SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 09-15-2012
My Worship Time Focus: Two Shall Be One
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Mark 10:1-12
Message of the verses: “1 Getting up, He *went from there to the
region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds *gathered around Him again, and,
according to His custom, He once more began to teach them. 2 Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him,
and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife.
3 And He answered and said to them,
"What did Moses command you?" 4
They said, "Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE
AND SEND her AWAY." 5 But Jesus
said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this
commandment. 6 "But from the
beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. 7 "FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS
FATHER AND MOTHER, 8 AND THE TWO SHALL
BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 "What therefore God has joined together,
let no man separate." 10 In the
house the disciples began questioning Him about this again. 11 And He *said to them, "Whoever divorces
his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; 12 and if she herself divorces her husband and
marries another man, she is committing adultery.’”
We are
going to begin to look at the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and for
those who don’t know I have been looking at the Gospel of Mark, one chapter a
month since December of 2011, and this month we will look at the tenth
chapter. The tenth chapter of Mark we
find that Jesus is on the East side of the Jordan River and will travel from
there to Jericho and then up to Jerusalem where He will be crucified. Mark skips the ministry of Jesus in Judah and
in his Gospel he goes from Jesus’ last ministry in Galilee right to his
ministry on the East side of the Jordan River.
Herod is the one in charge of this section and it was Herod who had John
the Baptist killed because of John’s views (actually God’s view) on marriage
and divorce. Herod was actually married
to his brother’s wife, the brother’s name was Phillip and she was actually the
niece of both Herod and Philip. Not only
was it wrong for Herod to marry his brother’s wife, but it was wrong for both
of them to be married to their niece.
The
Pharisees come to Jesus trying to trick him with a question about divorce and
it was probably their desire to have Herod get involved in all of this in the
same way he dealt with John the Baptist.
During this
time the Pharisees had two different views on divorce, one from a rabbi named
Rabbi Hillel and another view from Rabbi Shimmai, and their views were quite
different. Wikipedia states the following:
“Divorce.
The House of Shammai held that a man may only divorce his wife for a serious
transgression, but the House of Hillel allowed divorce for even trivial
offenses, such as burning a meal.”
As we begin
this chapter in Dr. Wiersbe commentary on Mark chapter ten in which he entitles
it “The Servant’s Paradoxes” he explains what a paradox is by stating “A
paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself and yet expresses a
valid truth or principle.” An example of
this from the Scriptures is found in 2 Cor. 12:10 where Paul writes, “Therefore
I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with
persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am
weak, then I am strong.” (Italic’s added) At the end of his introductory commentary Dr.
Wiersbe writes “He (Jesus) could have preached long sermons; but instead, He
gave us these five important lessons that can be expressed in five succinct,
paradoxical statements.” In today’s SD
we will look at the first paradoxical statement “Two Shall Be One” from the
first twelve verses in Mark Ten.
As
mentioned above the Pharisees were again trying their old trick of tricking
Jesus, but we know that this would never work for Jesus has a plan, actually
His plan was to fulfill the Father’s plan and therefore nothing was going to
come in the way of that. I for one as I
study the book of Mark get upset over the Pharisees who are constantly trying
to impede the progress of what Jesus was doing.
How can they be upset over Jesus healing people on the Sabbath, or be
afraid of Jesus feeding the 5000 or the 4000, or healing a man who was born
blind, or raising the dead? I believe
the answer to these questions is that Jesus was trampling on what they supposed
to be their territory, which was the corrupt religious system that they headed
up. What they did not realize was that
God was going to use these corrupt men to send Jesus to the cross where He
would die for all those who would accept His pardon for their sins. They were not the only ones involved in this
plan for Pilate was also involved in this plan along with God the Father as
seen in Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 53.
Peter puts the blame squarely on the Pharisees a number of times along
with stating that it was the direct plan of God, as we see in the book of Acts.
The subject
of this section is divorce and the trick question was is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife. The prophet Malachi
has this to say about this subject, “Mal 2:16 “For I hate divorce," says
the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with
wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that
you do not deal treacherously.’” We also
see some instruction in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verses 1-4, “ 1 "When a man takes a wife and marries
her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found
some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it
in her hand and sends her out from his house, 2 and she leaves his house and
goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and if the latter husband turns against
her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends
her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his
wife, 4 then her former husband who sent
her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been
defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring
sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.” We see the commandment here is that if the
man divorces his wife and the key words, and the disputed words are “because he
has found some indecency in her,” that he can write a certificate of
divorce. We see from the two rabbi’s
that one though that the indecency was from adultery while the other thought it
was for basically any reason, like burning his supper or showing her ankles in
public.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes “As you study this passage, it is important to note two facts. First, it was the man who divorced the wife,
not the wife who divorced the husband; for women did not have this right in
Israel. (Roman women did have the right
of divorce.) Second, the official “bill
of divorcement’ was given to the wife to declare her status and to assure any
prospective husband that she was indeed free to remarry. Apart from the giving of this document, the
only other requirement was that the woman not return to her first husband if
her second husband, divorced her. Among the Jews, the question was not, ‘May a
divorced woman marry again?’ because remarriage was permitted and even
expected. The big question was, ‘What
are the legal grounds for a man to divorce his wife?’”
When we
look at the Law of Moses we find that adultery was punishable by death, death
of both parties, “"If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both
of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall
purge the evil from Israel (Deu. 22:22).”
Dr. Wiersbe points out that whatever Moses meant by “some uncleanness”
found in Deu. 24:1 was not divorce.
Dr. Wiersbe
states “By giving this commandment to Israel, God was not putting His approval
on divorce or even encouraging it.
Rather, He was seeking to restrain it and make it more difficult for men
to dismiss their wives. He put
sufficient regulations around divorce so that the wives would not become
victims of their husband’s whims.”
When Jesus
answers the Pharisees he goes back to the book of Genesis where we see God’s
standards for marriage. One man and one
woman and when they are married the two become one flesh, and this is speaking
of the physical bond. There were only
two people on the earth when God made up the rules for marriage and since these
two will become one flesh you cannot divide one. When sin entered the in Genesis chapter three
God did not change His mind about marriage, but we see from this same account
in the book of Matthew that Jesus does give what is called an “exception
clause,” and that was for the result of adultery that a divorce could
happen. I have studied this exception
clause in the past and what other commentators have stated is that the adultery
must be habitual in order for a divorce to be enacted and the one who is
committing the adultery, if they marry again then in God’s eyes they continue
to commit adultery. The one who has not
committed it can marry again if desired.
Not all Pastors agree with this and thus they will not perform a
marriage if one of the two was divorced.
Of course if one of the two dies the other can marry again for death
dissolves the marriage as seen in Romans chapter seven. Jesus had to explain this to His disciples for they had
been brought up to think like the Pharisees and as Dr. Wiersbe explains, “now
they were convinced that it was a dangerous thing to get married. To remarry after divorce, other than one
granted on the grounds of fornication, would make the person guilty of
committing adultery, and this is a serious thing. Note that Jesus included the women in His
warning, which certainly elevated their status in society and gave them
equality of responsibility with the men.
The rabbis would not have gone this far.”
He
concludes his commentary on this subject by stating, “Mark 10:9 warns us that
man cannot separate those who have been united in marriage, but God can. Since He established marriage, divorce may be
legal according to our laws and yet not be right in the eyes o God. He expects
married people to practice commitment to each other (Mark 10:7) and to remain
true to each other. Too many people view
divorce as ‘and easy way out,’ and do not take seriously their vows of
commitment to each other and to the Lord.”
9/16/2012 9:48:21 PM
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