{"id":7152,"date":"2015-11-27T00:05:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T08:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7152"},"modified":"2015-11-26T21:51:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T05:51:32","slug":"divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/11\/27\/divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jesus finished teaching, he left Galilee and went to the part of Judea that is east of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him, and he healed their sick people. <\/p>\n

\tSome Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. They came up to him and asked, \u201cIs it right for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tJesus answered, \u201cDon\u2019t you know that in the beginning the Creator made a man and a woman? That\u2019s why a man leaves his father and mother and gets married. He becomes like one person with his wife. Then they are no longer two people, but one. And no one should separate a couple that God has joined together.\u201d <\/p>\n

\tThe Pharisees asked Jesus, \u201cWhy did Moses say that a man could write out divorce papers and send his wife away?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tJesus replied, \u201cYou are so heartless! That\u2019s why Moses allowed you to divorce your wife. But from the beginning God did not intend it to be that way. I say that if your wife has not committed some terrible sexual sin, you must not divorce her to marry someone else. If you do, you are unfaithful.\u201d <\/p>\n

\tThe disciples said, \u201cIf that\u2019s how it is between a man and a woman, it\u2019s better not to get married.\u201d <\/p>\n

\tJesus told them, \u201cOnly those people who have been given the gift of staying single can accept this teaching. Some people are unable to marry because of birth defects or because of what someone has done to their bodies. Others stay single in order to serve God better. Anyone who can accept this teaching should do so.\u201d (Matthew 19:1-15)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tQuestions aren\u2019t always what they seem. Why would some Pharisees quiz Jesus on whether it was right for a man to divorce his wife? There was much more to the question than just the legality of divorce. They wanted to know if divorce could be had for \u201cany reason.\u201d Jesus said \u201cno,\u201d that divorce should never happen, except maybe for adultery. He explained that God never intended for relationships to be irrevocably breached. To do so was counter to the whole concept of love and forgiveness. <\/p>\n

\tThe disciples were taken aback. They decided that not being married at all was better than being \u201cstuck\u201d with a bad wife.<\/p>\n

\tAnd Jesus agreed with them. Whether celibacy was the consequence of circumstances beyond an individual\u2019s control, or because that person choose to commit himself to God in that way, celibacy, Jesus explained, could be considered a gift from God. Certainly it was far preferable to a bad or unhappy marriage. Both marriage, and celibacy are gifts from God. They should never be lightly thrown aside.<\/p>\n

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When Jesus finished teaching, he left Galilee and went to the part of Judea that is east of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him, and he healed their sick people. Some Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. They came up … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7153,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions\/7153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}