#6 Divorce

series: Red Letter City

title: Divorce

date: May 22, 2016

teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Matthew 5:27-32, Matthew 19:1-9, Genesis 2:24, Genesis 2:18, Genesis 1:31, Isaiah 1:8, 1 Corinthians 7, Malachi, Jeremiah 3:8, Hebrew 4:15, Isaiah 61, Leviticus 16

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In that day, there were two schools of thought that dominated their culture… Two Rabbi’s who lived just before Jesus’ ministry, and they each had two very different yokes. Two very different interpretations of the scriptures, and a lot of the debates in that day, which Jesus was essentially throwing himself into the middle of, in the sermon on the mount… basically were asking this question…

which yoke is it?

Is it Hillel?

Or is it Shammai?

Hillel was always the more liberal one… the burden was extremely light, his yoke was incredibly easy, and normally erred on the side of peoples welfare. He was immensely popular, and was at one point the president of the Sanhedrin (which was like the Jewish Supreme Court). 

The other well known Rabbi was Shammai, who tended to be much more conservative… more strict in his interpretation.

So the people would read this verse in Deuteronomy… and they would consider the Ketubahs that they signed their name on…

And what people wanted to know is: what gets me out? Because only a rabbi had the authority to get you out of your marriage, so the question is, “on what grounds will you give me a certificate of divorce?”

And Hillel’s yoke essentially said: indecency is indecency. If she spoils a dish that she is preparing, you can leave. If she burns your toast, and you want out, I will sign your certificate of divorce. Basically his interpretation says, “if you want out, just get out. I will give you a certificate of divorce.” 

it was very lax.

But Shammai held a much more strict interpretation. He said, essentially, “no, we can’t do that to women, you can’t throw them out because of burnt toast or because of a bad day… you can only divorce your wife if there is marital unfaithfulness.” 

So the people in that day knew what these two rabbi’s thought, and they wanted to know, what does Jesus say? 

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#5 Lust

series: Red Letter City

title: Lust

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: May 15, 2016

scriptures: Matthew 5:27-30, Matthew 23:3, Matthew 23:25, Matthew 23:27, Luke 8:17, Luke 12:3, Romans 2:16, Genesis 39, Jeremiah 7:30-31, Ephesians 2:10, Luke 22:15, Psalm 51:10, James 1:17. 

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I remember picking up my kids from school on Spring afternoon...  it was just a beautiful day outside and we were driving home. and on the way home, there is this stop sign at Gratiot that we have to stop at and sometimes its really easy to turn onto Gratiot and other times its a total zoo… so much traffic just flying by and the only way to merge onto the street is to turn into the left turn lane and then make your way over… it was one of those days… and even after I had merged into the lane, it only took a little while before the side of traffic I was on came to almost a stop, just tons of cars, and on the other side cars were just FLYING by.

and I looked over, and standing in the middle lane, the left turn lane, was a man just standing there on his phone, laughing. Just standing there in the middle of traffic. He wasn’t really even trying to cross the street, he looked like he was just enjoying a conversation in the middle of traffic, hanging out between the yellow lines. People were trying to get into the left lane from both directions and he was preventing them. It was almost like he didn’t even notice what it was that he was surrounded by… like he didn’t hear the horns or understand the frustration he was causing actual drivers whom that part of the road is supposed to belong to. 

He was so engaged in the world of his seemingly happy conversation, that he paid no attention to the potentially deadly environment that he was literally standing in the center of himself, or the way it messed up other people just trying to get through their commute. and I merged onto the highway and moved on, uncertain of what happened to that guy. But I know this. What he was doing was causing grief and frustration to others… probably unbeknownst to him. and if someone who needed to turn got over and didn’t see him… 

he wouldn’t be laughing on the phone anymore.

It had the potential to fall apart very quickly. 

It was a fine line he was walking on, one that he willingly gave up a certain level of control over his own safety for, to engage in this moment privately on the phone, yet surrounded by hundreds of cars who could take him out at any moment whether on purpose or on accident. I think that sometimes we find ourselves in trouble, and we don’t even realize it. We don’t realize that we are hurting others. We don’t realize the danger that we are in. We are think things like, “Oh, it is only in my mind… it will never go beyond this… and its not hurting anyone.” and we forget that devastating reality behind iniquity…

“whatever your eye hooks to, multiplies.” 

and you can think that you have your own little private life in your head and think that its not affecting anyone but I assure you, that as whatever your eye hooks to, begins to multiple your life will begin to change. And you may not notice it right away, but it will wear on those around you. It will cause grief to people and they may not even be able to figure out why. But the truth is… that the reason that Jesus deals so dramatically with the Spirit of the law is because he knows that where your thoughts go… and what you dwell on, is a window into what you are becoming. 

So Jesus says “lets cut this off at the source.”

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#3 idols and adultery

series: Realities

title: idols & adultery

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: September 27, 2015

scriptures: Exodus 20, Judges 2:1-5, Psalm 37:4, Judges 2:11-13, Jeremiah 5:7, Jeremiah 3:8, Exodus 32, Exodus 34, John 8:1-11, Isaiah 45:2, 2 Corinthians 5:17

Exodus 34:14 says this: “(For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),”

Now, when the Ten Commandments were given the first time, the second command said this same thing… I am a jealous God. But the second time it is given, it actually says “the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

That seemed like grounds for digging a little deeper.

The word Jealous, is a peculiar name for God. It is the Hebrew word qanna’ (can-ah), it is a word that only speaks of God and is not used in human terms, and it means that “God doesn’t bear any rivals” another translation puts the verse this way: “For you must worship no other gods, but only Jehovah, for he is a God who claims absolute loyalty and exclusive devotion.” (The Living Bible)

Its like in a marriage. If my wife says, “Hey, I am going out with Steve today.” Heck no, you aren’t going out with Steve today. Who is Steve? It doesn’t even matter. You aren’t going to be spending time with other dudes. She could say to me, “we are just friends, and you hate going shopping and Steve is cool with it.”

Now, She would never do that, but that would be the automatic response from me if it ever came up. I wouldn’t even need a moment to think about it. The answer is no. I am jealous for her… but it is not because of this Steve guy, or anybody else. It is all because of Dawn.

I am jealous for her, no matter what she is doing. Because I do not bear competitions. I do not bear rivals. I already won this one, and nobody else even has a chance.

It is obvious that most people would never deal with a marriage to a spouse who was constantly unfaithful, yet that is exactly what God continuously went through over and over and over again with the Hebrew people.

The word adultery, in Hebrew as it is used in Exodus 20:14 is the word na’aph (nah apth) and it means “to break wedlock.” or the obvious translation is what it is translated as, simply, “to commit adultery.”

But what is fascinating is that it is the same Hebrew word used in Jeremiah 3:8 and Jeremiah 5:7 when it says that Israel “committed adultery” against God by their idol worship.

And I also thought that this was interesting:

Most people (who have put any thought into it) assume that the English word adultery comes from the word adult. Like, “maybe this is a bad thing, but we are adults, so if it is consensual…”

But it actually comes from the Latin word adulterare, which means “to alter, or corrupt.”

This is not an “adult” thing to do, in fact it is incredibly immature. You are altering the design that God created… You are corrupting what was supposed to be. You are corrupting what God created it to be.

Adultery is an incredibly hard top to talk about. Its a hard topic to study, or to even convince yourself that you need to study it, but God put it in the Ten Commandments for a reason… because this hits home, in one way or another, for just about everyone. And God himself is not excluded from that.

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