August 16, 2018 - Suggested Reading Deuteronomy 24 for Aug 19th’s message on Matthew 5:21-32 in our summer worship service at 10am

“If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,”

Deuteronomy 24:1 (NIV)

There is very little written in the Law, for something so prevalent in society like divorce.

Deuteronomy 24 is the only place in the Law where the “certificate of divorce” which forms the Pharisee’s test of Jesus recorded in Matthew 19, is found. This passage seems to be about forbidding the remarrying of your divorced wife after she has been someone’s else’s wife, it doesn’t lay out any structure around divorce per se.  No doubt people have been getting divorced for almost as long as people have been getting married. When I think about the stress in Adam and Eve’s lives- just think of the difficulty you would have in your marriage if you had been kicked out of Paradise, and had a child kill another child – I wonder at their ability to stay together. A certificate of divorce gave the woman legal standing in ancient societies and in modern societies, although we try our hardest to pretend that we are so much improved over our ancestors. The Law does speak to certain situations around divorce, such as Leviticus 21 forbidding priests to marry divorced women, Leviticus 22 permitting divorced daughters of a priest to eat the food from sacrifices offered at the altar, Numbers 30 gives a divorced woman full legal standing in regards to obligations and vows, and Deuteronomy 22 obligates a man to marry and never divorce a young girl that he has forced himself on.

Surely marriage issues are the prevalent sign of the rottenness in our human condition across all societies, as we turn the most precious and perfect relationship known to humans - a man and woman joined in holy marriage- into a place of unfaithfulness, broken vows, abuse, neglect and tragedy. Divorce is the means still used by societies to mitigate the harm done to ladies, and to give women legal status, for their protection. I have friends who tell me divorce is harder to go through than the death of a spouse – it is the end of something for sure, but it is also a huge sign of our need for God’s grace in our relationships.