Do You Believe What Jesus Believed?

#4

To express confidence in Jesus Christ must go deeper than ordinary admiration. To say, “I like Jesus,” or “I’m confident He was a good man,” may be one’s first impression. But genuine trust in Jesus Christ must move beyond these initial feelings. To truly be a disciple of Christ means abiding in His Word, and “whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked” and “keep His commandments,” (Jno. 8:31-38; 2 Jno. 2:1-6).

Do you believe what Jesus believed about marriage?

When modern acceptance of divorce is common and when, even in most religious communities, there is dispute about marriage and divorce, you might think that New Testament teaching must be really difficult. Just New Testament teaching is very simple. The lack of clarity and confusion enters when men begin to “re-write” or spin what Jesus said.

He said: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matt. 5:32).

He said: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Matt. 19:4-9).

Do you believe what Jesus said?