As we begin this morning, I want to pray and pray at this point, not only that the Lord have blessed the ministry of his word, but we also use this point in the service since we're recording it for those that follow us online for some of the people that we've been praying for and who consider this their church. In this case, I wanted to pray again for Pastor Sam Powell and his wife, Susan, and their daughter, Margaret. Remember that Margaret came down with kind of a rare form of encephalitis, if I'm not mistaken. And she nearly died and she's still in the hospital and will be for quite some time. And so we want to lift them up in prayer as well. Father, we thank you for your word. ask your blessing upon, on it as we look into the gospel of Matthew, we pray that you would teach us, that you, by your spirit, you would enable us to understand it clearly, to believe it, and to obey it. And Father, we also remember the Powell family and we pray for Pastor Powell for Sam and his wife, Susan, that you would be a comfort to them in this real trying time, and that you would heal their daughter, Margaret, that she would regain her mental capacities, that she would be able to resume normal life. And we thank you that you have preserved her this far, and so we pray, Father, that you would use this for your glory and for your honor, and to increase their faith and our faith as well. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen. We are at Matthew chapter 19 this morning, and this is, We're going to see that this is one of the most commonly abused and twisted and misunderstood and misapplied scriptures to be found in the Bible. So we're going to try to get it right. and understanding, it's gonna take us at least a couple of Sundays besides this one in order to move through these first 12 verses of the passage. Paul wrote to Timothy these familiar words, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. I think every one of us would like to think that we do that, that we are careful in our handling of the scriptures and that we handle it properly. But not perfectly, we know that. But at the same time, we would like to think that there's not some glaring errors that we are holding onto that are absolute distortions then. of God's word. The problem is that many, many times, and probably more often than we might realize, our handling of scripture gets all messed up and confused and fogged up by people who put themselves forward as biblical experts and then teach and perpetuate their messed up, twisted mishandlings of scripture, and the thing can go on for centuries that way. And this is, you can see that this is an example of that before us this morning. This kind of a thing is not a minor, it does huge harm to people, and it happens, these wrong teachings, these traditions of men that are parading as God's word are doing a lot of damage. And this is not something that's just done by out-and-out cult leaders parading as Christians, but also because of the ongoing trouble caused by people who are, well, you might say they're somewhat celebrities in the church, which should not be, but nevertheless, it often is, and people then believe them without question. Let me make this statement here. We must all stop accepting doctrines and teachings as truth just because they're the things that we've been taught as we've grown up in the church, or just because some Christian celebrity teaches them. Every one of us must examine the things we confess by the light of scripture. Now I'm not saying that you, well you can just come up with any doctrine that you want. No, it has to be by the light of scripture. But nevertheless, we must not just lazily assume that what a pastor, or a writer, or a theologian, or some supposed Christian counselor, or parents, or whatever, has said. We can't afford to be lazy in this regard. As I said, there are very few places in the Bible, I think, that have been abused, at least in our day. Actually, probably down through the centuries in the history of the church. Then this passage before us here in Matthew chapter 19, this is where Jesus speaks to this issue of marriage and divorce. And he does so because the Pharisees have presented him with a hot potato question. It was a hot potato in their day, and it turns out that it still is in our day as well. So follow along with me. And we'll read these first 12 verses of chapter 19, and then see if we can kind of set a background for us to be able to understand them. Matthew 19, beginning in verse one. Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Large crowds followed him and 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're 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 to send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wife, 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's better not to marry. But he said to them, not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it's given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who've been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who've been made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who's able to receive this receive it. I suppose you wouldn't be surprised to know then that that last part of that chapter's last closing verses addressing the eunuch and so forth have been very much maligned and abused out through the centuries of the church as well. Now, I'm going to be quoting a lot, much more than typical. In fact, I'm going to be reading to you a fairly long portion this morning. from a book that's written by a scholar named David Instone Brewer, and you've heard me talk about him before. He's written lots of books, and the one that I'm gonna be reading from is called Divorce and Remarriage in the Church. If you are going to understand what Jesus has to say about marriage and divorce here in Matthew 19, it is essential that you know what David Instone Brewer says. Not because he's the one that has come up with this as such, although he's the one that has written probably the most about it. In fact, as he notes, what I'm going to read to you that he has put in his book is the background for understanding Jesus' words here, in Matthew 19, this material has been available to the Christian church for over 150 years. Long time, you see. And the problem is, it hasn't so much been actively hidden away and suppressed, it's just that by human nature, people really don't like to deal with something that shapes their world, right? That's why these unbiblical traditions are held onto for so long in churches and in people's lives. Instone Brewer says, there's one thing that he says, he says, the trouble with most theologies of divorce is that they aren't sensible. They may give a reasonable account of most of the texts, scripture texts, in a forced way, but their conclusions just aren't practical in the fallen world we inhabit. Most of society thinks that the Bible has nothing sensible to say about divorce and remarriage, and even many Christians think that they can ignore the scriptures on this particular subject. And why is that the case? Because the scripture has been mishandled. And people, now he is not saying and I'm not saying that every single interpretation of every verse in the Bible has to be something that make sense to our senses, all right? That somehow I'm going to be the ultimate judge in regard, no, the word of God judges us, then not the other way around. Nevertheless, if you know much at all about what's happening, very, very widely in local churches and in people's lives today as this passage about marriage and divorce is mishandled, then you will know that many of the conclusions that people are being taught and fed and concluding that they're, oh, this is God's word, I don't understand it, are just insane. They're insane. They lead to crazy and very abusive applications that are not, and here's the key, that are simply not consistent with the character of God. God's word is righteous and just. It's often mysterious and profound, but the Lord's teaching always squares with his character. It always squares with his character. The Lord is righteous and holy and good and merciful and wrathful. And so is his word. And when we handle the word of God rightly, as Paul told Timothy to do, our conclusions will be consistent with who the Lord is. So when we come up with conclusions that are, for example, unmerciful, or unrighteous, and even stupid and foolish, then we need to step back and ask ourselves, Where have I gone wrong in handling this scripture, you see? And we are not to be lazy and, oh well, that's what so and so has always said, so there you go, I'm not gonna look at that. We can't be stubborn mules, right? We can't be so stubborn that we refuse to acknowledge something's wrong here, and then we just lash out at someone who disagrees and is challenging our conclusions. In Stone Brewer, he must have felt some of this wrath as he's presented these things. He says, we no longer burn heretics, which is fortunate for me, because some of you will conclude that I am one, right? He knows that what he's going to say here is going to rock the boat a bit. So, here's where we go wrong. Here is Jesus and the Pharisees come up to him, and in verse three, we read, the Pharisees came up to him and tested him. All right, they're testing him. In other words, their motive is not pure. They're trying to get him caught up in some controversy. The large crowds were following him. They didn't want his popularity to continue. So they come up to him and they test him by asking this question. Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Now that seems straightforward. I think it's R.C. Sproul that has said before, you've got to be, when you're studying the Bible, you've got to be aware of the, I can't remember the term he used, but something like the first conclusion, the first look, okay? You have to be careful, and this is certainly an example of that. The Pharisees hate Jesus. We know that their motive is not pure, but their motives aside, we look at their question, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? And we immediately assume we understand the question. They're asking Jesus, we say, they're asking Jesus, is there any lawful, valid reason in God's sight for divorce? Is there any reason, any valid reason in God's sight for divorce? That's what it sounds like, right? Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Is there any reason that God allows divorce? Right? That's what we think he's asking. Well, that's wrong, because that is not what they're asking him, and think this through. If you get the question wrong, guess what's gonna happen with your answer, right? How many times have you been in, maybe you've been in class, and you ask the teacher a question, and they give you an answer, but you can tell from the answer, and the answer might not be wrong, but it's not the one, you can tell they didn't understand your question, right? If you don't understand the question, you're gonna get the answer wrong, it's inevitable. And this has been the problem here, in verse three, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? We get the question wrong and therefore we look at Jesus' answer in verse nine and we get it wrong as well. And most of you know I could stand up here for hours and hours and hours and tell you that Devastation and a pain that's been caused by getting the scriptures wrong here on this point. Jesus' answer, verse nine, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. And that's been the kind of oftentimes the common teaching in the church today. There, look at that. Well, Jesus' answer to that question is very, very plain, right? You can only divorce for adultery, and if you divorce for any other reason and remarry, you're guilty of adultery. And there'll be some variations on that. Some people, you know, they're arguing today and enforcing in their churches, even through church discipline, that God doesn't allow divorce for any reason at all and all that nonsense and so forth. We have to slow down and ask if we're handling scripture rightly. because it doesn't take a whole lot of thinking to realize that these common conclusions that are being taught in the church end up with absolutely insane applications. And the world, that's another reason that the world, so often people think, you Christians are crazy. You know, look at what you do. That didn't make any sense at all. Look at what this woman's husband has done to her for 20 years. When you're telling her that she can't divorce him, you don't have anything to tell me. And in that particular case, then you see they're right. We want Christ to be glorified in the world, not blasphemed. In Stone Brewer says here, and you won't fully understand what he's saying here until I read the rest, but the first part of this is what I want you to see here. Jesus was answering their question in plain language. And he wasn't making a universal statement. I think that's as far as I'll read that particular quote because the rest requires some background. You see, people look at this and Jesus says, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. And they're saying, there is the universal law about marriage and divorce that Jesus has set forth here. It is to be applied in every case. Boom, there it is. And what Enstone Brewer is noting here correctly, Jesus was answering their question which you have to understand their question and we will, he wasn't making a universal statement. I'll prove to you, I can prove to you that Jesus was not making a universal statement here in verse nine when he said, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery, He wasn't making a universal statement that said the only reason that God allows divorce is for sexual immorality. He wasn't doing that. How do we know? Because later on in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians, we have the apostle Paul giving us another reason that God allows divorce. And it's found in 1 Corinthians 7. Paul says, to the married I give this charge. Not I, but the Lord. And what he means by that is, he means when Jesus was here on earth, Jesus addressed what I am about to say. I'm just repeating what Jesus the Lord taught. All right, and what is it? To the married, I give this charge. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. All right, and we'll see in Matthew 19 that Jesus, from the beginning, it hasn't been so. Divorce in itself, marriage is God's will here, and for it to continue. Divorce in itself, it wasn't in the picture originally. It's not God's, wheel. It's sin that comes in and muddles everything up. Then in verse 12 Paul says, to the rest I say, I, not the Lord. Now that doesn't mean Paul's saying, okay, look, you can take it or leave what I'm gonna tell you now because I'm just a man and I'm telling you this. I'm not gonna be speaking by the Lord's inspiration here. It's just my opinion. That's not what he means. He's speaking as an inspired apostle, authoritative apostle of the Lord, and what he means is, I am going to tell you something else that the Lord says, but the Lord Jesus did not address it when he was here on earth. That's what he means there, all right? So, to the rest I say, I, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who's an unbeliever, a Christian married to an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who's an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they're holy. Now here in verse 15, but if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved, God has called you to peace. And so here's an unsaved spouse and they say, you're a Christian, I don't wanna live with you, I don't wanna keep my marriage vows to you. And what Paul is saying, you're not under bondage, God doesn't expect you then to remain then. in such a marriage, okay? So there's an additional reason, and most churches, at least on paper, will say that adultery and desertion, desertion set forth here, is another reason for adultery. for divorce. So Paul is adding, clearly telling us here that no, Jesus back in Matthew 19 was not giving the only universal principle for divorce, reason for divorce, sexual immorality. There's more as well. The reason people conclude that Jesus was making a a universal principle for every case. There's only one reason for divorce before God and that is sexual immorality. They conclude that because they don't understand the question that the Pharisees were asking. They look at it quickly and they say, oh yeah, I understand their question. They're asking Jesus. Is there any reason at all that God approves of for divorce? Any reason then at all? That's what they think that they are asking. And that is not the question that the Pharisees are asking. Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Let's see if we can get some of the background here. You can think of probably some more examples than I can here, but you know that in every era and in every culture, there are phrases that are loaded with meaning that the people that are living then understand. So you don't have to explain them. I put a few down here, you know, if somebody says, if somebody says Meg, Mega, I guess that's how you pronounce it, right, Mega, right, immediately, you know, oh, Mega, and a lot of times people will use these things that are so commonly known, and they'll make kind of a play on words about them, and everybody kind of chuckles or says, oh yeah, that's right, because they all know that make America great again, you know, everybody knows about that. Or somebody else will say, oh, that senator really trumped his enemies, right? Trumped his enemies. And immediately, people from another era, they'll just, let's do word studies on trumped, all right? We're gonna examine how that is used, whatever, when in fact, all of us know immediately what that play on words would mean. And there's others then as well. There are words that are widely known and understood in a given place and time so that no explanation is needed because everybody knows them. Just because they're familiar with the time. And this is why so much of the study of God's word has to involve what a phrase meant to the people of that day. That can be pretty tough to track down sometimes. There is one of these loaded phrases here in the Pharisees' question, and it's this, and normally you would skip right over this, but the key to the whole thing is this phrase, any cause. Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? When the Pharisees used that phrase, and Jesus knew it, and all these crowds of people around, it would be like a hush went over the crowd. Oh, they're asking him about any cause. And they all knew what the Pharisees then were referring to. And this is where I need to read from In Stone of Rumor to you. I was going to try to summarize it, but there's no better way than to read it than in his own words. And I would really encourage you to look back over this then this week so that you get this very, very clearly. We'll plan to continue with this chapter next time as well. So here we go. Put your brain in gear and follow along. He comes in by telling us about Jewish men today, at least in some cultures, I guess. He says Jewish men are also able to get a divorce quite easily without needing to cite any grounds. Instead of saying, I divorce you three times, a Jewish man has to write out a divorce certificate and give it to his wife as soon as she receives it, she's legally divorced. As in Islamic law, only men can initiate divorce and it is a groundless divorce. The man does not have to show that his wife has done anything wrong. Now you'll be reminded too of our era, right? No fault divorce, easy divorce today and so on. very similar to what the Pharisees were asking about. The groundless divorce also means that the woman can't defend herself, although the divorce certificate is part of the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24. This groundless divorce for men only did not become available until about the time of Jesus' birth. Before this, both Jewish men and women could divorce partners who broke their marriage obligations as defined in the Old Testament. So things got a lot more liberal among the Jews about the time Jesus was born. We've also seen, he says, in referring to his own book back in chapter three, that the Old Testament allowed only the wronged partner to initiate a divorce. If a woman did not feed, clothe, or share conjugal love with her husband faithfully, he could divorce her, and likewise, this is according to the Old Testament law, God's word, if a man did not give his wife money for food or clothing and did not share conjugal love with her, she could divorce him. These grounds for divorce, based on Exodus 21, were in use until about AD 70. By the time that Jesus was preaching in about AD 30, they were being used only rarely. During Jesus' lifetime, The new groundless divorce gradually grew in popularity until, by about the end of the first century, it had totally replaced divorces based on Old Testament grounds. How did this happen? Well, this new type of divorce was invented by a rabbi called Hillel, who lived a few decades before Jesus, and it was called the any-cause divorce. The phrase that inspired it is in Deuteronomy 24, where a man divorces his wife for a cause of sexual immorality. When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found a cause of sexual immorality in her, he writes her a certificate of divorce, okay? Hillel, he's this rabbi some decades before Jesus was born, but this is where he's the one that originated what is called the any-cause divorce, and that is what the Pharisees were asking Jesus about, the any-cause divorce. Hillel asked, Why, as a typical rabbi in action, although you can see preachers and theologians today sometimes handling scripture just like this, Hillel asked, why did Moses use the phrase cause of sexual immorality when he could simply have said sexual immorality? Hillel reasoned that the seemingly superfluous word cause must refer to another different ground for divorce. And since this other ground is simply called a cause, a cause of sexual abortion, he concluded that it must mean any cause. You'd like to know how Hillel's marriage was going at the time, right? So then he comes up, here it is, the any cause divorce. Hillel, therefore, thought that two types of divorce were taught in Deuteronomy 24. One for sexual immorality, like adultery, and one they named Any Cause. The Hillelite rabbis came to two main conclusions about the new Any Cause form of divorce. They concluded that any cause divorce could be carried out only by men. So convenient, right? Because the example case in Deuteronomy 24 involves a man who divorces his wife. There's a man, so okay, here we go, make that fit us. Second, they said that it could be used for any cause, such as the wife's burning of a meal. So although the any cause divorce was theoretically based on some kind of fault, this fault could be such a small thing that it was, in effect, a groundless divorce. He could divorce his wife on a whim, you see, any cause. The any-cause type of divorce soon became very popular. It is today, isn't it, right? Especially because you didn't need any proof and didn't have to present your case in court. There was no need to try to prove in court that your wife had neglected you. Very embarrassing process, because all your neighbors would find out the details you'd been hiding from them for years. All you need to do to carry out an any-cause divorce was write out a divorce certificate, give it to your wife. The only times when the any-cause divorce was not more beneficial for the man were those few occasions when he could prove that his wife had been unfaithful, and especially when this unfaithfulness became public knowledge. He could get his revenge on his wife by taking her to court to obtain a divorce on the Old Testament ground of unfaithfulness. There was also a financial advantage for the man in this situation because if he could prove that his wife had been unfaithful, he did not have to give her the marriage inheritance that he had promised to her when they married. Despite the disadvantages to them, many women were also in favor of the any-cause divorce because it meant they would probably be able to claim their marriage inheritance, which in many cases was large enough to live on. If a wife was taken to court on Old Testament grounds of being neglectful or abusive, she ran the risk of financial penury, poverty, because the court could decide to remove some or all of her marriage inheritance from her. A court hearing also, of course, meant public shame and humiliation. Very soon, the any cause divorce had almost completely replaced the traditional, and God authorized, Old Testament types of divorce. We can see how respectable it had become by the time of Jesus' birth. because Joseph considered using this means, and he caused divorce, to break off his betrothal to Mary. Quote, her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, public proceeding, resolved to divorce her quietly. Joseph did not want to put Mary through the disgrace of a public trial, so he decided to use the quiet, any-cause divorce that did not require any proof of wrongdoing. Matthew considered that this would be the action of a just man, because Joseph could have ensured that he didn't have to pay Mary's marriage inheritance if he had decided to prove her guilty of adultery in court, and who would deny in that day if he took her to court that she had committed adultery, she's with child, right? Now, not everyone accepted this new type of divorce. The disciples of another rabbi named Shammai, a rival of Hillel, who often disagreed with him, said that Hillel had interpreted the scriptures wrongly, and he had. And that the whole phrase, a cause of sexual immorality, meant nothing more than the ground of sexual immorality. It did not mean to ground sexual immorality in any cause. They summarized their opinion by saying that on the basis of Deuteronomy 24, a man should not divorce his wife except he's found sexual immorality in her, all right? So that would be, they would say, the only cause for divorce. The interpretation of this short phrase, a cause of sexual immorality, was a matter of huge public debate. Now here we go. So this is why the Pharisees, they wanna test Jesus. And they're trying to get him in trouble and create, here's this hot potato subject, right, that they're confronting him publicly with. This was a matter of huge public debate. The disciples of Shammai wanted people to restrict themselves to divorces based on the Old Testament grounds. unfaithfulness in Deuteronomy 24.1, and neglect of food, clothing, or conjugal love in Exodus 21. By the way, let me add there, Exodus 21, did you realize that the Old Testament does specify divorce for neglect, neglect of food, neglect of provision of clothing, neglect of conjugal love? That stuff, that's right at the heart of many of these domestic abusers and the ones then that the churches are telling victims of domestic abuse today, oh no, there's no biblical grounds for divorce. So yes, yes there is. But the common people preferred Hillel's interpretation, of course, right, which added that any cause divorce. The ordinary people weren't too interested in the intricate arguments over these interpretations, but because divorce was common in first century Judaism, they did have to know the basics of the debate so that they could pick the right lawyers. Most people would have had a friend or relative who had been through a divorce, and they would therefore have known that Hillel allowed any cause divorces. and that Shammai said that a cause of sexual immorality meant nothing except divorce for sexual immorality. In the same way, nowadays, when divorce is also very common, most people recognize legal jargon like spousal support and custody without necessarily understanding their detailed meanings. Therefore, by the time of Jesus, almost every divorce was an any-cause divorce. but the rabbis were still arguing about it. Let me add at this point here too, just to make clear to you. This isn't something that Enstone Brewer came up with because he's reading about how things were and what Hillel taught. And so, well, we're just gonna call this an any cause divorce. No, no, that phrase, any cause, that phrase is the exact phrase that the rabbis were using. And that's why when the Pharisees come up to Jesus and they use that exact phrase, we know exactly then what they were asking him. if we understand the background. By the time of Jesus, almost every divorce was an any-cause divorce, but the rabbis were still arguing about it. These rabbis decided to ask Jesus what he thought. Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? The verse is normally translated, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause or for any reason? As I mentioned in chapter one, when I was rereading these familiar words with the benefit of my rabbinic studies, see he had studied Hillel, and he had studied Shammai. I found out I was understanding the text differently now, and this time what he means correctly. I remember that the Hillelites called their new form of divorce the any cause divorce, a legal term that was used by other Jews, such as Philo and Josephus, as well as by the rabbis themselves. The identification of this term was not my own new discovery. Many people had already written a great deal about the Hillelite divorce. Yet, and here's the catch, this fact had never been taken into account by any of the Bible translations. You see that? The datum was there, but the Bible translator is still giving us a translation that is just leading us to think that, well, they're just asking if you can ever divorce for any reason at all, right? According to the standard translation, such as, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause, the Pharisees appear to be asking Jesus if he thought divorce itself was lawful or not. But the question, Is it lawful to divorce would have been an illogical one. Why? To the Jews, divorce referred to a procedure that is defined in the law of Moses. We saw it, Deuteronomy 24, Exodus 21. And the law of Moses can't be unlawful. They're not gonna come up to Jesus and say, is it lawful to divorce for any reason? Duh, haven't you ever read Deuteronomy 24? They're not gonna ask that question. That doesn't even make sense. However, if you translate the question, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for, capital emphasis, any cause, like Hillel teaches, it makes perfect sense. The rabbis wanted to know what Jesus thought about the new any cause type of divorce and how he interpreted Deuteronomy 24. The account of this debate with the Pharisees is highly abbreviated in scripture. because it had to fit into a short gospel. Throughout the gospel, speeches are shortened to a couple of sentences, and fascinating incidents that might otherwise have taken a whole book to recount are summarized in just one paragraph. These shortened accounts did not matter for a first century Jew, who knew the context and the Old Testament very well, but they sometimes make things a little obscure for a modern reader. Therefore, we have to work hard at unpacking abbreviated account of what Jesus and the Pharisees said. Although superfluous phrases like for any cause were usually omitted, Matthew decided to state the question in full in order to help his readers. He was writing his gospel a little later than Mark at a time when this rabbinic debate had become less well known. Jesus was asked if he agreed with the Hillelite any cause divorce. Okay, that's the question he's being asked. Do you agree, Jesus, with Hillel here? But he wasn't really interested in this debate and was more concerned, as we will see below, to tell the Hillelites and the Shamanites where they had both gone wrong. And we'll discuss that more, we'll look at that more next week. Because you'll see, if you look back at Matthew 19, he doesn't answer their question right away. He hits them both with, You guys have both got this wrong. When God created marriage, He didn't have sin in mind. There's always sin when there's divorce. in and of itself, necessarily, but there's always sin. This is not God's will, and so Jesus first deals with that. When the rabbis eventually got Jesus back to their question, he gave the same straightforward interpretation of Deuteronomy 24 that Shammai taught. That is, he said that the phrase, a cause of sexual immorality, meant nothing except sexual immorality. And to emphasize this, Jesus said that if someone got divorced on the basis of any other interpretation, any cause divorce, they were not properly divorced and so if they remarried they would be committing adultery. Most interpreters have not recognized that Jesus is quoting the rabbinic legal phrases divorce for any cause and nothing except sexual immorality. As a result, they think that Jesus was asked, is it ever lawful to divorce? And that he answered with a universal principle, no, never, except in cases of sexual immorality. And that's what you've gotta know if you're going to get Jesus' answer right and get the question that he was asked right. I would really encourage you to think very carefully about these things this week, and two points in particular. This is an example, first of all, of the mishandling of scripture and the terrible damage such errors do to people. Terrible damage. We could give you, what, scores at least, if not hundreds then, of examples, right? Okay, your spouse has been doing this and this and this and this to you for 30 years, horrible stuff behind you, pretending to be a Christian, doing all of this stuff. Sorry, if he hasn't actually committed sexual immorality and actually committed adultery, Jesus forbids you from divorcing. and that has been a disaster. People, most of you I think are aware, people, usually women, are being rather regularly excommunicated by local churches for divorcing a wicked, evil man, right? Being excommunicated. I talk to women like that every week, every single week, sometimes every day. Secondly, As you think about these things, ask yourself, where does the bulk of your theology come from? Why do you believe what you believe? Where does it come from? Are you a diligent student of God's word, guided and led by his spirit, or is your Christianity more the product of what other people have told you? And you get all kinds of upset if anybody challenges that, right? These are things that we need to consider, and this is a perfect example of why we need to, as seen here in Matthew chapter 19. The Lord gives each one of his people what we need to see as truth, and he expects us to be good stewards of his word and of his word. being led by his spirit that he's given to us so that we understand his truth and we are able to recognize error when it comes our way. Father, we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you that you do, by your spirit, enable us to understand. And we pray that you would, that by your spirit, you would increase our clarity of thinking about your word, that we would become better at handling it. And Father, if there are false teachings, false traditions that have been parading in our church or in our lives as scripture, we pray that you would show those to us, that we might correct our thinking and better follow you. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.