Jesus & Marriage

One of the biggest barriers to actually knowing something is the belief that you already know.

How do you define marriage?

Where do you get that definition from?

How does the Bible or Jesus inform your understanding of marriage?

JESUS & MARRIAGE

What is marriage?
What is marriage for?
What is the problem with marriage?

__________ & __________ are NOT essential to human flourishing.

Culture: to be sexually inactive is to be a less-than-whole person.

Church: to be single/unmarried is to be a less-than-whole person.

"One particularly beautiful thing about Jesus is that his life is testament to the fact that being single doesn’t have to equate to being lonely, nor does it exclude enjoying deep levels of intimacy. Jesus, just like us, lived within the relational fabric of community in order to sustain his full humanity."

- Debra Hirsch

31  “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’  32  But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 5:31-32

Marriage & Divorce in Ancient Judaism:

The House of Shammai vs. The House of Hillel

What is Jesus’ theology of marriage & sexuality?

3  Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4  “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’  5  and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  6  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8  Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.  9  I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:3-9

What is marriage?

- God created __________.

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

- Marriage is a holy __________, not a __________.

‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

"Marriage is a lifelong one-flesh covenant union between two sexually different persons (a male and a female) from different families, united with the purpose of telling God’s story of faithfulness and creativity; and sexual relationships outside this covenant union are sin."

- Preston Sprinkle

Leave        ->    United     -> One Flesh
MATURITY COMMITMENT INTIMACY

What is marriage for?

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate

"Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is…learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married."

- Stanley Hauerwas
Ethics Professor, Duke University

SYMBOLISM      PROCREATION      CO–MISSION

"Yoked together" is a work picture. Jesus does not say "what God has bedded together,” or "domesticated together," or even, simply, "linked together";… Husband and wife, according to Jesus'; picture, are spanned together by God under a common yoke, suggesting they are united in order to work together on a common task.

- Theologian, Fredrick Dale Brunner

What is the problem with marriage? And what about divorce?

Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.

"That means that sometimes human hearts become so hard because of sin that it leads a spouse into a severe violation of the covenant, without prospects of repentance and healing, and in such cases divorce is permitted."

- Tim Keller

The 5 Stages of a Relationship
1. The __________ Stage
2. The __________ Stage
3. The __________ Stage
4. The __________ Stage
5. The __________ Stage

FURTHER RESOURCES:
Podcast: With the Perry’s
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/with-the-
perrys/id1458672189?i=1000630670238
Website: The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender
https://www.centerforfaith.com/
The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller
How We Love by Milan & Kay Yerkovich
Love-ology by John Mark Comer