AND YOU SHALL BE MY DISCIPLES – Lesson #31-a

• Honor Marriage
  

“And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,   and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’?

 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:3–6).

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Jesus is quoting the Old Testament, Genesis 2:24.  From the time of creation, God has said that marriage is the joining of two people, a man and a woman, through a covenant relationship, into ONE person. 

A man and a woman, separate, yet ONE.

A more detailed explanation of why it should be as God has said and HOW WE CAN find life & peace by way of God’s design for marriage is found in the book of Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:”21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

The word Greek word for “to be subject to” or “submit to” is “Hupotasso”, which literally means:

1. To arrange under, to subordinate;
2. To subject, put in subjection
3. To subject one’s self, obey
4. To submit to one’s control
5. To yield to one’s admonition or advice
6. To obey, be subject.
7. To mutually agree upon

HUPO – arrange under; TASSO – mutually agree upon

The intention of “submission or subjection” is found in the CONTEXT of the words in this chapter of Ephesians which encourages us to be wise and moral, kind and pure, gentle and forgiving.

The context is also found in the meaning of the words in these verses.

Specifically, “Hupotasso” comes from a Greek military term meaning “to arrange [troop divisions] in a military fashion under the command of a leader”.

These troop formations were called a Phalanx. The Phalanx was the formation, usually in triangular form, in which The hoplite phalanx of the Archaic and Classical periods in Greece (c. 800–350 BC) was the formation in which the hoplites would line up in ranks in close order.

Hoplites were citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states who were primarily armed with spears and shields. Hoplite soldiers utilized the phalanx formation in order to be effective in war with fewer soldiers. The formation discouraged the soldiers from acting alone, for this would compromise the formation and minimize its strengths

The hoplites would lock their shields together, and the first few ranks of soldiers would project their spears out over the first rank of shields.

Those at the front were, what we would call today, THE TIP OF THE SPEAR or the POINT MAN. They presented the first defense against the enemy and were the first to engage the enemy and the first to take casualties.

The phalanx therefore presented a shield wall and a mass of spear points to the enemy. Making frontal assaults against it very difficult.

It also allowed a higher proportion of the soldiers to be actively engaged in combat at a given time rather than just those in the front rank.

This word, “Hupotasso”,

In non-military use,

is “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden”.

The Bible gives this as an example for husbands and wives to cooperate and to successfully navigate life and in waging wars against ‘their common enemy’, Satan.

The wife is fully engaged in the marriage relationship, but, God says the husband is to be the Tip of the Spear in order to protect and preserve and, if necessary, the first to fall.

Interestingly, Ephesians 5:22, “be subject to your own” uses the word “idios” which means, uniquely one’s own, peculiar to the individual. It is “stronger than the simple possessive pronoun (‘own’). This emphatic adjective means ‘private, personal’ “.

God gives each husband a wife, designed by God, Himself, to fulfill a role specifically for that husband. God gives the wife gifts, talents, abilities and a calling uniquely designed to serve God and to compliment and to complete the husband.

This is why the Bible says “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself”.

It is also why God says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”

Neither, the husband nor the wife, can be made complete as persons, finding refuge, protection and provision as provided by God well as the God given ability to mature and sustain one another, until they understand this Spiritual principal and follow it.

Marriage has mutual strength through commitment and cooperation with one another under God’s Steady Hand.

Please take this to heart, dear ones. This message is so important.

The world and the Devil are deceiving the family in to thinking ‘what works for you is OK”. It is NOT OK. God’s design, His plan and His Word is what gives life, and life more abundant. Stop following the world and REASON through God’s Word. Understand it and live!

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

PS:  Marriage makes the two into ONE.  Divorce is a violent tearing apart, no matter how amicable you try to be.

Imagine having your arm our your leg amputated.  Can you imagine the pain and the loss?  Literally losing part of yourself would impact and affect your body, your mind, your soul and your spirit.

Please dear ones, do not deliberately wound yourself and others.

(MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE)

 

 

AND YOU SHALL BE MY DISCIPLES – Lesson #31-b

• Marriage & Divorce?
  

“Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?

“And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,   and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’?

 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:3–6).

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

So, what is the question?  Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him. So, they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”

Before we get to Jesus’ answer, let’s take a quick look at the real motive.

The Greek for “testing” is “periazo”, which means to test one maliciously, craftily to put to the proof his feelings or judgments, to try or test one’s faith, virtue, character, by enticement to sin, to solicit to sin.  This is the epitome of evil.  Tempting Jesus, the Son of God, God Incarnate, to sin.

So, the question posed by the Pharisees was asked under guise of divorce, but, the intent was to maliciously TEST (periazo) the Son of God in order to tempt Him to sin.

This is the same word used when was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (periazo) of the devil. (Matthew 4:1)  The devil tempted (periazo) Jesus as a man on three levels:  Bread for the body, the Well being in the soul and the ego of the spirit of man.   Jesus rejected the temptation as a testimony and a teaching.  He testified to the sufficiency of God His Father.

This is Christ’s example for all Christians:

1. ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”
2. ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”
3.  ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’”

The Pharisees and the devil were consorts in many ways.  In this case, they were complicit in an ultimate evil, that is, the temptation of the Son of God to sin.

Now, just for you information, here is a quick review of the Jewish views on divorce:

The rabbis of the Talmud considered marriage a holy contract, and the dissolution of marriage an unholy act. They quote the prophet Malachi, “. . .the Lord has been witness between you and your wife of your youth against whom you have dealt treachorously, though she is your companion, the wife of your covenant” (2:14). Jewish Oral Law added in Sanhedrin (22a), “Even [G-d] shares tears when anyone divorces his wife.”  https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/divorce-in-judaism

Aaron Moss, in ‘The Jewish View of Divorce’ says, “When a couple gets married in a Jewish wedding ceremony, their souls become one. It is like a spiritual operation that takes separate beings and fuses them into a new whole. The Jewish divorce ceremony is the reverse of this. It is a spiritual amputation, severing one part of the united soul from the other, creating two separate beings.  Divorce, like an amputation, is a tragedy, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do. Our attitude to divorce parallels our attitude to the amputation of a limb in several ways…  https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/387647/jewish/Jewish-View-of-Divorce.htm

But, what is God’s view on divorce?

Matthew 19:4  “And He (Jesus) answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? 6“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?” 8He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

How about you?  What is your view of divorce? 

Have your ever asked the question, “Is divorce OK”?  Are you thinking about getting a divorce?  Are you are tempting the Son of God with these intentions?

Divorce is a complicated and serious matter.  It will affect you and those around you on all levels: 

• You body is affected,
• your soul and mind are affected and
• your spirit is injured. 

Divorce is sin in the eyes of God.  And, sin is to miss the mark of God’s plan of a purposeful, meaningful life and life with peace (Romans 8:6).

Life can be tough enough without causing deliberate damage to yourself and to others.  Finding the way to a life full of purpose and peace be difficult.  So, call on God and let Him light your path and follow Him in all your ways.

Matthew 7:13 

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Now, it is your turn:

HOW MUST YOU DO IT?

HOW YOU MUST TEACH IT?

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

PS:  Have you been divorced?  I was divorced before becoming a Christian.  I know the pain and the regret.  But, remember that God is merciful and quick to forgive those who have been divorced and turn away from sin and ask Him for forgiveness.

I did that and thankfully, I was remarried to the same woman, right after we both came to Christ.  We have been married 53 years, now.

A woman once asked my wife “How have you managed to stay (re)married for all these years?”  My wife responded with, “Just never get a divorce!”

It sounds simple, but it is not.  It take commitment, some hard work and sacrifice.  And, it is worth it.

(HONOR MARRIAGE)