Jesus' Teaching on Divorce - Part One

By James Boice
Theme: Marriage and Divorce
In this week's lesson we learn about Jesus' teachings on divorce.
 
SCRIPTURE
Matthew 19:1-10
 
Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

LESSON

“Whom, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” These are the words that end the most common form of marriage service used in Christian churches. They come just before the benediction. But men are “putting asunder,” and women too. The statistics tell us that nearly one in two marriages taking place in the United States today will end in divorce, and the statistics are not much better for Christian marriages. We see the evidence of decay all around us. What are we to make of these statistics, especially when we turn to the Bible and find that God requires chastity before marriage, fidelity afterward and lifelong unions of Wives and husbands without easy divorce as an escape?
 
When we compare our practices with God’s standards we might very well exclaim, as the disciples do in Matthew 19, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” (v. 10).
 
But it is good to marry! The problem is not with the institution of marriage, since marriage is God’s idea. It was God who brought the first bride to the first groom in Eden, after all. Everything God does is good. The problem is sin or, to put it another way, it is with our hard hearts, which Jesus refers to explicitly in verse 8. Jesus said, referring to the Old Testament law about divorce (Deuteronomy 24:14), “You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns.”
 
I am sure this is why, in Matthew’s gospel, the long discussion of divorce in chapter 19 (vv. 1-12) follows immediately after the equally long discussion in chapter 18 (vv. 21-35) of the need of Christ’s followers to be forgiving of other people, knowing that they have themselves been forgiven much, much more by God. Marriage is the most intimate of all relationships. It is where the most piercing pain can be experienced. If follows that it is the relationship above all others that must be upheld by that “seventy-seven times” forgiveness about which Jesus speaks.
 
This important discussion of divorce and marriage was occasioned by a question the Pharisees asked Jesus. It was a question that had been debated seriously among the rabbis, but Matthew says here that it was asked to test him (v. 3). “And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” Presumably they wanted to force Jesus to one side of the issue or the other, thereby automatically alienating him from at least half the Jewish leaders. But perhaps, knowing that Jesus was conservative in his views and was likely to oppose divorce, or at least easy divorces, they also wanted to brand him with a view they knew would be unpopular with the masses.
 
The discussion among the rabbis was over the meaning of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, the only Old Testament passage that explicitly discusses divorce. It uses the words “something indecent” to describe what a man might find in his wife as a ground for his action. What does that refer to? And regardless of what it refers to, does the passage grant a husband the right to a divorce?1 The adherents of the Qumran sect judged all divorces to be wrong. The well-known Rabbi Shammai permitted divorce but only because of gross indecency, though he did not spell out clearly what that was. The equally well-known Rabbi Hillel permitted divorce for all kinds of offenses, even preparing bad meals. Hillel was the liberal spokesman on this matters; Shammai was the conservative.
 
1 Women had no rights of divorce; that was not even a question.

STUDY QUESTIONS

  • What is the problem causing, the high divorce statistics in society today?
  • What is a possible reason this discussion of divorce follows the discussion on forgiveness?
  • How was the particular question about divorce asked by the Pharisees considered a “test” for Jesus?
KEY POINT
  • Marriage is the most intimate of all relationships.
PRAYER
  • Pray For married couples you know, asking God to give them tender hearts.