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 2Cor. 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 a “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 will in God’s eyes continuing 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. (I think 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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