"The family is the first community, the basic building block of society … . It has been so from the beginning.
"The Lord Jesus uses this phrase, 'from the beginning,' in his talk about marriage recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. What exactly did he mean by the 'beginning'?
"Let's take a close look at the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees.
"Some Pharisees came to test him. They asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?'
"'Haven't you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female," and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate.'
"'Why then,' they asked, 'did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?'
"Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.' (Mt. 19:3-8; see also Mk. 10:2-9)"Jesus doesn't answer the Pharisees' question on their level. He didn't approve of their legalistic approach …. Instead he refers back to the beginning — to the words of Genesis, which the Pharisees knew by heart. … By going back to God's original plan for marriage, he evades their trap … .
"… The full text of Genesis 1:27, which Jesus summarizes, says, 'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them' Jesus draws a connection between this verse and Genesis 2:24 — 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.'
"By linking these two verses and adding, 'So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate,' Christ casts new light on the 'one flesh' union of marriage.
"A man and a woman don't become one flesh on their own, Christ says — God unites them. Marriage is not a mere social institution. It is a holy union instituted by God.
…
"… By twice referring his questioners back to the beginning, Jesus asked them to ponder deeply the way God created human beings, precisely as male and female.
"Let's put ourselves in the place of Jesus' questioners. But rather than seeking to test Christ, let us meditate on these things, leaning in and looking for wisdom."
3 comments:
One point of information I often bring to attention of those who would use the scriptures to bludgeon homosexual relationships and or sexual interactions is the scripture's intense preoccupation with heterosexual relationships, and it's more or less complete ignoring of other intimate joinings.
Such a thing is underlined in this post. As I pointed out to one person, God and the original Church leaders care intensely about the nature of how you interact with someone of the opposite sex (given all the functions or potential functions of a family, which, despite what activists say, is easiest done with a heterosexual couple).
I then pointed out to this friend, God and the first church leaders didn't hate or disapprove of homosexual relationships, they just didn't care about them. They didn't see such relationships as serving a function critical to the advancing the faith, etc.
The whole view many Christians on the issue of homosexual and heterosexual relationships is, today, drastically skewed from what it should be.
Thanks for the comment. That's certainly an interesting take on it. Scripture does have a lot more to say about male-female relationships and interactions than about same-sex ones.
The main thing scripture goes say about same-sex activity is the verses on the topic in several of the epistles. So there is the question of how one is to understand those passages.
There is the further question whether the way scripture presents male-female relationships implies that same-sex activity is not part of God's plan.
Finally, there is the question whether the scripture condones same-sex relationships which do not involve the sort of activity which Paul denounces.
So, yeah, this is an area where people need to consider the implications of that overwhelming focus of scripture on heterosexual activity. As we go along, will anything Pope John Paul II says or any of the scripture he cites be relevant to the question?
* "The main thing scripture does say …"
Post a Comment