Anyone Who Divorces His Wife (Matthew 5.31–32), Part 2
Anyone Who Divorces His Wife (Matthew 5.31–32), PART 1
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In 2003, for every two new marriages beginning in America, an old marriage was ending in divorce.
According the National Center for Health Statistics, there were approximately 2,187,000 marriages celebrated in the United States in 2003. That results in a marriage rate of 0.75%, or 7.5 marriages per 1,000 people. The divorce rate for the same year was 0.38%, or 3.8 divorces per 1,000 people. (The divorce rate is actually higher since four states, including California, do not collect or report divorce statistics.)
Since a marriage involves two people, 2,187,000 marriages equal 4,374,000 men and women who married in 2003. The corresponding number of men and women who divorced was 2,216,160.
That’s a lot of people who might be offended by Jesus’ words in Matthew 5.31–32: “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” In other words, Jesus is telling his disciples, divorce is a sin.
Those are pretty strong words in our divorce-prone culture, and they require some explanation, which I’ll do tomorrow. Today, however, I’d like to look at the flip side of Jesus’ words, for if divorce is a vice, surely marriage is a virtue.
In Matthew 19.1–12, Jesus engaged some Pharisees in an argument over divorce. They asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” This reflected a debate in their own circles between the strict position of Rabbi Shammai, who required a grave marital offence for divorce, and the lax position of Rabbi Hillel, who allowed divorce for just about any reason. Jesus sided with Shammai and reminded Hillel’s followers about God’s purpose for marriage with these words:
“Haven’t you read that in the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
One of God’s gifts to us is marriage. When I marry a couple, I read them the following words from the Book of Common Prayer: “The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.”
Mutual joy. Help and comfort. Procreation and nurture. Marriage is a virtue, especially if practiced virtuously. It is God’s intention for the men and women he created. Only when we see marriage in the light of God’s creative purposes can we begin to understand why Jesus took such a strong position against divorce.
If Your Right Eye Causes You to Sin (Matthew 5.29–30)
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For example, in Matthew 5.29–30, he says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you whole body to go into hell.”
F. F. Bruce tells a true story about a controversy these verses occasioned in sixteenth-century England:
"Shortly after the publication of William Tyndale’s English New Testament [in 1526], the attempt [by the government] to restrict its circulation was defended on the ground that the simple reader might mistakenly take such language literally and "pluck out his eyes, and so the whole realm will be full of blind men, to the great decay of the nation and the manifest loss of the King’s grace; and thus by reading of the Holy Scriptures will the whole realm be brought into confusion."
Literal biblical interpretation is a hallmark of Protestant exegesis. But the meaning of “literal” can be confusing. A literal interpretation of Matthew 5.29–30 seems to require that we gouge out an eye and chop off a hand in order to overcome temptation. But Christians do not interpret this passage literally, as seen by the wholesale absence of one-eyed, left-handed people in our churches.
A better word than “literally” is “literarily.” We ought to interpret the Bible literarily, — according to the type of literature it employs. A historical narrative is not a poem is not a commandment is not a parable. Each genre follows different rules.
What kind of statement is Jesus’ statement? Overstatement or hyperbole. In The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings, Robert Stein interprets Matthew 5.29–30 in this way:
Tragically there have been instances in the history of the church in which Christians have interpreted these words literally and mutilated themselves. Yet self-mutilation clearly does not solve the problem, for if one removes the right eye, one is still able to lust with the left! Even the removal of the left eye will not solve the problem, because blind people can still think and lust, for it is not the eyes that causes us to lust but the ‘heart.’ What Jesus was seeking to convey to his listeners by this use of overstatement was the need to remove from their lives anything that might cause them to sin. There is no sin in life worth perishing over. Better to repent of that sin, even if it is as painful as tearing out an eye or cutting off a hand, and as a result enter the kingdom of God than to cherish that sin and be thrown into hell. Jesus is saying in effect, "Tear out anything in your life that is causing you to sin and keeping you from God."
Adultery in His Heart (Matthew 5.27–28)
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In Matthew 5.27–28, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
If adultery begins in the heart, then a lot of us are adulterers.
So, Jesus warns us against looking lustfully at a woman other than your wife. Obviously, the same warning applies to you women looking lustfully at men other than your husbands. Call it the “Desperate Housewives” Rule (after the show on ABC). But if looking is not always innocent, not looking is almost always difficult. It’s hard not to look when sex is always on display.
Is it just me, or does is seem like sex is everywhere in our visual media? A few years back, Abercrombie & Fitch raised a ruckus when it included naked pictures of twenty-something models in its clothing catalogue. Usually models wear the clothes they’re selling, but A&F knew it would sell clothing if it marketed sex. The same is true of other products. When was the last time you saw an ad in which the guy who uses the product ends up with an ugly woman in frumpy clothing? Sex sells, sales drive profits, and profits motivate corporate officers. So, those same officers sign off on marketing campaigns saturated with sex.
Martin Luther once said that you can’t stop a bird from flying overhead, but you can stop it from building a nest in your hair. In that spirit, I say, turn off the TV. Stop looking at those magazines (Maxim if you’re male, Cosmo if you’re female.) Avoid movies with gratuitous sex and nudity. And—here’s the important part—cultivate intimacy with your spouse.
You see, the main point of Jesus’ teaching isn’t just negative. Sure, he prohibits adultery and lust. But the prohibition is a negative means to a positive end, and that end is marriage. Jesus wants us to have spiritually, emotionally, and physically satisfying marriages that last our whole lives’ long. The beginning step is to stop looking at other women and start paying more attention to your wife. (And ladies, the “Desperate Housewives” Rule still applies.)