[Peace-discuss] RE: Jesus on sexual immorality and divorce

[Phil Stinard]

Amen.  I think this passage says more than that, but I agree with everything 
you say here.

--Phil


>From: Karen Medina <kmedina at uiuc.edu>
>To: Phil Stinard <pstinard at hotmail.com>, peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] RE: Jesus on sexual immorality and divorce
>Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:21:02 -0600
>
>Phil Stinard wrote:
>>Getting up, He went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the 
>>Jordan; crowds gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He 
>>once more began to teach them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing 
>>Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce 
>>a wife. And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses command you?" 
>>They said, "Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND 
>>SEND her AWAY." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart 
>>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 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." In the house the disciples began questioning Him about this 
>>again. And He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another 
>>woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her 
>>husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery."
>
>Phil, be careful reading the words individually. Between each word and each 
>line, read in love.
>
>My interpretation: Marriage is indeed the manifestation of two becoming one 
>and it also something more than two. Marriage is a third being, stronger 
>than the individuals alone. It is a way for two people to become more than 
>they can be alone.
>
>The coolest thing about marriage and adoption is that they are a way for  
>people to become related to each other by choice. We cannot choose who our 
>relatives are. But yet we can, through adoption and through marriage, 
>invite someone else to become a member of our family. Marriage is love 
>lived out.
>
>When an invitation is made and accepted for one person to join you as a 
>member of your family, and more importantly, as a new part of yourself, 
>that joining will never go back to being unrelated individuals.
>
>Leaving the Bible, unfortunately there sometimes comes a time when the most 
>loving thing a person can do is to detach oneself from another person: for 
>instance when one is enabling the other to be overly dependent or one of 
>the members is violent and cannot escape the well-worn patterns. Separation 
>is the most painful experience I have ever experienced -- it feels like 
>something is dying, the third living being which the marriage brought into 
>existence dies. The two people become less than 3; the two people become 
>less than the two they were. But sometimes this is the most loving thing 
>someone can do. Hatred for one's self or one's spouse is not loving them. 
>Sometimes, in rare occasions, love is best lived out by letting go.
>
>Love. Love is the set of glasses that we should be viewing the world 
>through.
>
>-karen medina
>
>
>