May the mumbling commence!
Are you married? Do you know that you are called to be elite? It is daunting when I read the passage from Matthew chapter nineteen where Jesus talks about divorce and marriage. The Phillips translation sheds new light on the Greek for me. Read it below:
When Jesus had finished talking on these matters, he left Galilee and went on to the district of Judea on the far side of the Jordan. Vast crowds followed him, and he cured them.
Then the Pharisees arrived with a test-question. "Is it right," they asked, "for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds whatever?"
"Haven't you read," he answered, "that the one who created them from the beginning 'made them male and female' and said: 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two separate people but one. No man therefore must separate what God has joined together."
"Then why," they retorted, "did Moses command us to give a written divorce-notice and dismiss the woman?"
"It was because you knew so little of the meaning of love that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives! But that was not the original principle. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife on any grounds except her unfaithfulness and marries some other woman commits adultery."
His disciples said to him, "If that is a man's position with his wife, it is not worth getting married!"
"It is not everybody who can live up to this," replied Jesus, – “only those who have a special gift. For some are incapable of marriage from birth, some are made incapable by the action of men, and some have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let the man who can accept what I have said accept it." (Verses 1-12)
God allowed divorce through Moses because we know so little of the meaning of love. Consider that. Marriage was designed by God to be a sign of the faithfulness and love of the covenant that is established between God and His children.
Indeed the love of God and faithfulness of God to us is impossible for us to fully grasp. The love that I have for my wife falls woefully short of this ideal. But striving toward that quality and quantity of love is a part of my Christian walk as a married man. It is also the part of the Christian walk of a married woman.
It is no wonder to me that Jesus told his disciples that this kind of marital love is difficult to live up to or into. It takes a special gift – one that not everyone has. I humble ask God for this special gift.
I ask for this gift for my own sake, for my wife’s sake, for my son’s sake, and for the sake of all the lives that God will see fit to touch through my life. There, with the grace of God, go I!
Teach us the full meaning of love in faithfulness in our lives – through our own marriages and/or the marriages of those around us. Yes, teach us, O Holy Spirit!
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
No comments:
Post a Comment