Posted on 02/24/2017 7:03:29 PM PST by marshmallow
There are coming to us now different reports about Pope Francis’ Santa Marta homily of today which are very troubling. He mentions the Pharisees’ question about divorce and whether it is permitted and then comments on the reaction of Our Lord (Mark 10:1-12), as follows:
Jesus does not answer whether it is permitted or not. He does not enter into their [the Pharisees’] classic casuistry. Because they [the Pharisees] thought of faith merely in the framework of “one may not” or “one may” – up to which point one may, up to which point one may not. Thus logic of casuistry: Jesus does not enter into it. And He Himself poses a question: “Now, what did Moses command you? What is written in your law?” And they explain the permission which Moses gave to write a divorce certificate and to dismiss a woman from marriage; and it is they who went into a trap, yes. Because Jesus calls them “hard hearted”: “only because you are so hard hearted, he has given you this law,” and He spoke the truth. Without casuistry, without permissions. The truth. [my emphasis]
Pope Francis also mentions the adulteress with whom Jesus repeatedly spoke and whom He did not condemn. Pope Francis explains that Jesus “puts aside casuistry.” It is in this context that the impression arises that Christ Himself ignored His own teaching.
(Excerpt) Read more at onepeterfive.com ...
Today’s Gospel: Let everyone judge for themselves about the words of Christ.
Gospel
Mk 10:1-12
Jesus came into the district of Judea and across the Jordan.
Again crowds gathered around him and, as was his custom,
he again taught them.
The Pharisees approached him and asked,
“Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?”
They were testing him.
He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?”
They replied,
“Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her.”
But Jesus told them,
“Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
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.
Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate.”
In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this.
He said to them,
“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery.”
Is Frances Catholic?
I don’t think Jesus said “don’t have sex with animals” but we kinda know it’s not right. I don’t mean to equate the two but the argument is silly!
Go away, Francis.
No Jesus did not...But that's alright...Any thing you can do to drive people away from your religion is a good thing...
historically three reasons for divorce are recognized as valid.
adultery, abandonment, genuine physical violence up to trying to murder.
some may say insanity is a fourth valid reason.
Catholics need to learn how to understand Scripture in historical context....
When you understand the context of what Jesus was referring to, the passage takes on a different meaning...
And the Pharisees came to him, and [they] asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? [And notice, they were] tempting him (Mar 10:2).
This was a lead kind of a question. Obviously they were seeking to trap Him in the answer that He gave. They felt that His answers were contrary to the law given through Moses. And they were hoping to trap Him, to show to the people that were gathered there that He was a heretic, that He was teaching something other than the law of Moses. And so, they asked Him the question, “Is it right for a man to divorce his wife?” Now, in the law, in the book of Deuteronomy, God did say through Moses that if a man married a woman and found some uncleanness in her, he should give her a writing of a bill of divorcement. Now, that is a little vague, not much, but a little. But there are always people who are trying to jump into any little area of controversy, or any area where there might be an excuse for what they want to do.
There were two basic schools of thought taught by the Jews that were headed under famous rabbis. There was a rabbi by the name of Shami. Shami taught that uncleanness meant only that when he married her, he discovered on the marriage night that she was not a virgin, she was not clean; she was not a virgin. And thus, if he discovered that, he had the right to divorce her. And Shami took that very narrow, limited viewpoint that the uncleanness would be adultery on the part of the wife either before or after marriage and that constituted the only grounds for divorce. Now, there was another school headed by the Rabbi Hallel, which took a very liberal interpretation of finding an uncleanness in her. If she didn’t dress the way he liked her to, if she was a brawling woman... and they interpreted that if you could hear her voice next door, she was counted a brawling woman. Or if she didn’t fix the meals to please him, that this constituted an uncleanness in her, and thus he had the right to divorce her for these grounds.
Now, the Jews were quite divided, but naturally, the Hallel side was of greater popularity among the men. And there was one rabbi by the name of Ocabe, and he said that if he found another woman that pleased him more, that constituted an uncleanness in his wife, and so he could divorce her just because he found another woman that pleased him more. Now, naturally, by these liberal interpretations, they made the law totally meaningless. But still, they were divided quite sharply on this particular issue. And so, they brought the issue to Jesus. “Can a man divorce his wife for any cause?”
And he [Jesus] answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered [allowed] to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they twain [two] shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain [two], but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Mar 10:3-9).
So, Jesus, in answering their question, asked them the question, “What did Moses command?” They said, “Moses said we could give her a writing of divorcement and put her away.” And they had two different bills of divorcement. The second one became quite technical and had to be written up by a rabbi and then approved by three rabbis, and you could give it to your wife and she officially was put away. But because of the liberal views that they had taken, there was social chaos: children who really were almost orphaned in the sense that they did not have a solid type of a home environment to grow up in. And so Jesus, in talking about marriage and divorce, rather than going to the precept of Moses, He said, “Moses gave you that because of the hardness of your hearts. But in the beginning and from the beginning it was not so.” Now we are dealing with God’s divine ideal. “From the beginning...” What was God’s ideal? What was God’s intention?
First of all, there is the recognition that man by himself is not complete. Woman by herself is not complete. God made them male and female, and the two become one. And there’s only a wholeness as the two become one. The wife is to compliment the husband and make a completeness, as the husband is to compliment the wife and make a completeness. But neither are complete in themselves. “And in the beginning, God made them male and female. And for this cause a man leaves his mother and father, cleaves to his wife and the two of them become one, one whole, one total. Therefore, those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” And He is dealing now with the basic divine ideal established by God for marriage. And so we must note that Jesus is going back and dealing with the basic ideal and intention of God in the beginning. But man did not live up to God’s divine ideal because of the hardness of man’s heart, so many times the unwillingness to bend, the unwillingness to forgive, or the unwillingness just to give. For marriage is surely a giving proposition. And the hardness of a man’s heart in his unwillingness to bend or to give created intolerable situations. And so, because of the hardness of their hearts towards God’s divine ideal, Moses in the law declared, “Let him give her a writing of a bill of divorcement.” So Jesus declares the divine ideal of God, recognizing man did not come to it; and thus, God’s accommodation through the law to make that separation binding and legal, to go through the writing of divorcement. Today we are faced still with the hardness of heart.
Now, God’s divine ideal still stands. It is still the divine ideal that there be one marriage for life. That’s God’s divine ideal. That’s what God would have. But today, there are still those who have hard hearts to God’s divine ideal. They will not bend, they will not yield, they will not give, they will not forgive. And when that condition does exist, marriage can be a hell. And it is extremely unfortunate when two persons set about, consciously or unconsciously, to destroy each other. That surely is not God’s divine ideal either. “And I’m going to hang on until I kill her.” God’s divine ideal is that the two be one, that they be brought together in a harmony through love and a true oneness in love.
It’s difficult to deal with this subject inasmuch as, number one, we do not want to broaden the issue to make divorce and remarriage a very simple go-for-it kind of a thing. “If she doesn’t please you, if you’ve found someone else, divorce her.” Surely, God does not intend that. In fact, God declared in Malachi He hated divorces. Yet, He also hates those intolerable conditions that sometimes exist when you get a hard-hearted person in a marriage relationship.
So, we just can’t say, “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Do what you want. Whatever pleases you.” Our desire should be to please God. If we are in a bad marriage, we should seek to make it a good marriage. We should do our best to make a go of the marriage, to forgive, to give, to love, to have understanding and to come to an agreement, to come to a oneness.
On the other hand, in dealing with the subject, we do not want to create condemnation for those who have had that bitter experience of being married to someone by paper, but not by reality, where there never was a true oneness brought together by God’s Spirit. And because of intolerable situations, to save themselves, found it necessary to get a divorce, less the marriage totally destroy them.
It is unfortunate, that many times in the folly of youth, young couples believed themselves to be madly in love and insist on getting married because they can’t wait. And soon after the infatuation has worn off, they realized the total incompatibility. Someone has said that a decision as important as marriage should never be left up to the judgment of a child. And that’s why they had marriage by arrangement. But that had its flaws too.
Now, if a person, while a teenager, gets married and it is soon obvious that it was a tragic mistake, and it’s impossible to live with that person and they then get a divorce. I speak now for myself, as Paul the apostle said. Paul is speaking now, I don’t have any commandment of the Lord of this, but this is Paul speaking. And so, this is Chuck speaking now. I do not believe that God says to that person, “Alright, you made your bed, lie in it.” Or, “You made a mistake, now you can just suffer the rest of your life for the mistake that you made as a silly child. And you can never marry again.” I really do not believe that God says that. But that’s me; that is my conviction.
So, Jesus sought to bring back the realization of the sacredness of marriage. The Catholic Church says it is a sacrament, and I think that they are probably correct. It is an outward sign of a spiritual work, and there is that spiritual union that is created by God as the two become one. Marriage to the right person can be heaven on earth. Marriage to the wrong person can be hell on earth, and I speak especially now to young people who are not yet married, who are perhaps contemplating it. Spend much time in prayer over your decision. Before I married my wife, I went off and spent time fasting and praying. I’m glad. I’m glad I made the right decision. I’m glad the Lord led me to that decision through prayer and through fasting. And I mean, that is a matter that you should not leave to your heart or to your emotions. It is something that you need to prayerfully consider. Much better that you not make a mistake than you try to later on correct the mistake.
I do not believe that God condemns that person to hell who has divorced and remarried. I believe that if you find yourself in a remarriage, that you need to make the best of it. Just let your marriage become all that God wants it to be. I don’t think that you should go out and say, “Well, I was married before, now I better divorce you too.” I believe that you should stay in the condition where you are. The Bible tells us that a man should abide in the calling wherewith he was called; when you were called by Christ and you accepted the Lord, what your condition was there. Maybe you’ve been married, divorced, remarried. Work it out now in this relationship that you have. Let it bring honor and glory to God.
>>some may say insanity is a fourth valid reason.
But then 90% of men could divorce their wives...
Adultery by serial marriage is part of our era’s “man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips” issues.
Compromise, like tolerance, is not a virtue and one needs only consider how easy it is to blind a people to evil because it seems so very ordinary to see this.
But the enemy understands this issue. It’s like planting flags, or minarets, in a foreign territory ... you get folks accustomed to having them there and proverbial flag after flag the cultural landscape becomes dominated with them.
In the end, if it’s acceptance of homosexuality or a false religion or tolerating abortion or just being tolerant of forbidden stuff that “harms no one” , when all the flags are for Satan’s team will Christ find faith when He returns?
Tattered and filth-from-the-culture spattered survivors, a remnant, to be sure ... there’s always a remnant ... but how many besides them will discover too late that they’ve compromised and gone along to get along their way into reprobate hearts?
Get behind me, Satan.
... unusual insanity then.
Otherwise divorce after kids would be spiritually lawful.
Jesus’ word does not disappear. It is still applicable today.
So what would Jesus do, again the Dilemma. But there is no dilemma because God gave us the law and the word and if Jesus Is God and God is Jesus then it’s a futile exercise to ask what Jesus would do because God already told us
Francis is a lunatic.
A complete, utter lunatic.
No, but since He referred back to Genesis 2:24 and 5:2 on this particular subject (and also alluded to Malachi 2:16), it would be no stretch to conclude that He would readily refer to Leviticus 20:15 if pressed on the matter.
-——Jesus’ word does not disappear. It is still applicable today.——
That tells me you didn’t read what I posted...
It’s worth reading it for clarity on the passage...
What God has joined together, no human being must separate. (Mark 10:9)
**Catholics need to learn how to understand Scripture in historical context....**
Couldn’t read past the first line where you voiced a hit on Catholics.
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