Sermon Tone Analysis

Liberty University

 

 

Jesus' view on Divorce according to the Synoptic Gospels

 

 

A paper submitted to Dr. McDonald

In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for

the course NBST 521

 

 

Liberty Theological seminary

 

 

By

Christopher W. Myers

 

                                                                                   

Lynchburg, Virginia

Sunday, October 7, 2007

 

 

 

Table of Contents

Introduction- 3

Abbreviation- 5

Matthew 5 and Luke 16- 6

The Debate- 8

Text of Matthew 19- 9

"For Any Cause" 10

Jesus' Answer- 11

The Hardness of Your Hearts- 13

Porneia in the Exception Clause- 15

Porneia interpreted Incest- 15

Porneia and Betrothal- 16

Porneia interpreted Adultery- 18

Porneia and עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) 18

The Disciple's Reaction- 19

Jesus' View on Divorce: A Conclusion- 20

Bibliography- 23

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

!!! Introduction

       One of the most hotly debated topics within the church today is the issue of divorce and remarriage.

The Bible speaks of this issue in only a few passages, in the Old Testament to the people of Israel by the Law of Moses and in the prophets of Isaiah, Ezra, and Malachi regarding mainly the relationship of God to His people.

In the New Testament, we have four passages describing the words of Jesus and an instance of Paul instructing the Corinthian Church in this matter of divorce and remarriage.

Among the debate today is not only the morality of divorce and remarriage and how the Bible stands on the issue, but also whether or not a divorced man can lead a local church body.

The issue of divorce and church leadership is debated within the context of the qualifications of elders and deacons within Paul's pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, unfortunately this will be beyond the scope of this paper.

Instead we will examine Jesus' views on divorce according to the Synoptic Gospels where Jesus' sayings on this matter are revealed.

The study of Jesus' view on divorce presents us with two instances of teaching and both have their parallels.

The passage in the Sermon on the Mount has its parallel in Luke, while the passage of the testing of Jesus by the Pharisees in Matthew 19 has its parallel in Mark 10.

This presents us with a problem that has been an issue for debate for centuries; it is called the Synoptic Problem[1].

Parallel passages found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often very similar; sometimes even the wording is exact.

Other times with the comparison of the evangelist's sayings or narratives there will be much different details or a different organization or an including or excluding of different details.

The truth is that the difficulty is not the differences in the gospel accounts because this can be attributed as editorial differences or different perspectives and vantage points within a true account and biography.

The difficulty arises with the striking similarities and the exact wording of certain accounts and even the same ordering of events.

This tells us that the evangelists had similar sources of information or that they were interdependent on one another.

Many theories exist today, but the one that is popular among scholars today is Markan priority.

This argument believes that Mark was written first and Matthew and Luke borrowed from Mark and some other sources, one of these sources is termed, "Q." Q is said to be a document of Jesus' saying and explains how Matthew and Luke can have so many similarities of Jesus' sayings.

Tradition and the Roman Catholic Church argue that Matthew was written first.

They believe that Matthew was written first in a Semitic language and then later translated into Greek.

The statements of Papias as recorded by Eusebius support this.

However, many other things discount Papias and argue against Matthew's Greek as translation Greek.[2]

To avoid this issue altogether in the study of Jesus' view on divorce would almost be impossible.

But we can minimize the effects of the problem by holding to these assumptions:

1. Scripture interprets scripture, therefore if two different accounts of the same event are recorded, then all of the details are true and a harmony should be hypothesized.

Let one not think of these different accounts as contradictions or as one evangelist being right over another.

It is beneficial to think of who may be more original or what is the audience of the evangelist and therefore, hypothesizing why certain things may be added or excluded in order to accommodate for one's audience to whom he writes.

2.  The Evangelists abbreviate their accounts in order to make concise accounts and to stress the views by which they are trying to communicate to their audience.

This is significant and will be one of the tools used to formulate Jesus' view on divorce.

This process of abbreviation will be further explained below.[3]

!!! Abbreviation 

 

       Abbreviating speech is something people do everyday, but subconsciously.

Abbreviating is excluding details because within a culture or people the information excluded is a universally understood fact that is associated with the topic being discussed.

The listener usually adds the fact mentally.

This will be explained by examples in Scripture where abbreviation is obvious.

First, observe Matthew 5:28 where Jesus says, "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."[4]

Jesus is not talking about all women here because it is not a sin to lust or desire your own wife.

So mentally and perhaps subconsciously one would add, "except for my wife" when hearing this statement.

Furthermore, if the evangelist heard Jesus say this and knew he was writing to a polygamous society, the evangelist would have added, "except for your one and only wife."

Although Jesus might not have said it, it needed to be added for clarification.

But there would be no need to add this in a culture that already understood polygamy to be sinful.

Secondly, observe Matthew 5:22 where Jesus says, " But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment.

And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell."[5]

Jesus could not have meant every instance of anger or saying "fool" because Jesus was angry in Mark 3:5 and Jesus called the Pharisees "fools" in Matthew 23:17, 19.

So this is why some manuscripts[6] have the variation, "without cause" at the end of the verse, this was probably an addition by a scribe to clarify this abbreviation.

!!! Matthew 5 and Luke 16

 

       Finally, back to Jesus and divorce, and in Luke 16:18 Jesus says, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery, and the one who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery."[7]

Jesus cannot mean that every divorce causes adultery because the purpose for divorces in the ancient near East was to protect the woman and allow her to remarry.

Matthew provides the exception that Luke excluded by abbreviation.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:32, " But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, /except for immorality/, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."[8]

So now we can see that Jesus is saying that everyone who divorces his wife invalidly makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman, who was invalidly divorced, commits adultery.

When the gospels of Mark and Luke make an absolute statement, it is not uncommon for Matthew to make an exception.

In Mark 8:12 Jesus said to the Pharisees who were seeking a sign, “Why does this generation look for a sign?

I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to this generation.”[9]

But in Matthew 12:39-40 the exception is given, Jesus says, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it /except/ the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights."[10].

Another point to be made about Matthew 5:32 is that scholars have pointed out the similarity of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5 to the horrid acts of Herod Antipas.

Herod Antipas divorced his wife in order to marry his brother's wife Herodias, who divorced Herod's brother Phillip to marry Herod.

Herod Antipas was the Herodian ruler (tetrarch) of Judea during the time of Jesus' earthly ministry.

Jesus was tried before him before His crucifixion.

John the Baptist preached against Herod's atrocities and eventually John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod's decree.[11]

Look at the similarity of Herod's actions to Jesus' hyperbolic teachings on the law in the Sermon on the Mount.[12]

The heart of the teachings are summarized below:[13]

1.  Matthew 5:21-26: You think that you are innocent of murder because you have not slain with your own hand, but I say to you that you are guilty of murder if you even conceive it in your heart.

2.

Matthew 5:27-30: You think that you are innocent of adultery because you only lusted in your heart, but I say to you that lust in the heart is adultery!

3. Matthew 5:31-32:  You think that you are innocent of adultery because you have a bill of divorcement, but I say to you that you are guilty of adultery.

Hidden within Matthew's text is Jesus' view on divorce as seen in the exception clause of Matthew 5:32 "/ except for immorality."/

The exception clause is also found in Matthew 19.

The proper rendering of the exception clause is a hotly debated topic.

The exception clause will be evaluated thoroughly in the discussion of the Matthew 19 passage below.

An examination of Matthew 19 and Mark 10 will be necessary to further uncover Jesus' view on divorce.

!!!

The Debate

 

       Mark 10 and Matthew 19 record the same event when the Pharisees attempted to test Jesus' view on divorce because in Jesus' time that was a hotly debated issue.

There were two Jewish schools of thought during Jesus' time; these were the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai.