"Sometimes the Christian
Scriptures are used for the sake of an agenda other than what God
intended them for, in quite a variety of ways. This is often
accomplished by an incomplete knowledge of the Scriptures and an
inadequate representation of what they actually teach in their
historical context. God is always revealing Himself to humankind in ways
that make sense within our particular context; this is why a more
thorough knowledge of context is so important when interpreting
Scripture. God is also revealing Himself to a humanity who, by and
large, is not interested in knowing Him or His will, and therefore
refuses to understand Him. Jesus brings this out in his discussion about
divorce in answer to some religious leaders' [loaded] questions:
" When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at 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 flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Matthew 19: 1-12
The Pharisees were referencing Deuteronomy, but they were referencing it inaccurately because of their agenda: they wanted to test Jesus. They called it a command of Moses, while Jesus corrects them and calls it a permission of Moses. They say for any and every reason, he limits it to an issue of immorality in the spouse, who is supposed to be faithful in the marriage covenant. And the reason Moses permitted it, Jesus says, was because of their hardness of heart.
"If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance." Deuteronomy 24:1-4
Hardness of heart in Scripture refers mainly to a refusal and inability to understand the words and ways of God; often in men, one of the ways this hardness expresses itself is in indifference and cruelty toward women, as all of history amply shows. Instead of acknowledging her as equally made in the image of God and equally called, alongside him, to responsible rule over the earth, fallen man tends to seek to dominate her and exploit her. Here Jesus is saying that Moses gave a permission that entailed something that was not God's original design for human flourishing; God was regulating something in relation to the state of affairs as they were, because the state of affairs involved the hardness of men's hearts. So God regulates, and at the same time undermines what mankind would be if left to their own devices. There are, after all, cultures where a husband has had the right to burn his wife...
We can see this underlying hardness of heart in the disciples' response: "“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” If a man is meant to stay with his wife for life in a faithful covenant relationship, and this is supposed to be so permanent and intimate a union that it is described as "one flesh", and he can't just throw her away when she displeases him, then in their eyes, it would be better never to marry!
Jesus says that one can only accept [comprehend] this strict and ideal word from God if it has been given to them, and certainly if it doesn't please them then certainly life-long celibacy is an option they may want to choose. The point seems to be that due to humankind's hardness of heart we cannot accept the words of God as they express the ideal standards of the original creation, which was "good" and "very good". Hardness of heart [resistance and rebellion leading to inability to understand ] cuts us off from being able to hear the truth that God wants to speak to us. So in His grace and mercy, He often primarily addresses this hardness of heart.
We can see this in Paul's letter to Philemon in relation to the issue of slavery. In a time when slavery was an assumed aspect of a strictly hierarchical social and political life, Paul writes to a Christian slave owner in a way that does not bluntly challenge the institution but rather attacks the foundations underlying it. Given that the church at this time was not a political power but rather a small community meant to express prophetically to the society and culture around it what human life was meant to be under the rule of the True King, Paul addresses it this way:
" I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever—no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.
So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask." Letter of Paul to Philemon
Notice the equating of Onesimus, the slave, with Paul himself and with Onesimus' master, Philemon, all throughout this appeal. This appeal is based on identification with one another in a way that Christ restores to human beings who have believed in Him and submitted to His Lordship, which establishes God's intention for human relationships through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Philemon, saved out of a slave-holding culture, is now being challenged not only to quit holding slaves as a practice, but to have his understanding deepened and his mind transformed in such a way that eventually he embraces someone who was once seen as a slave as a beloved brother.
"I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ."
To embrace a slave as an equal, let alone a beloved brother, was unheard of in the world of that day, and still too often is. Because even though we now consider the legal institution of slavery a moral wrong [in Western societies historically influenced by Christian abolitionists working from biblical norms] some of us who name the name of Christ still too often do not embrace those in Christ who have been affected by our slave-holding past as "beloved brothers". We still need to have our understanding "of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ" deepened. But the shortcomings in us, the hardness of heart within us with which God must always deal with and challenge, are not an indication of a deficit in His ways. It is an indication that He is graciously patient with His creation and with His redeemed people, working with us according to the realities with which we live, holding out redemption and challenge and change in His Son during a time, an age, in which things are not what they are supposed to be. For only in His Son will things one Day be what they are supposed to be."
- Karen Rose
" When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at 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 flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Matthew 19: 1-12
The Pharisees were referencing Deuteronomy, but they were referencing it inaccurately because of their agenda: they wanted to test Jesus. They called it a command of Moses, while Jesus corrects them and calls it a permission of Moses. They say for any and every reason, he limits it to an issue of immorality in the spouse, who is supposed to be faithful in the marriage covenant. And the reason Moses permitted it, Jesus says, was because of their hardness of heart.
"If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance." Deuteronomy 24:1-4
Hardness of heart in Scripture refers mainly to a refusal and inability to understand the words and ways of God; often in men, one of the ways this hardness expresses itself is in indifference and cruelty toward women, as all of history amply shows. Instead of acknowledging her as equally made in the image of God and equally called, alongside him, to responsible rule over the earth, fallen man tends to seek to dominate her and exploit her. Here Jesus is saying that Moses gave a permission that entailed something that was not God's original design for human flourishing; God was regulating something in relation to the state of affairs as they were, because the state of affairs involved the hardness of men's hearts. So God regulates, and at the same time undermines what mankind would be if left to their own devices. There are, after all, cultures where a husband has had the right to burn his wife...
We can see this underlying hardness of heart in the disciples' response: "“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” If a man is meant to stay with his wife for life in a faithful covenant relationship, and this is supposed to be so permanent and intimate a union that it is described as "one flesh", and he can't just throw her away when she displeases him, then in their eyes, it would be better never to marry!
Jesus says that one can only accept [comprehend] this strict and ideal word from God if it has been given to them, and certainly if it doesn't please them then certainly life-long celibacy is an option they may want to choose. The point seems to be that due to humankind's hardness of heart we cannot accept the words of God as they express the ideal standards of the original creation, which was "good" and "very good". Hardness of heart [resistance and rebellion leading to inability to understand ] cuts us off from being able to hear the truth that God wants to speak to us. So in His grace and mercy, He often primarily addresses this hardness of heart.
We can see this in Paul's letter to Philemon in relation to the issue of slavery. In a time when slavery was an assumed aspect of a strictly hierarchical social and political life, Paul writes to a Christian slave owner in a way that does not bluntly challenge the institution but rather attacks the foundations underlying it. Given that the church at this time was not a political power but rather a small community meant to express prophetically to the society and culture around it what human life was meant to be under the rule of the True King, Paul addresses it this way:
" I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever—no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.
So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask." Letter of Paul to Philemon
Notice the equating of Onesimus, the slave, with Paul himself and with Onesimus' master, Philemon, all throughout this appeal. This appeal is based on identification with one another in a way that Christ restores to human beings who have believed in Him and submitted to His Lordship, which establishes God's intention for human relationships through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Philemon, saved out of a slave-holding culture, is now being challenged not only to quit holding slaves as a practice, but to have his understanding deepened and his mind transformed in such a way that eventually he embraces someone who was once seen as a slave as a beloved brother.
"I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ."
To embrace a slave as an equal, let alone a beloved brother, was unheard of in the world of that day, and still too often is. Because even though we now consider the legal institution of slavery a moral wrong [in Western societies historically influenced by Christian abolitionists working from biblical norms] some of us who name the name of Christ still too often do not embrace those in Christ who have been affected by our slave-holding past as "beloved brothers". We still need to have our understanding "of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ" deepened. But the shortcomings in us, the hardness of heart within us with which God must always deal with and challenge, are not an indication of a deficit in His ways. It is an indication that He is graciously patient with His creation and with His redeemed people, working with us according to the realities with which we live, holding out redemption and challenge and change in His Son during a time, an age, in which things are not what they are supposed to be. For only in His Son will things one Day be what they are supposed to be."
- Karen Rose
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