Divorce & Remarriage 12: How did the early church misunderstand Jesus?

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We’ve covered 11 chapters thus far in our review of David Instone-Brewer’s Divorce & Remarriage in the Church.  His main point is that the Scriptures in Exodus 21 require marriages to be built on the covenant promise to provide food, clothing, and sexual love. When these were not provided then the woman was allowed to go free. The controversies in the NT are about the “any cause” divorce that some Jewish leaders supported. Jesus, I-B says, is only speaking to this problem in Matt 19 when he says no to “any cause” and only yes to causes that break the covenant. Much of I-B’s argument is based on how early rabbis interpreted the OT and Jesus’ lack of criticism of their interpretations. He also looks at cultural/evangelisticreasons for the matter of submission in Eph. 5 and questions whether these are timeless truthes (last week’s post).

So now we come to a key question in chapter 12: How did the early church misconstrue Paul and Jesus so quickly? Why did they come to believe the texts taught that divorce was never allowed.

I-B suggests the following reasons:

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   1. The Destruction of Jerusalem of 70AD. He reports that almost all of the various Jewish teachers were killed–with the exception of the Hillel Pharisees who then became the dominant interpreters of Scripture. This is key in that it was the Hillel teachers who argued for the “any cause” divorce. Thus, the no cause but sexual immorality proponents were gone and so the debate that Jesus weighed in on was lost. 
   2.  Changes in word meanings. I-B points out the changes in the meaning of “wicked”, “gay”, and “imbeciles. ” The sentence, “Isn’t it wonderful that so many imbeciles are naturally gay” has obvious meaning differences depending on which generation says it. (p. 143). He also notes the different meaning of “intercourse” (speaking) in the 1800s
   3. Similarly, how we use shorthand phrases change over time. He reminds us that he explored the phrase, “Isn’t it unlawful for a 16 year old to drink” and that it obviously means alcohol to us but may not to later generations. So, shorthand phrases interpreted outside the context have a great chance to be misunderstood. And I-B believes that Matthew uses shorthand phrases regarding divorce because it wasn’t necessary for his readers to say the whole thing.
   4. Punctuation. I-B reminds us that the original Greek text does not have punctuation markers. Translators must provide punctuation. On p. 145 he shows how the addition quotation marks changes Mt 19 from the Pharisees asking if any divorce was legal to whether “any cause” divorces are legal. The church got this wrong, he thinks, because it forget about the “any cause” controversy.

Of course this brings up issues around interpretive process, authorial intent, and how God intends these passages to be timeless, or better yet, for all time. I-B says we ask the wrong questions when we try to ask what it says in plain English or what the traditional interpretation has been. Better, he believes, is to ask what the original audience understood it to mean.

As Christian we have to assume that the Holy Spirit was able to convey truth accurately to the original readers in language and with concepts they would understand. We who come later have to do more work than they did in order to understand the same message, because we have to learn an ancient language and read it through the mindset of ancient thought-forms. p. 147

But if you are following I-B’s argument you can see that he believes we need the historical evidence to interpret the bible correctly. Does he believe we need more than the bible to interpret the bible? Yes! But he does not reject sola scriptura. This means that that while Scripture itself gives us everything we need to know for salvation it does not provide us with the background on things beyond our salvation (i.e., divorce and remarriage principles mentioned in the bible).

He ends with the question of whether there has been a conspiracy to withhold teaching on the background of this issue in the church. It might be understandable that those in the first 2,000 years of the church would get it wrong since they didn’t have access to such resources. But in the modern era, these resources have been available. So, why didn’t they teach us the background? In the next chapter he will take up that matter.

MY THOUGHTS: I-B clearly believes that we need historical records to understand the original intent of Scripture. I think it is important as well. But, I would also assert that the NT writers interpreted the OT in ways that seem not to follow that system. It would seem that they cherry picked verses and gave them entirely different meanings than the original hearers of the OT passages–especially those that they interpreted as foretelling Christ’s birth.

At heart, I-B challenges us to understand the shorthand in Scripture regarding marriage and divorce. It is good for us not to become too self-assured that we have it all right. This doesn’t mean we can’t have convictions but we must be careful here when many good and godly men and women differ in interpretation. For example, John Piper at DesiringGod.org has strong reservations about this book and continues to assert that there should never be divorce and definitely no remarriage. You can check out his thoughts here and find links to Instone-Brewer’s only webpage (HT: Ron Lusk). The point is good Christian scholars disagree. Be careful to avoid being an uninformed know-it-all.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Divorce & Remarriage I: Confusion!
• Marriage & Divorce 9: Getting Remarried?
• Divorce & Remarriage X: Is remarriage adultery?
• An Evangelical Rethink on Divorce?

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Filed under Doctrine/Theology, Relationships, book reviews, divorce, marriage

Tags: Bible, Christianity, divorce, Instone-Brewer, remarriage