SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/10/2023 10:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Answer”
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Matthew 19:4-6
Message of the verses: “4 And He answered
and said, "Have you not read, that He who created them from the
beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5 and said, ‘FOR THIS CAUSE A MAN SHALL
LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND SHALL CLEAVE TO HIS WIFE; AND THE TWO SHALL
BECOME ONE FLESH’? 6 “Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What
therefore God has joined together let no man separate.’”
We can see the wonderful all-knowing Jesus in this
answer that He gave to the Pharisees as instead of giving a direct yes or no,
what He did was He went back beyond rabbinical tradition, and even further back
than the law of Moses, all the way back to God’s creation of man.
His
answer had nothing to do with divorce, but He gave them a sarcastic and biting
rebuke to the learned Pharisees, the ones who prided themselves on their great
knowledge of Scripture. Jesus actually
responded to their question with a question of His own. Jesus was in effect asking, “Have you not
read” the book of Genesis? Is it that you
are not aware of what God Himself declared at the very beginning of creation? Don’t you realize the very first thing that
God said about marriage? Don’t you
recall that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
and said, For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall
cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’” It was by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24,
Jesus was saying, “Your argument is not with Me, but with God.” His words must have brought upon them a good
sting to these very proud “all knowing” Pharisees, the ones who considered
themselves to be the supreme authorities of Scripture. I guess that they must have forgotten that
part.
John
MacArthur writes “From those two verses, taken from the first two chapters of
Scripture, the Lord presented four reasons why divorce was never in God’s
plan. First, He said, God created them
from the beginning…male and female. In
the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:27, both male and female are in the emphatic position,
giving the sense of ‘the one male and the one female.’ In other words, God did not create a group of
males and females who could pick and choose mates as it suited them. There were no spares or options. There was no provision, or even possibility,
for multiple or alternate spouses. There
were only one man and one woman in the beginning and for that very obvious
reason, divorce and remarriage was not an option.”
We
will now look at the second reason why divorce was never in God’s plan, and
that is that Jesus said, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and
mother, and shall cleave to his wife.” Now
since Adam and Eve had no parents to leave, the leaving of father and mother was
a principle to be projected into and applied to all future generations.
MacArthur
explains “The Hebrew word (dabaq)
behind cleave refers to a strong bonding together of objects and often was used
to represent gluing or cementing. Job
used the word when he spoke of his bones clinging to his skin and flesh (Job. 19:20;
cf. Ps. 102:5). It could also have the
connotation of following closely. The
two ideas were, in fact, sometimes carried together, as in Ruth’s clinging to
Naomi (Ruth 1:14) and the men of Judah remaining steadfast to David (2 Sam.
20:2). Several times the term is used of
the Israelites’ holding to the Lord in love and obedience (Deut. 10:20; 11:22;
13:4; Josh. 22:5; 23:8).
Now
the idea of close bonding and interrelationship is seen in the modern Hebrew
word for marriage and that word is kidduskin,
a word closely related to the terms for holy and sanctified, which have the
basic meaning of being set apart and consecrated. This meaningful word for marriage beautifully
expresses the consecration of husband and wife to each other as well as to
God. Marriage as God has always intended
it to be involves the total commitment and consecration of husbands and wives
to each other and to Him as the divine author of their union and witness to
their covenant.”
2/10/2023 10:34 AM
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