The Question of Divorce, Part 1

In this part of the sermon: This section details the geographical transition of Jesus's ministry to Perea, the recipients (multitudes), and the substance (teaching and healing). Martin highlights Jesus's…

Explains that Jews traveled through Perea to avoid Samaritans, validating the general statement about avoiding contact with Samaritans in the Gospel records.

And you will see it if you have a Bible map on the eastern side of the Jordan River, right across from the area called Samaria, a place that is called Perea. Now it is not called such in Scripture, but it is called such, by one of the contemporary Jewish historians. And so the term Perea in usage in Bible commentaries and Bible maps is referring or is synonymous with that which is described in our passage as the borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And so if you remember in your basic outline of Palestine that you have the Sea of Galilee and then that is the Sea of Galilee. That thread, the...

5:00 - 6:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the geographical transition of Jesus's ministry to Perea, the recipients (multitudes), and the substance (teaching and healing). Martin highlights Jesus's…

Compares Jesus's journey to Jerusalem to a trip in a small plane (80 miles) versus His actual travel (100-120 miles), emphasizing the deliberate nature of His journey and His awareness of what awaited Him.

arrive at Jerusalem. And our Lord, in making His way in a trip that if He were to take a straight line in a little Cessna 150, would be a trip of about 80 miles, but in terms of the way in which He traveled was probably closer to 100 or 120 miles, He is not ignorant of what is awaiting Him at Jerusalem. For we read later on in this 10th chapter that as He goes up to Jerusalem, verse 32, verse 33, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be delivered up. And so our Lord's mind is fully aware that in leaving Galilee for the last time in His earthly pilgrimage, though He would make...

7:15 - 8:42 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the geographical transition of Jesus's ministry to Perea, the recipients (multitudes), and the substance (teaching and healing). Martin highlights Jesus's…

Compares the physical and mental exhaustion of preaching to multitudes without modern amplification to preaching on a street corner, highlighting the immense energy Jesus expended.

And only someone who's attempted to say preach on the street corner to two or three hundred people with cars passing by knows something of the tremendous expenditure of mental and physical energy. Even preaching in a place like this ideally suited for the church, this is not a place for July. to preaching, and with a microphone and a voice assistance and all the rest, to truly preach, to look into your eyes and to seek to open one's spirit to what may be going on in your minds and to feel the impress of your own response to the Word, to allow your own spirit to feel the current of the truth yo...

14:58 - 16:17 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the geographical transition of Jesus's ministry to Perea, the recipients (multitudes), and the substance (teaching and healing). Martin highlights Jesus's…

A quotation from a commentator describing Jesus's emotional farewell to Galilee and His deliberate approach to the cross, underscoring His commitment and zeal.

And it is in this way, then, that Mark introduces this section of the ministry of our Lord Jesus. There is a beautiful statement capturing some of these thoughts in one of the commentators and I want to read just this brief paragraph to you. It is easy to read without emotion that Jesus arose from the scene of His last discourse and came into the borders of Judea beyond Jordan. But not without emotion did Jesus bid farewell to Galilee, to the home of His childhood and sequestered youth, the cradle of His church, the center of nearly all the love and faith He had awakened. When closer still to ...

16:17 - 17:30 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section analyzes the Pharisees' question about the lawfulness of divorce, highlighting their identity, the nature of their question (for 'every cause'), and their insincere…

Illustrates the laxity of the Hillel school by citing Rabbi Ahiva, who allowed divorce if a wife burned food or if the husband found a better-looking woman, showing the extreme interpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she shall find no favor in his eyes, because he has found some honor or some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And the whole debate between the school of Shammai and Hillel was over the phrase, some unseemly thing. Now, the school of Shammai said, the man is not to release his wife except he has found something indecent in her, something of sexual impurity in her, a very limited interpretation of what it meant, some unseemly thing. But the school...

34:40 - 36:03 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section analyzes the Pharisees' question about the lawfulness of divorce, highlighting their identity, the nature of their question (for 'every cause'), and their insincere…

A quotation from the Jewish historian Josephus, confirming the widespread practice of divorce for 'any cause whatsoever' among Jews, supporting the prevalence of Hillel's lax interpretation.

Since it is easier to be lax than to be strict, to go downhill rather than uphill, the school of Hillel was followed by the Jews. And Josephus, the Jewish historian, could write these words. He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever, and many such causes happen among men, let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her again as his wife anymore, for by these means she may be at liberty to marry another husband, although before this bill of divorce be given, she is not permitted to do so. So the question is whether Jesus agrees with the school of Hillel.

36:46 - 37:31 Read in full sermon

Driving home: For your hardness of heart He wrote you this commandment.

Uses the medical term 'sclerosis' (hardening of the arteries) to explain the 'hardness of heart' that necessitated Moses's legislation, making the concept more tangible.

begins with his counter question and the answer of the Pharisees then secondly we have his explanation of the root cause for the Mosaic legislation but Jesus said unto them for your heart that is Moses wrote you this commandment our Lord for this Mosaic legislation which we've read from Deuteronomy one to four and briefly explained and he says the root cause is this subsequent to the creation of man there was a radical intrusion into the human experience the intrusion of sin and sin of a man the very word which is used in modern medical terminology when you want to speak of hardening of the ar...

46:02 - 47:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: For your hardness of heart He wrote you this commandment.

Compares the potential abuse of women through divorce to a slave being hired on Monday, sold on Friday, and taken back the next Monday, highlighting the protective nature of Moses's law.

that has caused such a disruption of this intimate glorious God ordained relationship of marriage a disruption so pervasive that you would abuse the marriage institution and pick up a wife and drop her just as quickly because of the hardness of your heart Moses had to give this legislation under the direction of Jehovah to put a restraint upon the horrible abuse of divorce and remarriage practice this was not a reflection of God or God's intention for the marriage institution it was temporary accommodation to the hard sinfulness of the human heart to restrain from hasty divorce and to protect ...

47:32 - 49:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Jesus brings His answer to a climax by declaring God's original intention for marriage, rooted in creation (male and female), divine interpretation (leaving and cleaving to become…

Compares people marrying and divorcing to buying cars and trading them off when they don't like them, illustrating the casual approach to marriage in modern society.

crow's feet by your eyes you've got too many sagging bulges in other parts of your body you are unseemly to me away with you write a bill of divorce no God is joined together let not man put us under now we've not taken up the question legitimate ground away for us what about the one who has been put away those are not questions to entertain now we will of necessity entertain them when we come to verses 10 through 12 because this whole question of adulterous relationships in connection with remarriage is introduced by the text but the text covered this morning doesn't touch the subject and I'm...

57:43 - 59:11 Read in full sermon