Dave's Diary

Prayer

Before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 119:23-34.

Lord, speak to me, I pray, as I meditate on Your decrees. Help me to understand and receive Your Word, even when it is difficult. Cause me to delight in Your truth, and receive Your Word as my counselor. Amen.

Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word.

Reading

Matthew 5:31-32

A brief devotion like this cannot possibly do justice to the deep issues of divorce and remarriage that Jesus deals with in these two verses. Maybe that’s why it’s not exactly as brief as usual. What I share here are my personal, prayerful ponderings on Jesus words on this painful subject. But what I can say beyond any shadow of a doubt is that, in these verses, Jesus calls His disciples to a view of marriage that is radically higher than the prevailing view of His day and ours.

God knows and fully understands that the brokenness caused when a spouse desecrates their marriage covenant by committing adultery, can be virtually impossible for the betrayed spouse and their marriage relationship to survive. Recognising this reality, God made allowance for a divorce to take place among His people when there had been adultery. This would allow spouses to rebuild their lives afresh. It was a permission born of grace.

However, to protect the most vulnerable spouse – the wife – it had to happen by a formal process. Even then, it could only happen if the husband “found something indecent in her” (Deut. 24:1). In the wider context of the Old Testament, and particularly of Malachi 2, it is clear that the phrase “something indecent” refers specifically to sexual unfaithfulness. Only then could a divorce occur by the formal process. This too was a regulation born of grace.

Sadly, by Jesus’ day, some rabbis had decided that the “something indecent” did not only mean sexual unfaithfulness, but could include a matter as trivial as burning the food. In our own day and age, marriage has become a throw-away commodity which many feel they can abandon freely when the novelty wears off or when they no longer feel that it benefits them.

Jesus’ words to His followers in Matthew 5 raise the bar back to God’s high standard of honour for marriage.

It seems to me that the principle here is that the divorce certificate was simply publicly recording the pre-existing reality that the covenant had already been broken by the adultery. I firmly believe that in our 21st century world, there are other behaviours that similarly shatter the marriage covenant and which are solid and godly grounds for a faithful Christian spouse to step away from the shattered covenant. Most notable among such behaviours is abuse (be it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual).

Abuse and adultery are always absolute breaches of the covenantal promises to faithfully love, honour, cherish and protect. Adultery and abuse fly directly in the face of God’s life-giving purpose for marriage.

So Jesus calls His followers back to treating the God-given marriage covenant as sacred, and to a heart of loving one’s spouse by remaining faithful to them and not giving up on the marriage for anything less than the most profound reason of all – such as unfaithfulness through adultery, abuse or some similarly horrendous breach.

Disciples of Jesus honour marriage (their own and those of others) as sacred and worthy of the highest honour.

Contemplation

Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn one or more of these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ:

• I will honour God’s gift of marriage as sacred.
• I will maintain the sanctity of my own marriage (if I am in one) and those of others.
• I will do so as an act of love to my spouse, and/or others and to the Lord!

Heavenly Father, may my life today be a thank offering to You. Help me to see my own marriage and those of others as absolutely sacred. Empower me to love my spouse well, and to do everything in my power to help others to honour and protect their marriages too. Amen.