The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 35 - If Marriage Isn't Permanent, It's Pointless

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

If marriage isn't a permanent, unbreakable, monogamous union -- as Jesus defines it -- then it is pointless. Many churches treat it as pointless, and as a result the institution of marriage lays in ruins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So there was a royal wedding over the weekend. I don't know if you heard about it. It was kind of an intimate affair. They weren't making a big deal about it, you know. Just invited a few of their close family members. So maybe you didn't hear about it. And look, I don't want to get into a whole thing, a whole rant about what's the point of the royal family? It's so stupid.

I'm not going to get into that because although I don't care about the royal family, I do appreciate, in principle, I appreciate the idea of countries preserving their tradition. I'm a fan of that. Now, this tradition has turned into a bit of a soap opera, too much for my taste. But, you know, so whatever, I'm fine with that. And anyway, the Brits can do what they want. And if they want to spend money on keeping the royal family together, then, hey, that's on them. What I wanted to talk about was using as a jumping off point, a tweet that was sent out by a Twitter user by the name of Yvonne.

over the weekend. And she was commemorating this special occasion of the royal wedding by celebrating divorce. And what Yvonne said was, all my females, if Megan never left her first marriage, she wouldn't be a princess today. There is always better. There is always better. Isn't that just a great way to go into a marriage? Till death do we part unless something better comes along, in which case.

I'm out of here. Sorry, Chump. I'm gone. Now, this declaration wouldn't be notable except for the fact that it has received, last I-check, over 300,000 likes and something like 80,000 or 90,000 retweets. So obviously, this marriage advice, which happens to be the worst marriage advice ever recorded in human history, resonated with a lot of people in our culture. And so I think it's worth addressing. And fortunately, I think the bright side is that it also provides a valuable opportunity for all the single men of America. What you could do if you're a single man or if you're dating, if you're a discerning marriage, and if you're with a woman, before you propose, what you could do is what I would recommend. If she's on Twitter, go on Twitter and scroll through and see if she ever liked or retweeted or expressed any endorsement whatsoever of that tweet. Because a lot of women in America did.

and if you see that there, just run the other way, as fast as you can. Just run. I'm talking about even if you were like sitting at dinner, and this will be rude to do, but if you happen to check her Twitter while you're sitting at dinner with her, and you saw that, then just get up from the dinner table and run. Just run out of the restaurant. Don't even say goodbye. I'm out of here.

Because any woman who takes that view of marriage is not suited for marriage. and is not suited for adulthood, is not suited for human relationships in general. Okay, that's someone who just is, I mean, that is selfishness and immaturity on a scale unimaginable, okay? Anyone who takes that view, stay away from me. Now, it should be noted that Megan Markle,

and I did look this up for some reason. Well, because I knew I was going to talk about it, so I felt like I needed to. Megan Markle, she is divorced. And according to a book that's being written about her and interviews with people familiar with the situation, she abandoned her husband, just left her husband one day out of the blue and blindsided him. He didn't see it coming. She just left him. And I guess they were, when she decided this, they were in different parts of the country.

She mailed him back her wedding ring and just left him. A couple years later, she finds a richer and more famous guy and decides to marry him. And we're told that when I've asked women, like, why do you care about the royal wedding? What I've been told is, well, it's like a fairy tale. It's a fairy tale romance. Is it really? Because in order for this fairy tale romance to happen, another marriage had to be destroyed and a man had to be abandoned. And the vows that she made to him, she had to break.

So she broke those vows, and then she found this other guy. That's a fairy tale. Now, that's not the kind of fairy tales I'm familiar with. And sadly, considering the rate of divorce for second marriages is around 60%, chances are this will not be the last stop in her marital tour. And when you get to third marriages, the rate of divorce is like 75%. And I wish her no ill will. But the point is, you know, it's not hard to see why divorced people tend to keep on getting divorced. there's this domino effect of divorce that happens.

It's not hard to see why. Because marriage, there's only two ways of looking at marriage. Either it's a lifelong, unbreakable covenant, or it's not. And if you've already been divorced and you're getting married again, well, clearly you think it's not. And you're taking that attitude with you into your next marriage, which is not a good way to start. Another way to frame it is like this, for Christians,

The best way to frame it is when we're talking about marriage, Jesus either defined marriage correctly or he didn't. And as it happens, many churches in America believe that he didn't. And they teach that he didn't, well, he didn't know what he was talking about, I guess. Which is why they allow, which is why in so many churches, they allow for their members to get up on the altar and make an undying until death do a part commitment to a person and then come back a few years later and make it to another person

and then another person, even while the people they're divorcing are still alive. So until death do we part, eh, yeah, maybe not. That's what many churches in America, that's what they've turned the marriage vows into. They've turned it into until death do we part,

you know, maybe that should be officially incorporated into the marriage ceremony. It's just like this motion, you know. It's like, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. That's what the church says, And in these churches, let's understand what's happening here.

In these churches, polygamy is completely permissible because this is polygamy. According to Jesus, this is polygamy. You're still married to that other person. The bond is still there. You marry another person. Now you've tried to marry two people. That's polygamy. It's just that now we allow polygamy in succession rather than all at once.

But a man who marries five different women is a polygamist. Whether he marries them one at a time or all at once doesn't matter. It's the same thing. But if marriage is not a lifelong covenant, which I guess most Christians these days think it isn't, then what is it? And what purpose does it serve? Why bother with it? If it's not permanent, and if you don't really mean it when you say, when you vow your undying commitment and loyalty to a person, why do it? I understand the legal benefits, and the tax benefits.

Let's put that aside for a moment. Spiritually, what's the point of the exercise? It has been drained of its meaning and its purpose in that case. And then all it is, all marriage is, in that case, is just another thing you do, hoping it'll make you happy. And if it doesn't make you happy, and inevitably there will come a time

when you're not happy, at least for a season, that's what happens in most marriages. You know, it is not going to be a state of unbroken euphoria all the time. There's going to be unhappiness. There's going to be, you know, anger. There's going to be all kinds of things. So if you go into a thing, I'm doing this to make me happy, and then you're not happy, then you just, you know, you kind of trade the marriage in, like an unsatisfying dish at a restaurant.

You say, well, this displeases me a waiter. Take this away. Yeah, bring me that over there. Bring me that on the menu. Let me try that one instead. This is why I always say that most churches in America gave up on marriage, destroyed it, really, long before the homosexuals came knocking. You know, long before there was any gay marriage fight,

the churches had already abdicated. They'd already given up when it comes to marriage. By giving their blessings to rampant, divorce, and remarriage, they had already removed from marriage its entire point. And that point, again, is to be a spiritual and unbreakable spiritual bond between man and wife, a bond that brings them closer to God and which serves as the foundation for the family. And when that bond is broken, then the two fall away not only from each other but from God and the foundation which was formed now cracks.

And the children who were supposed to be sheltered by and given security by this foundation are now buried under its rubble. That's what happened. And when I say the bond is broken, you know, that's not exactly the right way of putting it, I guess, because according to the Christian understanding, according to Jesus, the bond cannot be broken. It is unbreakable. Jesus says this very clearly in Matthew when he's asked about it by the Pharisees. He says, haven't you read, at the beginning the Creator made the male and female, for this reason,

a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. what God has joined together, let no one separate. They are no longer two but one. He either means that or he doesn't. It's either true or it isn't. In marriage, we either become one with our spouses or we don't. And if we do, then we must remain one no matter what. That's why Jesus says you can't get remarried,

because you're still married to the other people. person. That bond is still there. Make Mother's Day even more special at Whole Foods Market. Kick off brunch or dinner with quality cheese and charcutory with no synthetic nitrates. Then go seafood. There's an abundance on sale at Whole Foods Market where it's all sustainable while caught are responsibly farmed. At the bakery, grab seasonal treats like their strawberry pretzel cream pie and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-hekech Lorraine, deviled eggs, and fresh-cut fruits to go. Celebrate.

mom with Whole Foods Market. That's the whole beauty and miracle and power of marriage is that it is a, it's a sacrament bestowed on one spouse to the other and vice versa. And then it is it is sealed by God. But the point is that in a marriage ceremony, something real is actually happening. there's a real thing taking place, a supernatural event. You are witnessing a supernatural event. You are witnessing two souls come together and to be bound together for life.

It's a miracle. And this is the problem with all the Christians today who, you know, they see everything is symbolic and nothing is sacramental. And so they've lost, so they don't even understand. They've taken the significance and the beauty and the depth out of everything and everything now is just, it's just a charade, it's a pageant, it's just words that you say. Nothing has any meaning, but that's not how it's supposed to be. That's not what Jesus is saying.

He's saying marriage has meaning. Something is happening. You are doing something here. Something serious and real is happening. And you can't undo it. It's done. Just like that. Of course, people who are familiar with the Bible will observe that Jesus allows for,

an exception, supposedly. And in Matthew, he does say, he says, everyone who divorces his wife, except on grounds of unchastity, which is variously translated as sexual immorality, adultery. So everyone who divorces his wife, except on those grounds, makes her commit adultery. Now, Matthew is the only place in the New Testament where you find this exception. The problem is that the passages in Mark and in Luke, they don't contain this exception. They also record Jesus talking about the indissolubility of marriage, how it's an unbreakable covenant. They don't include any exception whatsoever. And then St. Paul, he discusses marriage.

He talks about divorce, but he includes no exception. He says, don't get divorced. So what's happened, though, is a lot of churches, and this process really started long before. this, but in many churches, it really began to take hold in the early 20th century where they latched on to this exception and they just are clinging to it now desperately and wringing it dry of every possibility. And this little, quote, unquote, exception has been used and taken and just, it has destroyed the marital covenant in America. Which is an interesting, you know, it's an interesting thing when, and you find this in the Bible, you know, the different gospel accounts are a little bit

different. But when you find something like this, where Jesus says it only in one gospel and in none of the others, and so you, you know, in a sense, you almost have to choose which one are you going to take to heart? And it's interesting that so many Christians have, I mean, it's interesting that they've chose, that's the one. They could take Mark and Luke's interpretation, but no, they say, well, no, that's not exact. I'm going to take this one. This is the one I like. Now, but it is there. So we have to deal with it, right? I mean, we can't just write it off. So what is it? What does it mean? And why does it appear only in one gospel? And think about the gospel that it appears in. Matthew is a gospel that was written especially for a Jewish audience. And even in that

passage, Jesus is talking to a Jewish audience. He's talking to the Pharisees. So it's Jesus talking to a Jewish audience in a gospel written, especially for a Jewish audience. And for some reason, this one interesting, mysterious, vague exception appears only in that context and nowhere else. Why is that? Well, it seems to me that the idea that this is really just a broad, sweeping exception, allowing for divorce, negating Jesus' own teaching on marriage, allowing for divorce in any case of unchasity or adultery, well, that just doesn't hold. It just doesn't make sense. it doesn't work with everything else in the New Testament. It doesn't work with Jesus' own words, even in the context of that passage, where he says,

man and wife become one flesh, and then for him to immediately a sentence later say, well, but maybe not. That doesn't work. It also doesn't work because, and again, there's debate about what exact, how do you do interpret that? I mean, what is adultery? What does it mean? Well, Jesus also defines.

adultery in Matthew by saying if you look at a woman lustfully, then you have committed adultery. And so if we're really going to take that exception to heart, well, that means that if a man so much looks at a woman, that's grounds for divorce. You're done, right? I mean, you're sitting on a park bench with your wife. A woman walks by, you look at her, you can get divorced. That's it. She can leave. Because Jesus says that's adultery in your heart. And Jesus, and Jesus, and Jesus, is being serious about that. I mean, we have to take him literally, we take him at his word. That if you lust after a woman, even for a moment, in your heart, in your head, then you have committed adultery. But you take that and you apply it to what he's saying here, at least the

way people interpret it, then it would seem like, well, you could basically get, that, that means that basically every marriage in America can be broken. You could get, because adultery in the heart is, sadly, an extremely common thing in marriages, not just an American. but throughout human history, right? So, you know, that also doesn't work. That would mean that he goes from saying marriage is a union, you know, man and woman, they come together, let no man separate. And then a couple sentences later, he's saying, well, but actually, every marriage can be dissolved.

No, it doesn't make sense. But that's how it's been interpreted. So how can we understand it? Well, there are a few different theories. one theory is that Matthew put that in there as a means of avoiding the whole subject of adultery because he didn't want to alienate his Jewish audience. And so he kind of just punted on it. And he put that in there, which is possible.

Look, the gospel writers, they all kind of take from their perspective and the audience they're talking to. They frame things different. It's like, for instance, most biblical scholars agree that the sermon on the mount, which appears in at least the expanded version, the director's cut version that appears in Matthew. It's much longer than it appears elsewhere. Because Matthew has taken teachings that Jesus said at other points, and he's kind of put them all together into this one cohesive unit.

It doesn't mean that Jesus actually said all that right then. He did say it all, but most biblical scholars think he didn't say it right then. He said it at various points. Because then other gospel gives some teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, they appear in the sermon on the mount for Matthew, but then in other Gospels, they appear elsewhere. So how do you make sense of it? You know, it's because the gospel writers,

you know, have their own ways of kind of presenting things. So that's possible. Another is that Jesus is that this is just a matter of wording and that what Jesus is saying is that anyone who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery unless she's already committed adultery, in which case he hasn't caused it because she already committed it. But I think the most logical theory,

and the one that makes sense of everything is that Matthew is speaking to people who do marriage differently from the rest of the world and from the way that we do it now. And in Jewish custom at the time, there was a marriage, there was a legal marriage, and then there was a period of some time

before the marriage was consummated, and that is made complete, made full through sexual relations with husband and wife. And this is called the betrothal period where there's a legal marriage, but the marriage is not complete yet. It has not come into its fullness yet. And this was the Jewish custom. So it would make sense that Jesus is speaking to, and Matthew is speaking to people who take part in that custom. And what he's saying is if you commit adultery during that period before you've consummated with your husband or with your wife, then the marriage is.

dissolved. And it wouldn't even really be divorce in that case. It is, legally it's divorce, but the point is the marriage was never complete. Now, there's precedent for this. Remember that this is what Joseph was going to do with Mary originally before he came to understand, or at least in some way, came to understand what was really going on. But, you know, he was married to her, but as he said, he had not had relations with her yet. He had not consummated the marriage. So when he thought for that moment that she had been unfaithful, he was going to divorce her quietly so as to preserve her dignity. But the point is he was going to divorce because if she had been unfaithful, then that means the marriage is dissolved anyway.

So, you know, it would seem that those theories make a heck of a lot more sense than the idea that Jesus allowed for an exception that could apply to almost all marriages right after he just said that marriages are a bond eternally between man and wife and no man. can separate it. You know, that to me doesn't make any sense. And it especially wouldn't make any sense that this exception, this glaring, huge, enormous, pivotal exception would only appear vaguely and confusingly in one gospel and nowhere else. I think that in modern America, we have, and not just in America, but in modern society, we have decided to interpret it that way because that's how we want it to be. You know, I've always been someone who's in encourage marriage. I've always been a proponent of marriage, but I think I need to add a disclaimer to that. You know, you shouldn't be afraid to marry. And I always say to, I always say to people of my

generation, don't be afraid of marriage. You know, you should get married if you want to. Don't be afraid of it. But the disclaimer is, you shouldn't be afraid to marry as long as the person you're marrying has ruled out divorce as an option to start with. Because if they cannot look you in the eyes and tell you, I will not leave you. If they cannot say that, don't marry them. And not only should you not marry them, it's not even just like you shouldn't marry them. It's also that you can't marry them. You literally cannot marry them. Because in a, now you could go, you could have the ceremony, you could say the vows, you could have the reception, you have the honeymoon. But if a person, while they're saying the vows, if they don't fully mean it,

and in the back of their head, if they're thinking, yeah, you know, I could leave if this thing goes sideways, if in their head they're thinking, well, this is not necessarily lifelong, let's see how it goes, if they've got somewhere in their mind kind of an escape plan in mind, then it's not a marriage. The marriage wasn't valid. It wasn't valid. It didn't take place. because marriage requires full consent of the will. It requires that both, as I said, it's a sacrament bestowed on one spouse to the other. And if one of them isn't taking part in that bestowing, in that bestowing process, if they are not bestowing their undying commitment on the other,

well, then there's no marriage. There's a disconnect there, you know? It's the marriage is when the two come together and connect. But when the one is not taking part, then there can't be a marriage. That's literally, that's what the vow is. That's what it's all about. That's why you say the vow. It's when you say to the other person, I will not leave you. This is until death do we part. That's why we say it. And if somebody won't say it or if they will say it, but they refuse to mean it, then there can, there can, there literally cannot be a marriage. And so I think probably

in America today, there are a lot of invalid marriages. Because there are a lot of people, who go into marriage, not really intending necessarily to stay in it. They go into the marriage with basically the same internal commitment as, you know, as they had before the marriage. Which is a, yeah, I'm committed to you for now. I love you for now, but I'm not promising necessarily to always love you. I may say that I promise you, but I don't really. Think about prenuptial agreements. are pre-ups. I mean, I don't see how a marriage could be valid if there's a pre-up.

Because that means that what you're saying is, here's my escape plan, here's my escape strategy. Yeah, I hope this works out, but I mean, maybe it won't. And if it doesn't, then here's my, plan B. Well, then that means it's not till death to we part. It means you're not serious. It's not a marriage. It's not what a marriage is. It might be a legal marriage, but it's not really spiritually it's not a marriage. That's what marriage is supposed to be. That's where you find the security and the whole point and everything in marriage. You find it when you can look at the other person and you know that there's this commitment

and you will never leave them, that you're in it, always. That's why I, you know, that's why I, it's one of the many reasons why I so much prefer being married. You know, I enjoy marriage so much more than I ever did with like the whole, you know, dating and everything. One of the many, many reasons is that is, is that security that you have, that kind of emotional, spiritual security in knowing that, you know, even if there's hard times, even if mistakes are made, even if there are times of unhappiness and anger and everything, even if those times are numerous, I mean, even if you go through. a really rough patch, you know that you're in it. You're not going to leave because you made that

commitment and you're bound to it and buy it and through it. To not have that in a marriage is a scary thing and scary most of all because then it's not really a marriage. Everything I'm saying here is just really basic, biblical, you know, I'm just, I'm being redundant and like plagiarizing the Bible. Everything I'm saying is just right from the Bible. But, and that's what makes it so sad and and shameful, really, that many Christians will never hear anything like this in their churches. And so the marital institution is just collapsing all around us, and most churches and most Christian leaders refuse to say anything about it because they're cowards.

Jesus was not a coward, which is why he spoke to this issue directly multiple times, and what he said was clear. And so I think we need to go back to that. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, everybody. Godspeed. Thank you.