THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 65, Chapter 19
We begin chapter 19 of Matthew's Gospel today, and it begins with a bang.
Immediately some dicey subjects arise; dicey for the 1st-century Jewish
community and they remain problematic for God worshippers to this day. The
subjects are divorce, monogamy, and celibacy. Before we're through with this
section I have little doubt that I will bother most of you or possibly offend some of
you, because facing what the Bible actually has to say (and does NOT say) about
these subjects makes it challenging and well out of step with today's Western
society perspectives and customs, and that includes some branches of
Christianity.
Before I say any more, let's open our Bibles and read Matthew chapter 19.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 19 all
The setting is this: Yeshua determines it is time for Him to leave the Galilee
where He has done nearly all of His ministry work. Thus He is completing the
bulk of His teaching of His 12 disciples although it will continue. He will not return
to the Galilee in the flesh. The next time we find Him in the Galilee is in a
somewhat altered form after His crucifixion and resurrection.
The Book of Mark offers a similar narrative beginning in chapter 10. Let's read it
to get his perspective.
READ MARK CHAPTER 10:1 - 12
At first glance these accounts are generally the same; however, there are some
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key differences from Matthew, which I'll address as we encounter them.
Returning to Matthew. Since His destination was Judea, why cross to the other
side of the Sea of Galilee and walk down the east side of the Jordan River?
Simply put, Yeshua didn't want to travel through Samaria. The Jews of that day
had little regard for, and some an actual hatred of, Samaria and of therefore of
Samarians. Samarians were a mixed population of gentiles, Jews, and Jews that
were married to gentiles and so bore what Jews would have considered half-
breed children. There were also small cells of various of the so-called 10 Lost
Tribes living there as they had for nearly 8 centuries and apparently they did not
practice the official Judaism of that era, even having their own separate Temple
and priesthood.
We discussed in earlier lessons that Jesus taught that in some measure,
appearances matter. He didn't, and we can't, just do things in some strict
adherence (as we see it) to our faith beliefs in disregard of our cultural norms.
Naturally we are not to disobey the Torah or break a biblical moral law; but we
also have to pay attention to those cultural norms and traditions that helps to
define our society, or we will be cast as outsiders and be ineffective in reaching
others with the Good News. While I have no doubt that He harbored no personal
ill will against the Samaritans... and in fact, as God on earth, loved them... it
would have made Him an even more controversial figure among Jews than He
already was if He as much as walked through Samaritan territory to get to
Judea... because Jews (especially Galileans) avoided Samaria like the plague.
So Yeshua took the longer route from the Galilee that wound along the east side
of the Jordan River, and then crossed over probably somewhere near Jericho
where John the Baptist had been known to operate.
We're told that large crowds followed Him. The route that He took from the
Galilee to Judea went through the district of Perea that was not taboo to Jews, so
many Jews lived there. Christ's reputation as a miracle healer had spread far and
wide and so where ever He went throngs of people followed Him that needed
healing of every sort. Matthew remarks that Yeshua indeed healed them... which
He always did since His heart was always for the hurting, the lame, the sick, and
the downtrodden. Here we encounter our first difference between Matthew and
Mark. In Matthew Christ healed; in Mark He taught. I suspect that He did both; it's
only that with each Gospel, the writer chose to highlight one over the other and
not both. So whereas most Bible commentators see this difference as a conflict
of what happened, I see no such thing; it is simply an issue of the writer's
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perspective and emphasis. I'll remind you: Matthew was writing from a Believing
Jewish perspective with an intended audience of Believing Jews. Mark was
writing from a perspective of addressing a gentile audience and this had much to
do with what they each chose to focus on.
In the CJB, verse 2 says that some Pharisees (who always seemed to mingle in
with the common folk that followed Yeshua) tried to "trap" Him with a question
about divorce. Some Bible versions say test, others say tempt. The Greek word
is peirazo. The Greek lexicons say that it means to test someone or something,
usually by trying to ascertain what a person thinks about something. Therefore I
think the CJB saying they were trying to "trap" Jesus is a bit off the mark as the
word carries an ominous tone with it. What the Pharisees were really trying to
determine was something rather legitimate in that day: was Christ's view of
divorce in line with the School of Hillel, or with the School of Shammai? The one
view is something that we could call liberal, the other more strict or
fundamentalist. Generally speaking, the Pharisees went along with Hillel's
teaching on divorce, which was the more liberal. That is,
Hillel's Halakhah (Jewish Law, Tradition) was that there were several legitimate
reasons for divorce, while Shammai's Halakhah was that there was really only
one. And Mark and Matthew also differ on this.
Mark has it as a very broad question the Pharisees asked: " is it lawful to permit a
man to divorce his wife". Matthew adds a qualifier to that question. He says the
question was: "is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any ground
whatever?" Different Bible versions word this slightly differently from one
another, but they all amount to the same thing. The question is: can there be
many different reasons to divorce a wife? There is an important nuance for us to
notice. In both Mark and Matthew, the word lawful (is it lawful or permitted) is in
Greek exesti. The CJB assumes that lawful means Torah law; but I have my
doubts. I think it means it in the way most Jews would have seen it: it means
lawful in the sense of permitted according to the Halakhah of the day as a
representative interpretation of the Torah. In other words, just as today when a
layman might ask a Pastor a theological question, the Pastor is typically going to
answer based on his denomination's doctrines, and not necessarily what the
Bible strictly says, or perhaps a combination of both. So Jesus responds in this
way:
CJB
Matthew 19:4-5
4
"...Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator
made them male and female,
5
and that he said, 'For this reason a man
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should leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two
are to become one flesh'?
So Yeshua says that the answer to this question must necessarily go back to the
time of Adam and Eve... long before there was a written Torah or Law of Moses.
This doesn't mean that the Law of Moses didn't have a divorce clause;
Deuteronomy 24 speaks of it.
CJB
Deuteronomy 24:1 "Suppose a man marries a woman and
consummates the marriage but later finds her displeasing, because he has
found her offensive in some respect. He writes her a divorce document,
gives it to her and sends her away from his house.
2
She leaves his house,
goes and becomes another man's wife;
3
but the second husband dislikes
her and writes her a get, gives it to her and sends her away from his house;
or the second husband whom she married dies.
4
In such a case her first
husband, who sent her away, may not take her again as his wife, because
she is now defiled. It would be detestable to ADONAI, and you are not to
bring about sin in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as your
inheritance.
We won't deal with the multiple aspects of divorce in the Deuteronomy 24 law,
but you can go to TorahClass.com and find some in-depth teaching on it. The
point is that divorce is indeed part of the Law of Moses, but it can only be applied
narrowly and not broadly. What Yeshua says also raises the issue of monogamy.
Thus, says Christ, the two (male and female) become one so no one should split
apart what God has joined together. Yeshua is quoting from 2 places in the Book
of Genesis.
CJB
Genesis 1:27 So God created humankind in his own image; in the image
of God he created him: male and female he created them.
And:
CJB
Genesis 2:24 This is why a man is to leave his father and mother and
stick with his wife, and they are to be one flesh.
So marriage, divorce, and monogamy get all wrapped up together as something
that cannot be understood properly without considering them all. The Genesis
verses (and thus Jesus) also gets specific about what marriage amounts to: a
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man and a woman leaving their parents and becoming joined together as a
couple. It pains me to have to emphasize the obvious: from a biblical standpoint...
from God's standpoint... marriage is exclusively between a male and female. Gay
marriage is an oxymoron from the biblical perspective and of course is but a
modern Western civilization attempt to subvert and destroy the God-ordained
institution and purpose of marriage, which is to be fruitful and multiply.
Please notice that Yeshua quoted the Torah as His answer, thus continuing the
proof of Matthew 5:17 - 19 that He did not come to abolish or destroy the Law of
Moses, but rather to uphold it, teach it, demonstrate the spirit of The Law as
opposed to mechanical obedience to it, and how it ought to look in application.
In response to Christ's words the Pharisees ask: if that's so, then why did Moses
give the commandment that a man could divorce his wife if he gave her
a get (a get is a Hebrew document of divorce)? Again I want to stress; there is
nothing ominous or against Jesus going on here. This subject was a raging
debate during the 1st century in the Jewish faith, and so Jesus wasn't going to
get in trouble no matter how He might have answered. Naturally the Pharisees
wanted Him to believe and teach their viewpoint and agree with their traditions on
the matter. But there would be no penalty other than their growing disdain for Him
if Yeshua taught otherwise. And in fact, He did teach otherwise. Yeshua agreed
with Shammai's stricter code for divorce as the standard and not the Pharisees'
more liberal approach.
Christ answers the Pharisees quite reasonable inquiry of His stance about
divorce with the words:
CJB
Matthew 19:8 "Moshe allowed you to divorce your wives because your
hearts are so hardened. But this is not how it was at the beginning.
Yeshua is explaining (or better, properly interpreting) the Deuteronomy 24
passage about marriage, divorce, and possible re-marriage. What He says is of
course true, but it hit the Pharisees square in the face (like a cream pie thrown at
them) because He says it is the fault of the hardened hearts of God's people that
a system of divorce is even necessary. So in addition to Jesus saying that He
has adopted the Pharisee's rival's position on divorce, He is also saying that
divorce was only allowed by God due to hardened hearts (sin), and it therefore
makes the Pharisees' position on the matter a result of their own hardened hearts
to allow such liberal use of the Law of divorce.
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Let me clear something up because grasping the nuances of the Hebrew mindset
is critical in interpreting the New Testament. When the Jews (including Jesus)
say things like "Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because..." the
reference to Moses making the law or commandment was just a colloquial way of
speaking. That is, it was understood that God gave the laws and commands to
Moses and Moses merely wrote them down. There is no implication that it was
Moses who created the laws and commandments. From the time the Law was
given to Moses until His death, Moses was more or less God's scribe and the
supreme earthly Judge presiding over the Law that God gave to Israel. Just as
Christians call the legal section of the Torah the Law of Moses so did the
Hebrews of every age. Thus for Israel the term "The Law of Moses" was often
abbreviated to just "Moses" since Moses was the Mediator.
Verse 9 makes Yeshua's position on divorce unequivocal. Only on account of
sexual immorality... unfaithfulness in the marriage... was divorce legitimate in
God's eyes. He has essentially spoken Shammai's Halakhah on the matter. So
the Pharisees would not have walked away very happy about what Yeshua said.
But His statement then does something that I'm sure upset all the males
listening, just as it might upset many males listening to me right now. If a man
divorces His wife for any reason other than she has been sexually unfaithful to
him, and the man then remarries, the man becomes guilty of adultery. That is a
man who divorces his wife because of her infidelity, and then he remarries, does
so legally and without consequence in God's eyes. By no means does this mean
that divorce still wasn't permitted for other reasons. But all those other reasons
for divorce bring a dire consequence upon the man who divorces his wife and
then remarries: God declares him guilty of adultery. The Hebrews always had a
hard time accepting and obeying this, just as Christians do, because no one
wants to live a lifetime in an unhappy marriage.
Look; we need to grasp that Yeshua was not reading more into Deuteronomy 24
than was there and thus elevating the Law's stance on divorce to a higher and
more rigid level that He favored. Rather, it was because He well understood the
Pharisee's liberalized doctrine on divorce that He used the words and examples
that He did. He wanted to expose that while the Pharisees walked around
claiming to be the righteous upholders of the Law of Moses, in fact they tended to
ignore the Law on the difficult matters often taking the more populist view and
following Tradition instead. They saw themselves as men of the people and so
wanted to make religious rulings... Halakhot...that were more well-liked by the
majority of the common folks. They preferred their Traditions that often stretched
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and twisted and contorted God's Law like Silly-Putty in order to increase their
status and gain approval of the people. Without apology I can say that the
Church (in general) has followed suit... but of course with our own but different
Traditions that equally distort God's laws and commands or most often simply
throw them all out, wholesale.
Now we can understand why an unnamed one of Christ's disciples, after hearing
this conversation, says that it seems when one understands the severity of the
consequence of divorce, it must be better not to marry at all! Why? Because the
many flexible reasons for divorce that the Pharisees preached (and that the 12
disciples had up to now accepted as the norm), suddenly evaporated. This made
getting married a far more precarious matter because getting out of a marriage a
man no longer wanted was now understood as having serious consequences.
And yet it seems at every turn we are confronted with still another fact of divorce
and marriage. So if one divorces his wife for her adultery, is he actually free to
marry again? While there is an implication that it is, that question is not directly
answered. Various Rabbis and Christian Theologians return different answers.
Looking upon what was no doubt a batch of frowns and perplexed faces Christ
says that not everyone grasps this teaching, only those for whom it is meant.
Translation: this is a very hard teaching and it goes against centuries of Jewish
custom and Tradition. Good luck trying to work against it. But it also is
reminiscent of something Yeshua said back in Matthew chapter 13.
CJB
Matthew 13:11 He answered, "Because it has been given to you to know
the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it has not been given to them.
Knowing the secrets to the Kingdom of Heaven are reserved only for the
members of the Kingdom; but that hardly means that every member of the
Kingdom grasps these secrets equally. Like everything else about our faith, it
takes time and experience to mature in it. One cannot expect a new Believer to
know the many mysteries of the Kingdom the way an Elder will. And not every
secret understanding is going to sit well with us; marriage and divorce is one of
these because in many cases it goes against what we want that we think will
make us happier.
Being single was not the norm for an adult Jewish male. And I imagine in some
ways it made Jesus stand out because he was around 30 years old and not
married. So in some ways He is justifying His personal decision NOT to marry.
He lists some reasons (it is certainly not an exhaustive list) why a man might
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choose not to marry. Some because they just don't want to. Others because they
were, sadly, made into Eunuchs to serve a master. Some did so for religious
reasons, dedicating their lives to their faith, and thus marriage would be both a
personal hindrance and also unfair to a wife. Yeshua repeats that only some to
whom He is speaking will understand this teaching and point of view.
I have no doubt that just like in our time, men of Yeshua's generation looked
around their society, saw the many unhappy marriages, the wreckage of lives
and family (especially of women and children's) that divorce caused, and decided
"no thanks". The more devout no doubt worried that certain temptations would
arise once a man made a marriage commitment to a woman, and that of itself
added some temptations to sin that weren't there before marriage. The difference
between then and now is that Jewish men and women of that day generally didn't
just co-habitate as an alternative; the shame would have been too great. Today,
the number of unmarried couples living together is rising at an alarming rate and
Western society doesn't even blink at it. Since marriage has moved from the
religious realm to the secular and governmental realm, then it has become mostly
a financial issue. Young couples don't want their finances to be affected since in
the Western world it is finances that is at the heart of divorce details (along with
the disposition of the offspring). That is, for many of them in the modern era it is
better to just live together, keep the finances separate, and when one has
decided to move on to greener pastures, it's only a matter of hiring a moving
truck. No commitment, no further damage done. There is no thought of God's
commands and laws on the subject.
Paul had things to say about marriage as well, with one eye towards the specter
of divorce. In 1
st
Corinthians 7 we read this.
READ 1CORINTHIANS 7:1 - 16
Since I'm not teaching what Paul said but rather what Matthew and Mark said, we
won't go into every detail of Paul's narrative. I had us read this in order to notice
how complex the matter of marriage and divorce had become later in the
1
st
century. Believing in, and following, Yeshua in some ways added to the
complications; yet if we listen to what Yeshua said in Matthew 19 it should only
simplify. The matter of marriage for a Believer can be so fraught with dangers of
sinning that Paul outright says that he wishes every Believing male would be like
him (choosing not to marry). Of course that also assumes celibacy, which our
modern Western cultural says is puritanical if not stupid.
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OK. I want to embellish a little on this teaching about marriage, divorce, and
monogamy. The expansive subject of marriage, divorce, monogamy, and even
celibacy loomed large in the 1
st
century and perhaps even larger now. To
understand the biblical view and Yeshua's view of it, we need to understand what
all of this meant to the Jews of the 1
st
century because the context in which it was
taught is how we need to take it. There were numerous viewpoints about these
topics in the 1
st
century. I have already mentioned the Pharisees, Hillel and
Shammai and their views but there were others as well such as that of the
Essenes, who, as near as we can tell from the Dead Sea Scroll documents,
allowed no divorce for any reason. So in a kind of Paul-like view (or maybe Paul
had adopted the Essene view) male Essenes usually shunned marriage for the
sake of not sinning, although marriage was by no means outlawed by the
Essenes.
It's so important to realize that the majority of marriages in Jewish society then
were what we might call arranged marriages, and that was because the girl was
usually quite young when it happened. Being only 12 or 13 it was not unusual for
a girl to be betrothed to a man she likely didn't even know, at her father's
decision. Partly this is because money was involved, and at other times one party
in the arrangement might have held a higher social status that would have
allowed the more common family to be elevated into it, if such a marriage could
be arranged. A girl (a maiden, or more common in the Bible vernacular, a virgin)
was transferred from being under the authority of her father immediately to the
authority of her husband. Unless the girl was a much more advanced age, she
had no choice in the matter.
Despite what can seem to us as harsh rules for marriage and divorce, it was
actually mostly for the benefit of the woman. Not until later in time could a woman
divorce a man; it was a one-way street and that's why we see the divorce laws
worded the way they were. It was not if a man displeased a woman that there
was grounds for divorce, it was only if a woman displeased a man. And what
amounted to unfaithfulness in a marriage was quite different for a woman than a
man. Unfaithfulness was expanded for a woman to mean that perhaps she
wasn't a good enough housekeeper to please her husband. Or maybe she was
unable to have children. Or she had some disability that didn't enable her to do
the work or marital duties expected of a wife. None of this applied to a man. If he
was unable to, or unwilling to, perform his marital duties or support the family
then the wife and children suffered with no recourse. If he was abusive, she
couldn't leave him. So the divorce laws were meant to help with this
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situation. The requirement of the Law for a husband to give his wife a get (a
divorce document) freed her from the control and authority of her husband. Often
this meant giving her the ability to return to her father's household and authority.
In only the rarest of cases could a woman divorce her husband. Divorce was
entirely in the hands of the male. And as much as not, the underlying reason that
women were stuck in a bad marriage was because in the biblical era an
unmarried adult woman not living under her father's roof was likely to be in
poverty because men held down almost all the paying jobs. Divorce could mean
real deprivation for the female.
It is interesting to me how Yeshua clearly veers off from divorce and into the
issue of polygamy versus monogamy. While that isn't all that apparent to us, it
would have been to His Jewish listeners. While we really don't have any strong
evidence one way or the other into how widespread the practice of polygamy was
in His day, the evidence is clear that it existed in Jewish society but probably not
outside the Holy Land. This is because Roman Law generally prohibited it in their
Empire, although they made many exceptions for the former Israelite territories
and the Jewish people. It might surprise some Believers, but the Law of Moses
actually allowed polygamy although it didn't advocate for it.
Exodus chapter 21 of the Torah presents a series of rulings given by God
through Moses. In verse 10 we read:
10 If he marries another wife, he is not to reduce her food, clothing or
marital rights.
So the thought here is a protection for the woman who becomes a man's second
wife; she's not to be provided for less than his first wife. In Deuteronomy we read:
CJB
Deuteronomy 21:15-17
15
"If a man has two wives, the one loved and the
other unloved, and both the loved and unloved wives have borne him
children, and if the firstborn son is the child of the unloved wife;
16
then,
when it comes time for him to pass his inheritance on to his sons, he may
not give the inheritance due the firstborn to the son of the loved wife in
place of the son of the unloved one, who is in fact the firstborn.
17
No, he
must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the unloved wife by giving him a
double portion of everything he owns, for he is the firstfruits of his
manhood, and the right of the firstborn is his.
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So while this passage is structured around a man having 2 wives (one whom he's
happy with the other that he's not), the issue is what about the children each wife
has borne? And what about the firstborn (which were always males) when
conditions change, such as death or divorce? This matter is as critical for the well-
being of the wives as it is for the sons and the other children because if a wife
was either widowed or divorced, her only hope of a decent life lay in the
existence of a son to care for her. My point is that polygamy was not only
tolerated it was planned for. Yet do not think that anywhere in the Torah is
polygamy recommended. Rather it is something that God knew would continue to
exist and so commanded what must be done to protect the women and the
children.
What Bible student doesn't know that the forefather of the entire Hebrew race,
Abraham, had not only multiple wives but also concubines as did his son Isaac
and grandson Jacob after him. King David had multiple wives and yet he was so
very dear to God's heart. So what we must be careful to do with such issues as
marriage, divorce, and polygamy versus monogamy is to separate God's ideal
will from what God in His mercy makes provision for, for the fallen and perverted
human race. In fact, in the Old Testament polygamy most often is related to the
first wife not being able to bear children and even when that's not the case we
read of trouble after trouble, headache after headache that comes from
it... especially from the offspring... with the consequences often bleeding into
future generations.
When we arrive to the 1
st
century, polygamy has mostly died out among the
Jews partly due to the Roman influence but also because of the sheer financial
burden of it. Most men simply couldn't afford more than one wife. It is very
interesting that information found within the Dead Sea Scrolls sheds light on this
matter of polygamy during Jesus's day. We learn from it that the Essenes firmly
rejected polygamy. But what is interesting is what they had to say about what the
Pharisees thought about polygamy. Keep in mind that the Essenes and the
Pharisees were, at the least, rivals. Their doctrines were very different because
while the Essenes' goal was to shuck off the centuries of manmade traditions that
now ruled the Jewish faith, and in-so-doing return to something more pure and
much closer to the Law of Moses, the Pharisees embraced those manmade
traditions (and seemed to make more of them nearly daily), taking them farther
and farther away from the Law of Moses. I want to quote this Dead Sea Scrolls
passage to you because it is within this context that it helps us to understand why
Yeshua took the topic of divorce that the Pharisees confronted Him with, and
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essentially moved it towards an argument for monogamous marriage.
It seems that in the so-called Damascus Documents (which are part of the Dead
Sea Scrolls) the Essenes have two articles of denunciation for the Pharisee-
allowed practice of polygamy, something the Essenes saw as evil and definite
sexual immorality. Here is one them (this is a quote from that ancient document).
"They (the Pharisees) are caught by two snares. By sexual sin, namely
taking two wives in their lives, while the foundation of Creation is male and
female He created them. And those who entered Noah's Ark went in two by
two into the Ark. And of the Prince it is written let him not multiply wives for
himself. And David did not read the sealed book of the Torah, which was in
the Ark of the Covenant, for it was not opened in Israel until the day of the
death of Eleazar and Joshua and the Elders. For their successors worship
the Ashtoreth, and that which was revealed was hidden until Zadok arose,
so David's works were accepted, and God forgave him for them." CD 4:20 -
5:6.
We could spend much time with this passage, but the point is that the Essenes
saw that the Pharisees (who are the "they" in this passage) were caught in a
snare of their own making (their traditions that accepted polygamy). This snare, a
stumbling block, was the sex sin of allowing a man to have 2 wives and, just as
Jesus did in Matthew 19, the Essenes argued their point beginning with the act of
Creation (a time before the Law of Moses came into being) when God created 2
people: a man and a woman. I can't go by without commenting how the Essenes
also found a way to make the polygamist King David innocent on the grounds
that the sealed book (taken to mean Deuteronomy) wasn't available to him
because it was inside the Ark of the Covenant, which he dare not to open, so he
was ignorant of God's ideal of a man having only 1 wife.
The other article of denunciation against polygamy itself (less so directed against
the Pharisees) comes from their interpretation and midrash of Leviticus 18:18.
This same argument against polygamy is used in another of the Dead Sea
Scrolls documents called the Temple Scroll. It goes like this:
CJB
Leviticus 18:18
18
You are not to take a woman to be a rival with her
sister and have sexual relations with her while her sister is still alive.
The Essenes interpreted this differently. The Hebrew word used for sister
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is achoth. However it is now known that in the biblical Hebrew of that day
that achoth could be used for meaning a sister or it could mean "other" or
"another" of the female gender. The word sister was often used as meaning a
fellow female Israelite (just like Christians will sometimes refer to a female
Believer as a sister, when in fact no familial relationship is intended).
So, perhaps a better reading of Leviticus 18:18 (that really makes the most
sense) is how the Essenes took it. Please listen carefully.
"And he shall not take another wife, for she alone will be with him all the days of
her life".
What I am telling you is not my opinion but rather it is how the writers of both the
Damascus Document and the Temple Scroll from Christ's day (and some
decades before) took Leviticus 18:18 to mean: it was, for them, a decisive
argument in favor of monogamy. In any case this must be taken as the
background in Matthew to explain why Yeshua sort of oddly devolved into the
issue of marital monogamy since that is not what He was asked about. Rather it
was that He was talking to religious authorities (Pharisees) who accepted
polygamy as Godly and He wanted to use this opportunity to straighten them out.
Christ was a pragmatist; not an idealist. He dealt with the real issues of His time;
not a series of hypothetical ones. It's when we lift Him out of that pragmatic
approach, and out of His Jewishness, that Christian teachers regularly spiritualize
what He says and so His teachings become a maze of allegorical sermons with
different outcomes.
We're not quite finished with the issues of marriage, divorce, celibacy, and
monogamy yet, so that is what we'll continue with next week.


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