Sermon Conversations with Alex and Aaron

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What can you expect? Pastors Alex, Aaron, and the occasional guest having a casual conversation, diving deeper into ideas related to last Sunday’s teaching.

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But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone.  Matthew 19:11

I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.  1 Corinthians 7:32-35

A wedding is this joyful moment when two people say something to the effect of, “over all others on this earth, I choose you to be with, you to be rich or poor with, you to be healthy or sick with, you to enjoy the better or the worse with.” While weddings are beautiful affairs (and often expensive), there is perhaps no more preparation for being married than a driving test is for hitting the open road!

Marriage is the complex relationship that follows the wedding! It is two people learning to live as one. As we read scripture, we see marriage is never overly romanticized. In the story of Jacob (Genesis 19), we see a man who is tricked into marrying his beloved’s sister. He marries his beloved a week later while staying married to his first wife. In the book of Job, when the famous long suffering titular character is at his lowest moment, his “helpful” wife tells him to “curse God and die”. If you know the Bible, then you noticed that I cherry picked some of the least controversial marriages for illustrations!

We live in a world where people want to embrace the ‘happily ever after’ moment but don’t always want to work hard at the relationship they have entered into. In this week’s passages, both Jesus and Paul make it clear that marriage is not the easy road. It is a path of sacrifice, and it should be entered into with that in mind. The Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer includes these words in the wedding service:

“Marriage is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined”

While presenting the challenges of marriage, the Bible also presents the joys. In Ecclesiastes 4 we read these words:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

In this week’s passages, Jesus and Paul remind us that marriage was never designed to be THE central relationship. That place belongs to God alone.

Today, regardless of your relationship status, choose to thank God for his work for you, his relationship with you and his presence in you.

You might:

Take a walk and notice Jesus walking alongside you.
Write a note of thankfulness and gratitude.
Open your hands and surrender each relationship, and recognise it is second
to your relationship with your Heavenly Father.

Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” NIV I Corinthians 7:1

At first glance, this can be a confusing verse. We need to understand several issues to understand this “awkward” text. First, we must look at this verse within the context of the book of I Corinthians and the city and culture of Corinth around the year of 55 AD. Secondly, we must look at the context of Chapter 7 within the letter of I Corinthians.

The city of Corinth was a wealthy, relatively new Roman city full of many former slaves. Many Corinthians worshiped at the temple of Aphrodite located on the hill above the city. Prostitution and sexual immorality was a common practice at the temple and within Roman society.

Paul wrote the letter of I Corinthians to the church he had started in that city as a reply to several questions they had written to him. Chapter seven begins a new topic of marriage within his letter. The NIV puts quotations around the statement “It is good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman.”
(I Corinthians 7:1) This indicates that Paul is quoting the Corinthians in this statement. It is possible some people in the church of Corinth believed that sexual relations within marriage was wrong for Christians, because they had the Holy Spirit and didn’t want to corrupt their bodies with sex. Some may have believed that the second coming of Christ was imminent, and since people would not live as married people in heaven, they should begin to live that way now on earth. Others may have been influenced by the popular world view at the time that since their bodies would die, it did not matter what they did with them, they could do anything, even behave sexually immoral – and it didn’t matter.

Paul corrects the Corinthians’ thinking in the next several verses. He is clear that sexual relations within the context of marriage is proper, right and creates a mutuality between husband and wife that would have been somewhat radical for 55 AD. Look at how the Message version translates the next few verses in
I Corinthians 7.

Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations? Certainly—but only within a certain context. It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to “stand up for your rights.” Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. I Corinthians 7:1-4 MSG

Both Paul and Jesus often answered complex and “awkward” questions. There definitely are difficult, confusing and awkward scriptures in the Bible. Asking questions of those who have studied it is one way to find answers. Another is to study the question for yourself. Look at various translations, consult commentaries or other study books on the topic or passage. Pray about your questions;i f you seek God sincerely, He promises He can be found.

I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me. Proverbs 8:17 NIV

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. James 1:5 NIV

They shot back in rebuttal, “If that’s so, why did Moses give instructions for divorce papers and divorce procedures?”

Jesus said, “Moses provided for divorce as a concession to your hard heartedness, but it is not part of God’s original plan. I’m holding you to the original plan, and holding you liable for adultery if you divorce your faithful wife and then marry someone else. I make an exception in cases where the spouse has committed adultery.”

Jesus’ disciples objected, “If those are the terms of marriage, we haven’t got a chance. Why get married?”

But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked — or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you’re capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it.” Matthew 19:7-12 MSG

I can only imagine what it must have been like before there were chapter and verse divisions in scripture, as well as the bold print titles of subject shifts in each chapter. In Matthew 19 the shift from divorce, to little children, to the rich young ruler, to reward for those who give up everything to follow Jesus, is a bit too condensed.

I often wish I could have seen how Jesus related to people and heard his voice as he responded to questions. Also I would have wanted more in-depth examples of, in this case, the value of both marriage and singleness.

In my extended family there are examples of marriage and both the singleness of choice and the singleness of widowhood.

My maternal grandmother, born in 1884, got married when she was 30. She was widowed at age 53 and continued single until she died a few weeks short of age 99. She was active in her Methodist church and was partly responsible for raising my sister and me.

My maternal aunt Carol, my mother’s sister, was a “maiden lady” who lived with our grandmother. She worked in several positions for 35 years at Mountain Bell Telephone Company. She also taught children at their Methodist church. At the deaths of our parents she was the legal guardian of my sister and me, even though I lived with family in a different state. Both our grandmother and aunt Carol had a great influence on our lives.

Regardless of whether we get married or continue as a single person, there are foundational scriptural directions for how we are to live our lives as people who call on the name of Jesus as Savior and Lord:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27 NIV

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. I’m telling you the very truth now: When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you’ll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don’t want to go.” He said this to hint at the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And then he commanded, “Follow me.”

Turning his head, Peter noticed the disciple Jesus loved following right behind. When Peter noticed him, he asked Jesus, “Master, what’s going to happen to him?” Jesus said, “If I want him to live until I come again, what’s that to you? You — follow me.” John 21:20-23 NIV

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 NIV

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 NIV

Together with me, ponder and practice these directions for walking in the way of Jesus with his heart.

Every culture has ‘hot button’ issues from a persistent set of controversies existing in all cultures and time periods – especially those involving marriage and sexual ethics. These concerns touch some of our deepest longings and conflicts.

In the historical period just prior to and during Jesus’ public ministry, there were sharp disputes about marriage and divorce between two leading teachers of Judaism. These disputes took place between the school of Hillel the Elder (having a lenient interpretation of scripture) and Shammai and his school (with a more strict interpretation).

In Matthew 19:1-15 the Pharisees asked Jesus a question about divorce that reflected these disputes. When they asked him to interpret Deuteronomy 24:1-4, they were testing Jesus against these preeminent teachers. The Deuteronomy passage begins:

If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something indecent in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house. Deuteronomy 24:1 NET

Although Jesus’ complete answer in Matthew 19:1-15 is most like Shammai’s view, Jesus redirected his answer to the core of the dispute by revealing a hidden reason men sought religious permission to divorce their wives:

Jesus said to them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hard hearts, but from the beginning it was not this way. Matthew 19:8 NET

What a remarkable insight about hard heartedness — how it evokes passages in Genesis which reveal God’s original design for marriage. This answer seemed either to satisfy or silence Jesus’ examiners.

It’s worth discovering or exploring again what Jesus meant when he said “from the beginning it was not this way”. In the middle of heated arguments between present day religious experts, Jesus is still the master of marriage and sexual ethics.

Are you frustrated with contemporary tales of tangled, broken relationships or even ones of your own making? It might be refreshing to observe less complicated relationships in the natural world of animals. Spring is here. Birds and other animals are pairing up. Take a walk or drive to a place where you can spot their activities. If you can’t get outside, watch a nature program. Meditate on the timeless simplicity God shows you, and take your frustrations to him in prayer.