potentially<\/em> misapplying Jesus when he said in Matthew 19: \u201cFor this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.\u201d (v.5)<\/p>\nThis passage takes much greater shape when we set aside our current cultural debates and peer behind the curtains to see what was actually happening contextually when we see Jesus make this statement.<\/p>\n
So, some things we and Mike Huckabee should know about the context:<\/p>\n
First, marriage wasn\u2019t defined as \u201cone man one woman\u201d in the Second Temple Period. Polygamy was certainly falling out of practice among commoners, but it still existed. The New Testament never addresses this, though Paul weighs in and states that men with more than one wife should not serve in church leadership. This wasn\u2019t necessarily because of moral objections to the practice (Paul never specifically condemns it, so we can\u2019t say for sure) but was because Paul was deeply concerned that married people wouldn\u2019t have time for both<\/em> ministry and family (1 Corinthians 7:32-35). Having a large family and multiple wives in addition to church leadership responsibilities would certainly, in Paul\u2019s view, be too much responsibility for one person to manage effectively.<\/p>\nSecondly, we need to understand the cultural debates of Jesus\u2019s time\u2013 and the passage in question from Matthew 19 is a very specific answer to a very specific\u00a0debate: divorce.<\/p>\n
Jesus wasn\u2019t the only show in town during this period, and he wasn\u2019t the only one driving conversations. There were actually two competing rabbis who were deeply influential during this period, and they\u2019re critical to understanding what is happening in Matthew 19. The two rabbis were Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hellel, and they sparked a number of debates over which they held competing views. One of the issues they strongly disagreed over was the issue of divorce and how to interpret and apply Deuteronomy 24:1, a verse that says a man can divorce his wife if she becomes \u201cdispleasing.\u201d The word \u201cdispleasing\u201d was the source of this debate: \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/em> the two argued.<\/p>\nRabbi Shammai held a rigid\u00a0view of\u00a0what \u201cdispleasing\u201d meant, and argued that the word referred to a serious transgression, such as adultery. Rabbi Hillel on the other hand, argued that displeasing could mean almost anything<\/i> and is perhaps most well known for the fact that he taught it was permissible to divorce your wife for being a bad cook<\/em>. Essentially, Rabbi Hillel argued that a man could divorce his wife for \u201cany and every reason\u201d because \u201cdispleasing\u201d could mean whatever you wanted it to mean.<\/p>\nLet\u2019s see how that context completely changes how we view Matthew 19:<\/p>\n
\u201cSome Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, \u201cIs it lawful for a man to divorce his wife<\/span>\u00a0for any and every reason<\/em>?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nCan you see what\u2019s happening here? They are quoting what Hillel was teaching and asking Jesus if he agreed with him.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThe question isn\u2019t, \u201cJesus, what is the definition of marriage?\u201d<\/p>\n
The question isn\u2019t, \u201cJesus, how should Rome define and regulate marriage?\u201d<\/p>\n
This is their question: \u201cJesus, what do you think about Hillel\u2019s view that a man can divorce his wife for any and every reason?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nJesus answers and disagrees with Hillel, essentially affirming what Shammai taught: \u201cdispleasing\u201d could only mean adultery.<\/p>\n
And so, in Matthew 19 we find Jesus weighing into the debate between Hillel and Shammai on divorce, and Jesus answers by reminding them that broken relationships and broken families were\u00a0never part of the plan<\/em>, and that this should be\u00a0permitted in only the most egregious of circumstances.<\/p>\nLooking at the context, we see that Jesus\u00a0didn\u2019t define marriage\u2013 he defined when he thought it was permissible to get a divorce.<\/strong><\/p>\nIn closing, when considering the actual context of this passage and how it is used\u00a0in our modern cultural debates, I am left with a few questions:<\/p>\n
1. Since Jesus took such a hard line on divorce in this passage, shouldn\u2019t we be primarily applying this verse to cases of divorce? With the prevalence of Christian divorce, shouldn\u2019t this verse be a beam-in-the-eye moment where the primary application of the text gives us more than enough to occupy ourselves?<\/p>\n
2. Do we even agree with Jesus on this? I know most Christians would say, \u201cYes, of course I agree with Jesus\u201d but do we\u00a0functionally\u00a0<\/em>agree? Does the average Evangelical church treat people who got divorced and remarried in cases other than adultery as practicing adulterers? Paul says the sexually immoral (includes adulterers) should be put out of the church completely, and that you shouldn\u2019t even share a meal with them (1 Cor 5:11). Is anyone other than the strictest fundamentalist churches actually following that? Do we actually believe those who got divorced and remarried are going to hell? (1 Cor 6:9)<\/p>\nI have to be honest: I don\u2019t know many people or Evangelical churches who functionally<\/em> agree with Jesus (or Paul) on this. So, why are we okay making concessions on divorce but not other things?<\/p>\n3. Even if Jesus defined marriage as one man and one woman, which he did not, where do we see Jesus telling the Roman government that government policies must be changed to reflect his own teachings? Where in the NT do we see the early church\u00a0calling on Christians to rise up in rebellion until Roman policies reflected their beliefs? There\u2019s an easy answer: We don\u2019t. Ever.<\/p>\n
4. Why are some Christians concerned with the legality of \u00a0same sex marriage, but completely silent on the legality of getting divorced other than in cases of adultery? Isn\u2019t that hypocrisy?<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
So no, Mike Huckabee\u2013 Jesus didn\u2019t outline the definition of marriage. Nor did he try to take control of the government. He did however, take a hard line on divorce, and I\u2019m pretty sure just applying that to ourselves as a Christian community will give us more than enough to worry about.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The other day Mike Huckabee was on MSNBC and made the claim that Jesus specifically outlined what marriage looks like. It\u2019s a claim I\u2019ve heard a million times\u2013 and perhaps you have as well. However, this claim is not exactly true and is a classic case of attempting to use ancient scriptures to answer modern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1638,"featured_media":13004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[242,515],"class_list":["post-12719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-culture","tag-divorce","tag-ssm"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n