on
anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus, anyone who's
in the kingdom of God. Now, that makes sense, doesn't
it? Because divorce was said, to be
given, According To Jesus, due to the hardness of their hearts,
in the Old Testament in the Old Testament, they didn't the Jews.
Did not have the ability to live up to God's perfect will due to
the effects of sin. But now, it's the New Covenant.
And Jesus has revealed the keys to living in God's perfect will
and he's given them. The means to live according to
God's will as well. So if Christians obey these
principles that he's given in The Sermon on the Mount anyway,
There's not going to be need for divorce, so that's one thing to
say here, but there's also something else we need to
consider which is the role of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus probably intends his audience to understand that this
kind of lifelong marriage. Jesus is talking about is going
to involve a special kind of Grace.
God gives Grace to people who are involved in these New
Covenant marriages. And this is what the Catholic
comment around sacred. Scripture says about this
consider the contrast that is drawn between Mosaic and take
times if Moses permitted divorce and remarriage to accommodate
the hard-heartedness of Israel. Then the messiah's repeal of
this. Concession indicates a new human
situation in which the heart is healed of its infirmity and
divinely empowered to embrace marriage is a lifelong
commitment. It implies a regeneration of the
human person from the inside out.
Only when the Lord enriches our lives with his grace, can the
ideal of marriage for human life?
Become the real experience of And women joined together as
one. So that's a nice quote there.
Now, this is a long episode and there's still more to say.
So we're about to go into a section here about the exception
clause and there's a lot of meaty stuff to talk about here
as well. So this might be a good time for
you to pause and come back to the episode because there's more
really good stuff to say and this will end up being one of
our longer episodes. But for good reason I think
because there's a lot of decent exegesis stuff that we can do
here. So we've established that Jesus
here, teachers that divorce and then remarried is equivalent to
adultery. But what about the exception
Clause? There's this exception clause in
Matthews version. So let's go back and read what
he said again. And this is in verse 9, the man
who divorces his wife. I am not speaking of fornication
and marries another is guilty of adultery.
This is translated differently in different translations but
there's this kind of phrasing brackets in the middle.
The man who divorces his wife except for fornication is guilty
of adultery. So what is this?
Exception Clause all about it revolves around this Greek word
porneia except for the case of poor Nia and our translation
makes that fornication others might render it sexual
immorality, but it's a different word from adultery.
So Jesus here is thinking of some sort of sexual act of some
kind, which counts as an exception to his teaching.
So let's start with what it does.
Not mean, Jesus clearly can't be saying this if someone in the
marriage has relations with someone else, then to divorce
them and marry, someone else would not be committing adultery
that will be true strong. We don't want to say that if you
get divorced and remarried then it doesn't count as adultery if
your original partner had relations with someone else
Jesus as well. See, Jesus clearly puts a ban
here on doing any kind of divorce and remarriage.
So we that's certainly Not what he means by this exception, he's
not making an exception to the divorce and remarriage Counting
as adultery, but he must be making some sort of exception of
some sort. Here, there's been lots of
discussion about the best way to interpret this because Luke's
version, if you look at Luke 16 Verse 18 and marks version Mark
chapter 10, neither of them include this exception clause.
And then, if you look at 1 Corinthians 7 verses 10 to 11
and Romans 7 to 23. They also don't have an
exception Clause either. They just say that married
people. Should not divorce.
So, it seems that Matthew has got this exception clause in
there. Now, Matthew hasn't made up
this, these words, obviously, Jesus did a say this, but the
other gospel writers didn't feel that it was relevant to Their
audience to include, but Matthew does feel the Jesus.
Exception Clause here is relevant for his audience.
Now based on the disciples reaction in verse 10, which will
get too soon, it really does seem that Jesus is making a
total prohibition on divorce and remarriage.
So we have to keep that in mind. So what does it mean that when
he has this exception Clause? Well, if you look at the version
of this in The Sermon on the Mount, so that's in Matthew
Chapter 5 towards the end that putt that version is actually a
bit easier to interpret that version of the exception clause.
And if you remember in that episode we talked about how in
The Sermon on the Mount. There's a phrase that says
anyone who does this makes her an adulteress Now that would be
quite easy to interpret because it focuses on the woman and what
the word adulterous means. But our version of Matthew 19
does not have this. So we're going to have to go
with a different interpretation. What does the exception clause
mean? Lots of different
interpretations. Lots of debate about what this
word porneia means. There's at least five different
interpretations. So the first interpretation that
we'll look at in, this is the one that was held by the
majority of the church fathers. So this was quite a common
theory, it's this Jesus is allowing separation in cases
when the partner commits sexual adultery.
So here's exception Clause is allowing for separation if the
partner commits sexual adultery of some sort.
So, on this interpretation, Jesus here is basically taking
the side of the rabbi of the rabbinic school of shammai.
He's saying that Divorce is never allowed except in cases
where the partner is sexually immoral.
Now that would answer the divorce question, and basically,
it would mean Jesus says divorce is okay, but Jesus is clearly
not approving of remarriage even on this view.
So even if this view is correct, the divorce would not dissolve,
the marriage bond. So remarriage is not permitted,
even if you take this view. So a lot of church fathers said
that, that's what Jesus meant your, he is allowing Separation
on the basis of sexual immorality.
And that does seem to be supported by Paul's later,
teaching that if spouses separate, they either need to
reconcile or remain single. Now, there's a couple of
problems with this view. It could be right, we can't rule
it out, certainly, but some problems that are worth thinking
about If this is what Jesus meant it wouldn't it as we said
before this isn't a very good trap of Jesus because either of
you would be perfectly respectable if the Trap that the
Pharisees are setting. Here is to see which school of
thought Jesus would fall into then.
It's not particularly exciting. It's not even a big deal because
either of you is perfectly acceptable and it wouldn't
really caused an uproar if you favored, one of the views.
But that doesn't seem to square with the disciples reaction in
verse 10 because they're genuinely shocked by what Jesus
says it's not. Like Jesus has said something
that they'd heard before this is something entirely new that has
just said, they clearly see something that Jesus has said,
there's something entirely new and radical, that wouldn't make
sense if he's just siding with shammai.
So there's some arguments against this view, that Jesus is
allowing divorce in cases of sexual immorality, but that's
certainly Within Me to Catholic teaching.
Catholic teaching just says that divorce and then remarriage is
not okay, but this view says that perhaps Jesus is allowing
separation or divorce in some cases.
Let's quickly. Look at some other views though.
There is another view that says the word porneia refers to
incestuous. Marriage has if you look at
Leviticus 18 in this case, the marriage was never valid in the
first place because they married someone that was a close
relation of them. So therefore no adultery is Is
done, if you separate from them because you weren't married in
the first place. And there's some, if you look at
1 Corinthians 5:1, that's clearly the way the word point a
is used and maybe Matthew has to point this out to his readers
because he's writing in what appears to be an Eastern
Mediterranean context. And sort of incestuous marriage
is a pretty common in that part of the world may be poor narrow
first and marriage with the Gentile.
And that would not be acceptable in the eyes of God.
And Matthew is highlighting that for his Which Raiders and again
in that case, that would mean the marriage was not valid in
the first place. So two separate or to divorce,
does not count as adultery because there was no marriage
there. Again, that would explain why
Matthew includes the phrase since these audience is Jewish
and the concern with Gentile relationships but Luke does not.
Maybe porn a, and this is an interesting Theory.
Maybe porneia refers to sexual activity.
With someone else before a marriage is consummated.
So, in this case, since your marriage with that person has
not yet been consummated, it's not yet into soluble.
So if one of the partners has a sexual relationship prior to the
marriage ceremony, well, then you were never married and
therefore the planned marriage can be dissolved.
Now, this is a really interesting Theory because only
Matthew mentions. This exception Clause, what's
something else that are only Matthew mentions?
Well only Matthew mentions that Joseph had plan to divorce.
Marry for this very reason Joseph suspected that Mary had
had sexual relationships with another man During the patroller
period, if you can read that in Matthew chapter 1, verse 19.
So that would explain this exception as well.
And there's another to interpretation that sometimes
called the no comment view which basically says that Jesus is
deliberately not making a comment to you.
So when he says whoever divorces his wife and marries another,
maybe it could be rendered this way.
I'm not going into the subject of unchastity commits adultery.
As in the exception Clause basically means I'm not going to
comment on this particular matter.
So again that would explain my Matthew includes the exception
Clause because the Jews would Interested in which side of the
debate, the Jesus falls on, so I've given you about five
different views. All of them are permitted within
Catholic teaching as long as one does not say Jesus supports
divorce and remarriage, then any interpretation which is
reasonable would be acceptable there.
Hopefully that was a useful exegetical exercise now.
Verse 10, the disciples said to him so now the disciples going
to react to what Jesus said not the Pharisees, the disciples are
going to react They say if that is how things are between
husband and wife. So as in, if those are the
circumstances under which a divorce, her husband can divorce
his wife then it is not advisable to marry.
So they're shocked by Jesus. Strictness here.
He's completely overturned. The long-standing permission
given in the Old Testament. Jesus has just told them that a
man is never Justified to divorce and then get remarried
and the disciples are shocked. They were incredulous that
should tell. Is that what Jesus has just
said, he's radical. He obviously hasn't just said,
you can get divorce and then maybe get remarried in some
situations. He's clearly just said that you
can't get divorced and then remarried.
And that's why they're shocked husbands and wives are bound
together by the sacrament of one flesh.
So, why is there a media response here?
Something like this. It is not advisable to marry.
To us. When we hear that, that might
seem like the being like, they're overreacting a bit, the
being a bit selfish by saying it's not advisable to marry
then, but think about the culture, divorce was pretty
common in the ancient world, including in some Jewish
circles. So, the disciples probably can't
imagine a marriage that where a man is not allowed to divorce
his wife, if the wife is doing the wrong thing.
So they decide that given Jesus high standards here, they say,
well, it's better not to get married in the first place.
Now, we sometimes miss this. Jesus does not deny that, he
seems to agree with them that it's better not to get married
in the first place. That seems a bit controversial,
isn't it? But he seems to agree with them.
Look at the next thing. He says verse 11, it is not
everyone who can accept what I have said or more literally Not
all men can receive this precept.
So our translation, there is confusing because it makes you
think that he's talking about what Jesus himself, just said.
But actually, what it really says, there is not all men can
receive this precept. So what's the this precept?
It seems the precept is thinking of is what the disciples just
said, which is it is not better to marry.
That's the phrase that Jesus is now focusing on.
It is not better to Mary and Jesus says, it is not everyone
who can accept that. What does it mean to say that,
not all men can accept. This isn't Jesus teaching.
Binding on all Christians. How can you say that?
Only some Christians can accept it.
Well, he tells us, he says, only those to whom it is, granted can
accept this. So, in other words, only some
Christians are granted the Grace from God.
Not to marry. This is interesting, isn't it?
Because Jesus seems to be setting up unmarried life as the
ideal, but he's saying that only some Christians will be given
the Grace from God to accept that or to pursue that this is
an important and quite specific teaching.
It tells us that only some people are given God's grace to
accept the teaching that it's better.
Not to marry. And that's important that we
understand that because Paul lighter would say, I wish that
everyone wasn't married like me. But so we're lucky here.
That Jesus says that only some people are given the Grace from
God to actually fulfill that calling.
Jesus, is now going to describe celibacy in quite glowing terms,
and that's pretty surprising. Because Judaism saw procreation
is a duty rather than an option. But Jesus here is going to say
it's actually quite a good thing.
To do celibacy. It's a good option, at the time
of Jesus. There was a one group of Jews
that highly regarded celibacy. So that will be the essence in
qumran. And this is one of the reasons
why, some people think Jesus was quite influenced by the essence
because he agreed with him about celibacy here because no other
Jewish group. Basically, thought that celibacy
was a good call calling for life.
It was only the dawn of Christianity that celibacy
became a mainstream way of Pleasing God before that.
It was basically saying that if you want to please God, you've
got to get married. It's an obligation.
So verse 12, Jesus here is going to mention Unix and this is our
last verse. So what's a eunuch?
A eunuch is basically a man who in that culture, they can't have
sexual intercourse and Jesus is going to talk about three
different kinds of Unix. He says there are eunuchs that
are born that way from their mother's womb.
So unfortunately some males were born with deformities meaning
that they can't have intercourse.
Jesus says there are eunuchs made so by men.
So again In some cultures including Jesus Culture, It's
really interesting, practice some jobs for men, require them
to be eunuchs. In fact, they're made eunuchs
before they start their job, which is pretty full-on, but
that's what happened. For example, it was pretty
common in Royal courts to put a man in charge of the women in
the Royal Court. So, like the princesses and the
other girls in the Royal Court would be overseen by an older
man, but the king and the Royal leaders in order to make sure
that this man overseeing The girls did not violate them, they
would make him a eunuch. So as part of the job
description, And then Jesus says, there are eunuchs who made
themselves that way for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now that corresponds pretty well to the last group because sort
of those men in the Royal courts who became a Unix often there
would do it voluntarily because they loved their King so much.
They were willing to become eunuchs in order to serve the
king. So, that's a nice parallel to
what Jesus says here. Some eunuchs make themselves
that way for the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is the most important category.
This Is the one Jesus wants his disciples to understand and it's
something that's entirely new celibacy for the sake of God was
an entirely new teaching to them.
Jesus teaching here is that there's men probably women as
well, who choose not to get married and embrace celibacy.
And in fact that's a good calling, that is away, imitating
Jesus. And as part of their Ministry,
in the kingdom of God, they have chosen celibacy for the sake of
the Kingdom. So, that's what it means to
become a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom, of means to give up
on Marriage, in to give up on sexual intimacy.
It's to embrace the celibacy people like this.
According to Paul can devote themselves entirely to God.
So celibacy is a bit of a strange Topic in Christian
circles. But even Paul himself says,
celibacy, is a lifestyle that allows a man and a women as
well, to be entirely devoted to God.
So in this sense, people who choose cell See for the kingdom
who choose to be eunuchs for the kingdom.
They anticipate what life will be like in heaven.
If you look at 2:30, Jesus talks about how the angels are also
celibate. And so in that sense Servants of
the Kingdom who are eunuchs? They're getting ready for
heaven. Well, their mimic, what life is
like in heaven. So this text and other texts
from Paul are the foundation for the Catholic teaching the most
priests and Bishops Bishops should be celibate as part of
their service to the kingdom. Jesus finishes, by saying, let
anyone except this, who can or what it actually says, there is
a, he who is able to receive it, let him receive it.
So, what's Jesus saying here about being a eunuch, being
celibate for the kingdom, he acknowledges that not all
Christians will be able to accept it.
In fact, probably not all Christians will be given the
grace to do it, but he's nevertheless encouraging
Christians to accept it. And to think about it.
Jesus encourages the celibate way of life, and he says, it's
valuable in the Kingdom. Gee, we can't get out of this.
Jesus is saying that celibacy ought to be embraced by his many
people in the Kingdom as possible.
He's not saying that it's possible for everyone, but it's
saying it ought to be embraced if possible.
Now, later in Catholic, teaching are the Council of Trent
teachers that if this is sort of a Catholic fact that the
objective state of celibacy Is higher than the married.
Life is a higher calling and it is more pleasing to God.
However, luckily the Council of Trent qualifies that and says
that both vocations are important in the church's life,
we need both and they're both mirror aspects of God's love
differently, but celibacy is the objectively higher, calling you
might not have heard that before, but that is part of
Catholic teaching. So, that's a long episode there,
isn't it? There's heaps and heaps of stuff
that we've said, and And hopefully, you've seen that.
It's valuable to dive into the text in this way.
So I'll just ask you to think about giving to this ministry.
If you have learned something from today's episode, it took me
quite a while to prepare for this episode quite a few hours
actually. And then to record it as well.
This is one of these bigger episodes and if you believe that
the work that we're doing through this ministry is helping
you understand the Bible and draw you closer to the kingdom.
Then please consider becoming a financial supporter of the
ministry. There's information about that
in the show notes. Now, there's all sorts of
amazing paragraphs in the catechism which talk about
Catholic marriage, which talk about marriage in the old
Covenant, which quote from what Jesus says here.
And I'd love to read them all out to you, but it's already a
very long episode, but these paragraphs are some of the best
written in the entire catechism. I think about the purpose of
marriage, and how Jesus gives Grace for the New Covenant
marriage is as well. So, and even talks about
virgins, Christian virgins, who choose to be But for the sake of
the Kingdom, that's covered in the catechism as well.
All sorts of fascinating stuff in there that link to this page
to this passage. There's about 10 paragraphs
actually. So I'll include those in the
show notes for you to look at thank you once again for
listening. I hope you've learned something
new, I certainly did, as I Was preparing for this podcast,
please keep the ministry in your prayers and will continue in
Matthew in the coming days.