Words of Jesus Podcast - Marriage Requires Consent, Commitment and Witnesses

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

There was a long history of division between the Samaritans and the Jews.  To the surprise of the disciples (and the religious leaders), Jesus loved people and ministered to people who were not Jews. Conversion to Judaism was not a requirement.  Continuing the conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus asked her to go get her husband.  This is awkward.  Then, Jesus reveals that He knows this woman has a reputation problem. Still (and, as we shall soon see to the chagrin of the religious leaders) Jesus continues to discuss the theological question she asked.   Let’s talk about sex. Can you be accidentally married-in-the-eyes of God by having sex?  What is fornication? Adultery?  Experience can make us jaded in relationships. In another place, Jesus says, the law allowed divorce because the people had hard-hearts.  In this story, Jesus mentions only the misrepresentation of virginity (i.e. fornication) as the only cause for divorce. Adultery? Actually, adultery should be forgiven. We’ll resume here next time.***Chapter 8 (Part 2)RETURNING to Galilee after a trip to Judea, Jesus came, about noon, to the outskirts of the city of  Sychar in Samaria near Jacob’s well, situated on the parcel of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. To her Jesus said: “Give me to drink.” The woman responded: “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus replied: “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, ‘Give me to drink,’ thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” Not understanding, the woman replied: “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” Jesus answered: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”  The woman said:  “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” Jesus saith unto her, “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” The woman answered saying: “I have no husband.”  Jesus said: “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” The astonished woman replied: “I perceive that thou art a prophet.  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus replied: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”  Marveling at his words, the woman said: “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” Jesus replied: “I that speak unto thee am he.” The disciples returned and marvelled that Jesus was talking with the woman: yet no man questioned him as to his reason. The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and said to the men: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series. Glad to have you. We'd like to know this is a part of your day and if it is, I'd love to hear from you. Would you mind writing me an email? Just say, hi, I'm watching. That's all I'm asking you to do just like to know who's who's watching and who's enjoying if you got a question or two throw it in there we answer

questions on the radio show all the time and um so i love to get questions from people just write to don at thinkredink.com. Just that easy. We're in chapter 8 of the little book, The Words of Jesus, and we were discussing the situation where Jesus was at the well of Samaria where he encountered the woman, which unfortunately is famous for having a lot of husbands.

I've always felt a little differently about her than most people seem to feel about her. I always had feeling a little sorry for her that the poor girl just couldn't seem to get a good husband. Well, we don't know if it was a widow situation or not, but I got a feeling it wasn't. And this story, if you look at the people involved in this story, it's really interesting that, well, that she was who she said she was, or she was who the scriptures said she was, or at least had the reputation that they say. And yet, it seems that she had some kind of sway or some kind of influence

among some of the people who were essentially running the show. She had no trouble at all telling them, come and see this guy. I think that in most situations where you'd have a woman making a claim that she wants the religious leadership, whoever they are, to come and see a particular guy that told me what all things whatsoever I did, you just wonder why would that be of interest to men? And why would they have gone to see him?

She was evidently persuasive. And we don't know in what way. She evidently was a, well well can we say religious woman I don't know if that's a proper description of her or not but she did happen to know some doctrines and theology of the Jews and the disparities or at least differences in the way the Jews believe and teach

and the way the Samaritans believe and teach. The Jews were very prejudiced against the Samaritans. They figured that the Samaritans were a bastardized Jew in that they accepted the ideas of the Samaritans and incorporated them into whatever it was that they believed. They were known to change laws. There were a lot of differences between the two. She evidently knew something about this because Jesus was explaining to her as they got done with the conversation about water. He said that if you knew who I was, you'd ask me, and I'd give you water that would last you the rest of your life.

And she tried to understand what he was trying to say and wasn't doing so well at it. And when she asked him, I'd like to have this water, Jesus was explaining to her, not the common understanding of people that are coming to Jesus and wanting to make a difference in their life, i.e. you catch them and I'll clean them. Jesus decided that, okay, fine, you want to be

a part of what I'm all about. We've got some things to work out, and it really has to do with your reputation in town and what you feel like is a, you may feel like it's insignificant, but I assure you, it's not insignificant. Well, what was the thing he was talking about? He said, he told her, go call thy husband and come back. Well, she kind of sunk and thought,

boy, I don't know. This might be a problem. She looked at him and said, I have no husband. And I think it's interesting that in our modern day, you've heard the term married in the eyes of God, right? A lot of people claim this, use this.

A lot of guys convincing women to marry them use this. A lot of women convincing guys to marry them use this. A lot of women convincing guys to marry them use this. Parents teach their children that if you have sex with someone, you're married in the eyes of God. I don't know where they got that from. Is it in the Sunday school literature? I don't remember reading it. But, boy, I've heard it all my life.

And in some situations, people will say, you announce to someone that you're getting married, and they say, oh, you're going to make an honest woman of her, right? What does that mean? Well, I'm afraid we all may know what it means, or at least what it insinuates, but I think that it may be time for us to change this idea that we have about being married in the eyes of God. Jesus was under no impression that this woman was married to anyone. Now, there is the remote possibility, and however remote, I don't know, but there is the remote possibility

that this woman has been married several times, and this particular guy she's living with at this point, that she's not having sex with him, I don't necessarily believe that. So, I mean, it's a possibility, but I don't think so. A woman who has been disappointed with husband after husband after husband after husband after husband after husband is probably going to be kind of soured on marriage at this particular point.

She's probably tired of being outcast. She's tired of looking for another husband. And she's probably going to try to forego all this legality in her life i understand that i get that but here's something we need to to see and understand and erase this idea from our vocabulary from our minds and certainly from the raising of our children saying that uh that if you have sex with someone you're married in the eyes of god um here this uh he tells her go and get your husband and come back the woman answered and said i have no husband jesus said thou hast well said i I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands,

and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, in that thou saidst truly. Jesus just kind of cuts through, doesn't he? So was he under some impression that they were married in the eyes of God? Absolutely not. They weren't married in the eyes of anyone. They were, as the King James says, shacking up.

Oh no, that's my little note in the corner. These two were, they were just shacking, that's all. And so, I mean, let's just face that and move on, shall we? It's almost embarrassing to talk about, but nevertheless, we do need to get that idea out of our minds that that is the case of, you know, thinking it's as bad as doing it, and doing it makes us married in the eyes of God, and all these things we made up to make, quote unquote, honest women of the women in our life.

So let's just stop that shall we now um when he said the one you have now is not your husband he was saying that there has never been a marriage contract between you and this particular guy. Now, I am not one who happens to believe that the state has the power or the right to designate somebody married or unmarried. I don't think it's any of the state's business. I think that it should be a matter of the heart and of the church community

whether or not two people have decided to be married or not. Now, when you're talking about tax situations and these kind of things, yeah, I know there's legalities and such that have to be gone through, circumnavigated in some cases, renamed in other cases. There are certain ways of doing this. But, you know, the Quakers for years have had priestless, preacherless, pastorless weddings for, you know, a couple, three centuries it's been going on. And it goes on in our country too.

And those marriages are honored and honorable. Now, when you talk like this, you know, it's very easy to get very selfish about all this kind of stuff. And where, you know, guys and women alike will, you know, kind of elbow one another and say, see there. But the fact is that Adam and Eve were never married. And the reason I say that is that marriage came along after the population of the world became such that it was necessary to establish by law,

by rule, by decree, by whatever means that this man and this woman are man and wife. And it is an important aspect to society, and I would have to say an indispensable one. I don't think that a man and a woman can decide between themselves and only between themselves that they're going to be husband and wife and therefore be husband and wife.

I don't necessarily think that they need to find a preacher to make that union or a priest or a some, what do you call it, justice of the peace or any kind of a legal personality in order to bring about a legal marriage, if you will. But I do think that it's necessary that this couple make this union known to their particular sphere of society. Namely, the congregation to which they belong, to which they frequent, the people that they answer to as friends and families and neighbors and things like this. I think that an announcement by that couple to a group like that, whether it's in the town hall or in their local church,

if that's what they need to do. And I have to tell you that these are not some rules I'm telling you to obey. I'm telling you, and I've probably said over and over again, I don't know how many times it would be if you were to stop the tape and count them up, how many times I said, I think, but this is my opinion. The problem with this is, and actually legal marriages, and I say legal in that there is a justice of the peace, or there is a judge involved, or there is a judge involved, or there is a preacher involved, and there's marriage licenses involved, these kind of things,

they don't fix this problem at all. I mean, we've seen people work around this as well. But I do think that what I am proposing to you can be, will be, misused to the advantage of someone along the way. But isn't that true for legal marriages as well? So, you know what, it's pretty much people are going to do whatever they want to do for their own reasons. And if they're going to be wicked, they're going to do whatever they want to do for their own reasons. And if they're going to be wicked, they're going to be wicked. But what we need to stop doing is applying God's signature to our selfish motives and saying that it's okay with God because, you know, I got a piece of paper that says it's okay. The Jews took this to huge and embarrassing leaps of logic to the point that there were sects of Pharisees

who believed that a woman had to publicly dishonor her husband in some way to be able to bring about a legal or an ordained, if you will, divorce, that divorce was even an option. Divorce was not an option if there wasn't some real good reason for it to be. And to the point that some of these people who were just nothing more than lechers, sexual predators, sexual addicted church people, aren't you glad we don't have these problems today? Would come to Jesus and say,

so what do you say? Can a man put away his wife for any cause? You remember this? And Jesus said, except it be for fornication. No, he can't. Now many people have taken that scripture and turned the word fornication into the word adultery. And many a woman has felt justified

by proving that their husband was indeed an adulterer so that they could feel good about divorcing them. But that's not what Jesus was saying at all. Jesus was just reiterating the Old Testament provision that was put into a marriage that if a woman presented herself virginal to the man she marries and he found out different, he was able to annul the divorce.

You see, because what had taken place? Adultery? No, fornication had taken place that they weren't honest about. And so Jesus was just reiterating the old law. Are you telling me that adultery is not a reason for divorce? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. What am I supposed to do? You're supposed to forgive him. You're supposed to forgive her. That's what you're supposed to do. You know, the forgiveness.

Remember forgiveness? What you begged and cried God for when you got saved? Yeah, that's the deal. And that's what you have to offer to other people. There's no good reason. There's no biblical reason for divorce other than what Jesus said. If you got married under some kind of a false pretense somehow,

then you were able to annul a marriage. But that's all he said. So there's a lot of things to dispense with in our own minds, isn't there, about weddings and about divorce and these lot of things to dispense with in our own minds, isn't there? About weddings and about divorce and these kind of things that people complain about the old antiquated marriage vows and now they're writing their own vows. You know, that we'll, what is it? It's not until death do we part.

What is it? It's not till death do we part. What is it? It has something to do with, you know, we'll stay together until we don't want to anymore or some silly thing like that. But, you know, weddings show our culture to the entire world. The fact that a father gives a bride away shows that a woman ought to be under the covering of her father until she takes a husband,

and then she's under the covering of her husband. Is that antiquated? I don't care if you think it is or not. That's the way things ought to be, and that's the way I feel they ought to be. Well, and you might say, well, I don't. Well, fine, go do your thing. It's all right.

I'm not telling you you've got to be me. I'm just telling you that I just happen to believe that the Scriptures are a wonderful way to run our life, and when it comes to women, they should be under their fathers until they're under their husbands, until such a time as death parts them. And then they, as Paul says, they may find a nephew or they might find an uncle or somebody in their family. And if they can't do that, and you're talking about a woman that's over 60 years old,

and she's a good woman and not, you know, some wanton hussy, that she is to be brought into the church, and the church is supposed to take care of her. There's a whole system out there. But I'm telling you that our marriages bespeak to the society how we feel about these things and what's important to us. So when it comes to marriage, these decisions are made, and they're made in front of other people. They're not breakable.

They're not bendable. They're not, you know, take it or leave it. This is the way we do things. This is the way it's supposed to be done. So married in the eyes of God, throw it, toss it. There's no reason to believe it whatsoever. And here we have this woman that, as I say, perhaps there was no sex going on. It's really hard to believe, but perhaps that's true. I don't know, but nevertheless, Jesus didn't recognize her and he

as having any kind of marriage whatsoever. It doesn't really go into much more discussion than that, but of course Jesus does in other areas that we're going to discover as we go. But what happened was is that the woman became impressed with the fact that Jesus knew this about her. Now, I've often thought about this and wondering, how was this such a secret

that she didn't feel like he could have heard this in the barber shop? I don't know. How was it such a secret, yet this woman having five husbands that couldn't have been a secret it also couldn't have been a secret perhaps she was pretending to be married to the guy to number six perhaps that was the case and nobody knew that except them and now Jesus just comes out with it. So she says,

I perceive that thou art a prophet. Now, she didn't go into any kind of repentance at this point. She just says, if I'm dealing with a prophet, if you are indeed a prophet of God, I got some questions to ask you. Now, isn't this amazing?

She's not going to ask him to heal her dog. He's not going to ask him for, you know, a great recipe for lox and bagels. She's going to ask him a question about doctrine, about the law, about the difference between what Jews believe and what Samaritans believe. I think that's amazing

because this was just essentially not a woman's place, but she evidently has a little streak of independence in her. And so she says, the astonished woman replied, I perceive that thou art a prophet. And then she moves straight into, our fathers worshipped in this mountain. Now let me explain to you what this means.

At this particular point, when he was in Sycam, at this well, he was in a place called Mount Gerizim, or at least near this particular place. And she was telling him that our fathers, in other words, our church fathers, the leaders or the coaches, the people who train us religiously, they said that we're supposed to worship in this mountain. And you say, talking about the Jerusalem, talking about the Jews at Jerusalem, yet ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Now, again, you know, I just have to plead ignorance.

I don't know. I wasn't there. But I understand that the men of Samaria, the religious leadership, they had no trouble at all changing commandments to the point that they would feel no compunction whatsoever at saying, thou shalt worship in Mount Gerizim. And so they instituted this idea that if anybody were to have the Feast of Tabernacles,

the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Passover, Pentecost, any of these feasts of the Lord, that it is to be done in Mount Gerizim. She was a bit concerned about that and says, I know this has been a problem between our people and your people for centuries. What's the right thing to do? Now, I think it's interesting that she's asking a Jew this because a Jew can't answer in any other way

other than Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. This was obviously on her mind. She wanted Jesus's opinions about it and he's going to give it to her. There is a reason for all this. We're going to talk about it in the next episode. It's very interesting, but there was a time when God's people were really concerned about his calendar. Nowadays, we don't really care. You know, what do we need to know? We need to calculate Easter. I guess we need to know something about when Passover is so we can properly calculate Easter, but that's about all Passover means to the average Christian. Feast of Tabernacles, we don't do that anymore. You know, we've got Christmas, we've got Halloween,

we've got Thanksgiving. It just occupies the whole fall. We don't have time for these kind of things. Isn't this a shame? It's a shame that God gave us these beautiful holy days and they don't mean any more to us than that. Time is gone already. I want you to be right back here next time. We're going to continue with this particular subject here, dealing with the words of Jesus series. I'd love to have you. As I said, I want you to write to me. I want you to send an email to don at thinkredinc.com or write to Think RedInc Ministries, P.O. Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico, 87827. Hey, something else I want you to do. Call this particular television station and say,

hey, you guys are gutsy putting this guy on. Because frankly, they are. And I appreciate them for doing that. I want you, I want them to know that you appreciate it too. So give them a call, drop them an email, let them know. All right, see you next time. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com.

That's thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you