Jesus' Radical Teachings on Marriage and Singleness

1. "And Jesus was also really clear that he called people to follow him and that following him would challenge every part of our lives, especially in areas where we don't resonate with him. And he still calls us, to follow him. And so I know that this is going to ruffle feathers and I just, I'm just going to, I can't say everything that needs to be said. Did I already say that? That my talk is already inadequate from the beginning? All right. So I just, give me grace and just as I've reflected, I'm going to try and just focus on what I think the heartbeat of this issue is for Jesus." [00:06:40] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "And so, what's underneath this here? What's underneath this is a view of marriage, that marriage involves a promise, a set of promises or vows, a covenant promise that these spouses will provide for each other, food, clothing, and sex. And if the husband consistently neglects, and you can see how very quickly we're on the verge of not just neglect but abuse, not providing food, clothing, and not having sex with his wife." [00:14:04] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "And so the first thing he does is he quotes, he quotes from the poem. that's the first mention of the image of God in the Bible. Full of Bible trivia this morning, aren't we, right? Where does the first time the image of God idea occurs in the Bible? Jesus quotes from it right here. God created humanity in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, multiply, fill the earth, and so on. Okay, so let's stop right here." [00:23:32] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "And Jesus says that's the point. If you get that, then that will affect your view of everything else regarding sex and divorce and remarriage and the definition of marriage. How you guys doing? That was like a hyper -dense theology lesson right there, but I think this matters. This matters because what you do in your practice with marriage or divorce or with your definition of marriage is you're assuming some view of what marriage is, and you're assuming some view of what humans are when you make a decision about who you are." [00:32:25] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "And so Jesus responds by giving his view on the debate. He gives his view. For Jesus, now that he's stated the basic principle, he's willing to enter into the trap in the debate. And so on. And what is Jesus' view about the meaning of the matter of indecency? He just says it. He says it. Sexual immorality. He says it in verse 9. Anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." [00:35:52] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Jesus takes the view that he does because he's talking to people who are perpetrating a practice in his mind that is oppressive and distorted, especially towards women. That a man can divorce his wife for any and all reason, but he doesn't want to divorce her. Every cause. And Jesus stands up for every wrongfully divorced and abandoned and abused and neglected woman, and he says Deuteronomy 24 refers only to sexual immorality." [00:40:02] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "Jesus has a fundamentally different worldview about the meaning of marriage. Did you see that? For Jesus, the meaning of marriage is sacred. It's to provide an image of the covenant love of God. Where a male and female, both reflecting the image of God, come together, they vow covenant promises to each other, and out of that covenant love, new life is generated. And Jesus says that that purpose is compromised by the any cause, any and every cause practice of divorce." [00:43:01] (32 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

8. "And then Jesus says this, and this, stop and think about this, and it will floor you just like it did me. Then Jesus says, there are other people who are eunuchs, as a metaphor, so to speak, who are born that way. So some people are born in such a way that they will not have sex, they will not get married, and they will not reproduce. Jesus doesn't speak about this as if it's negative. He just speaks about it like we all know this." [00:46:33] (30 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

9. "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven now so here we go here we go and we're back to the heartbeat of this whole thing jesus is saying there are some and he's talking about himself about his own choice to not have sex to not get married and not reproduce and why he's doing that because for jesus the purpose of life is not happiness the purpose of life is the kingdom of god and that human beings will fulfill their true purpose when they are so made like god's own character that they are living breathing images of the loving creator god and for some humans that will mean getting married because marriage in jesus view is a symbol of right it's a covenant symbol of the covenant love of god man woman two separate come together new life is generated but in jesus mind is getting married the only way to image the covenant love of god no no and this is this is a matter of historical fact jesus was the first religious teacher that we know of to elevate the role of unmarried single life to be a normal honorable significant meaningful way of life and early christianity was the first religious movement that elevated people not getting married as leading exemplary lives it's it's just as a fact of the history of religion that's the fact about jesus in early christianity and and so here's the rub for us is that in our culture to hear jesus say to hear jesus say you don't need to have sex to have a meaningful life." [00:47:28] (118 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )

10. "What does a life of singleness, whether you're straight, whether you're gay, it doesn't matter. What does a life of singleness dedicated to Jesus lead to? You have enormous amounts of time and resources free now to dedicate to serving others, to loving others in the name of Jesus. And the history of the church is marked by incredible, incredible heroes and heroines of the faith who have done that. And their lives were not diminished in one bit. But somehow we've grown up in a culture that makes that seem ludicrous and second rate." [00:54:45] (33 seconds) (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | )