How To Be Better Than The Pharisees, Matthew 5:21-37 (Ordinary 6 Lent -2 Year A 2023)

Matthew 5:21-37

In last week’s Gospel passage from the preceding verses, Jesus said that his kingdom community was being watched by the world and so needed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

But he then went on to say a third thing: that the world needs to see that we are better than the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. We are not just forgiven people, we are people on a journey of transformation.

This week’s passage puts flesh on those bones. In these verses, Jesus gives us specific examples of how we are meant to be better than the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

Jesus does this by taking examples from the Ten Commandments specifically and the Jewish Law, the Torah, generally. You will have noticed there was something of a formula going on in each example in the reading. First, there is a statement along the lines of ‘You have heard that it was said long ago’, followed by the law in question, and then Jesus says, ‘But I tell you’ and he then proceeds to up the ante and make that particular Law even more challenging.

This formula of ‘You have heard that it was said’ followed by ‘But I tell you’ is one that several Jewish teachers used. It’s a way of saying, ‘I have a different and better interpretation of the Law than what you have heard up to now.’ Well, you can bet Jesus has!

What is he trying to get over? That it’s not enough to obey externally in our actions the letter of God’s Law, what God is looking for is more than that. He is looking at our character.[1]

Now it’s easy to see what sort of character faults Jesus is condemning here, but maybe we should take those and reverse them to see what character traits he is commending as worthy of his kingdom.

So let’s look at the four examples he gives that we read.

Firstly, when Jesus talks about the command not to murder, he identifies anger, putting people down, and broken relationships as character faults behind the outward action and similar to it. The positive quality he identifies as important for his followers is reconciliation (verses 21-26). Be reconciled to the person who has something against you before you come to worship. Be reconciled to the person who is taking you to court for a debt.

We know how this fits into wider Christian theology. Because God has reconciled us to himself through the Cross of Christ, he calls us to be reconciled to each other. The church is meant to be a community of reconciliation.

We reflect this at least in part in our denominational structures in the Methodist Church. If a formal complaint against someone cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties in the local circuit, it is passed onto the District. And the body there which tries to resolve the problem is called the District Reconciliation Group.

It’s a shame, then, that some people in our churches would rather complain and assassinate someone’s character, and even make up false accusations rather than seek reconciliation. And after I first wrote those words, I reflected on the expression ‘character assassination’ – you can see why Jesus links attitudes of the heart to murder there.

When I call for reconciliation I am not asking that we sweep differences or pain under the carpet and pretend they don’t exist. That is not reconciliation.

Of course, reconciliation can be difficult, if not downright painful. Sometimes we need a mediator to steer all the parties on a helpful course. It can help to have some mediators who have had particular training and gained certain skills.

But make no mistake, reconciliation is core to who we are as the Christian church. If we undermine it or despise it, then we are undermining our very identity as the church. We become not a place of life but of murder.

Secondly, when Jesus talks about adultery and the adultery of the heart that is lust (verses 27-30), he is calling us to the positive character trait of contentment. For what Jesus is doing here is linking the commandment not to commit adultery with the commandment not to covet. If a man lusts after another woman, he is lusting after someone else’s spouse or partner or daughter.

Jesus does not, of course, refer here to passing attraction, “but the deliberate harbouring of desire for an illicit relationship”[2].

When we are not content with our possessions, we covet buying more. When we are not content in our relationships, we covet someone else.

One of the problems we have with relationships today, and I think I’ve said this before, is that in the absence of belief in God, we expect too much of our romantic partners. We expect them to fulfil all sorts of needs – not just physical, but emotional too. We place a heavy burden on them that really only God can fill.

So when our loved ones fail to meet all our needs, the seeds of discontent are sown. And as those seeds grow, they burst through the surface of the soil as weeds that strangle our contentment. We begin to think that someone else would suit us better.

It’s a delusion. It doesn’t work. And if the thought is allowed to proceed to action, then two families can get destroyed.

As the church, we need to be a community that resists the lies of our world that say we shall only be satisfied with more, more, more. It bankrupts our bank accounts and it breaks up our families and relationships. Betrayed spouses may spend years before they ever trust someone again. Children suffer in their upbringing, however heroic many lone parents are.

I’ve quoted before in weddings the old saying that the bride’s aims and goals on a wedding day are Aisle-Altar-Hymn. But we need to accept one another’s imperfections and frailties, showing some of the grace that God has shown to us in Christ. We need to be less concerned with changing them for the better (and if they don’t, changing them for a newer model) than with changing ourselves.

Thirdly, when Jesus talks about divorce (verses 31-32) the positive character trait he has in mind is faithfulness.

We do have to read Jesus’ words here in parallel with what he says elsewhere in Matthew (in chapter 19) where he underlines sexual immorality as grounds for divorce, and what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, that if a Christian is married to a non-Christian and the non-Christian wants out, that too is a ground for divorce, but what is at the root of this teaching is that marriage is meant to be one man and one woman exclusively for life. The New Testament scholar Craig Keener says that Jesus and Paul

… exonerate those who genuinely wished to save their marriage but were unable to do so because their spouse’s unrepentant adultery, abandonment, or abuse de facto destroyed the marriage bonds.[3]

Jesus in his typical use of extreme hyperbolic language is not here sending abused wives back to their abusers, as I have sadly heard some Christian ministers do, but calling on those who have done wrong to mend their ways.

The other week Byfleet church hosted a wedding blessing for another church – one that doesn’t have its own premises. As the pastor took the young couple through their vows, I noticed that when he asked them questions such as ‘Will you be faithful to her/him until you are parted by death?’ their answer was ‘I will.’

Now that’s fine up to a point. ‘I will’ indicates both that it is a promise going into the future, and that sometimes love and faithfulness is an act of will. Because for all the joys of marriage, it will also be tough at times.

I much prefer our marriage service, where the bride and groom don’t say ‘I will’ but ‘With God’s help I will.’ God is ready by the Holy Spirit to help us with those challenging assignments he gives us.

And that isn’t just about marriage. It’s about us in the church being faithful to Jesus and faithful in our commitment to each other. Does Jesus see faithfulness to his teaching and to one another among us?

Fourthly and finally, when Jesus talks about whether or not you should swear an oath in court (verses 33-37), he has in mind the positive character trait of integrity.

Jesus’ banning of oaths wasn’t an unique position, but it was rare, and of course there are examples of oaths in the Old Testament, where the expectation is that if you make an oath you must keep it, even at great cost to yourself. It also warns against foolish oaths.

The intention behind Jesus’ teaching is probably similar to the ancient Greek view that your word should be as good as your oath. It makes me think of my late father’s experience of working in banking in the City. When the so-called ‘Big Bang’ happened in the financial world in 1987, my father bemoaned the fact that what disappeared overnight was the notion that a gentleman’s word was his bond. So much business was conducted in the city on a well-founded basis that if someone gave their word they would keep it. A handshake sealed the commitment of both parties. But this was replaced by lies and suspicion that had to be kept in check by laws.

Jesus is calling his people to be so known for their commitment to truthfulness that our reputation means no-one needs to ask us to back it up in some legal way. He calls us to remember that when we speak, we do so not merely in the presence of human witnesses, but in the presence of God. Yet how much do we live our lives in the knowledge that God is present? Should that not have an effect on our commitment to truth?

In Jesus’ day, some people thought it OK to break an oath and deceive people if they swore on something trivial, such as their right hand, but he wants his people to be different. In our day, we know how easily some people find it to engage in bare-faced deceit. Sadly in the last couple of years we have had too many examples of that in Parliament, but it’s not the only arena where we’ve witnessed this disturbing trend. Some people think they can say anything they like on the Internet, and there will be no consequences. They are wrong.

So if Jesus calls us to be people who are habitually known for their truth-telling, it is another way in which he is calling us to be distinctive in the face of the watching world.

The same is true of the other character virtues we’ve been thinking about today. His call to faithfulness comes to us in a society that has replaced lifetime faithfulness with serial monogamy, and now ‘throuples’. His call to contentment comes to us in a society where we are forever meant to buy bigger and better things, regardless of whether we need them, relationshhips included. His call to reconciliation comes to us in a society where we seem to have caught the American disease of ‘If it moves, sue it.’

How is God calling me to be distinctive as a Christian today?

How is he calling us as a church to be distinctive?

How indeed shall we be the light of the world?

[1] Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, pp 180-182.

[2] Op. cit., P189.

[3] Op. cit., p192.

February 12, 2023 0

Jesus On Marriage And Divorce (Mark 10:1-16) Ordinary 27 Year B

Once again some technical problems with focus in the video – sorry. Hopefully I’ll get this solved for next week.

Mark 10:1-16

In recent times, a dark underbelly of the Christian church has been exposed to the world, mainly through sex abuse cases, often where the victims have been children.

I have to say, it’s not the only dark side of the church I’ve witnessed. Today’s reading gives a first century example of something that still goes on in the church.

What is it? It’s manipulative politicking that seeks to put someone in an impossible situation. I’ve been on the receiving end of that. Worse still has been when accusers have made up false allegations against my wife as a way of getting at me.

I sometimes think that if I’d known in advance how nasty and slimy some church members would be, I’d have been reluctant to offer for the ministry.

Well, that’s a cheerful start this week, isn’t it? But it’s exactly what the Pharisees are doing to Jesus in today’s difficult reading. They are setting a trap. They are trying to discredit Jesus or put him in an impossible situation.

The Trap

Once again, I’m going to be critical of the Lectionary. Had we followed that strictly, we would have begun at verse 2, but verse 1 of Mark 10 carries some important information. It tells us that Jesus ‘went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan.’ That means he’s in the territory of Herod Antipas. In chapter 6, Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist has been beheaded following his criticism of Herod and Herodias divorcing their first spouses because they fancied each other. If Jesus now starts condemning easy divorce, then his life too could be in danger. It’s really quite cynical of the Pharisees to happen to come up with this question in this territory.

And of course Jesus could be made to look harsh and uncaring if he held a hard line. Jewish law allowed divorce.

On the other hand, what if Jesus sides with easy divorce? It would undermine and contradict the ministry his cousin had had.

And furthermore, the only argument among the rabbis was about what constituted legitimate reasons for divorce. They believed that a man could divorce his wife ‘Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.’ Some concentrated on the word ‘indecency’ and said that adultery was the only reason for divorce. Others concentrated on the words ‘in anything’ and said that the wife ruining a meal was sufficient cause for divorce.[1] On this basis, Jesus is being asked, which group of rabbis do you side with? And that reduces him to just another rabbi, no-one special – certainly not the Son of God.

What will Jesus do?

The Reversal

Jesus accomplishes a complete reversal. As so often in his ministry, he responds to a question with a question of his own. He won’t allow himself to be trapped by his opponents’ assumptions.

But this time he’s especially clever. He asks a question where he knows what his opponents will say, and just as they’re feeling like they’re on solid ground he will take the ground from under their feet as if it were quicksand.

‘What did Moses command you?’ (verse 3) is his question, and he knows the Pharisees will jump to Deuteronomy chapter 24. Sure enough, they do.

⁴They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’

And they think they’ve got him. Now then, Jesus, choose a side and choose your fate.

But no. Jesus is not going to allow those women who have been cast aside like an unwanted toy by their husbands also to be treated as the mere objects in a debate. And the way he does that is by exercising his divine authority, bursting out of their trap where they wanted him simply to pick one rabbi’s interpretation versus another’s.

⁵‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. ⁶‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female”. ⁷“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, ⁸and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this rule.’ Who could know that except One who shared in the life of the Godhead? This isn’t the best interpretation that a rabbi can come up with: this is an authoritative divine declaration. What Moses gave wasn’t an instruction that allowed Jewish men to treat their wives as disposable; it was a concession that limited the worst effects of divorce on women in a patriarchal society.

The Pharisees thought they had boxed Jesus into a corner. But Jesus has landed a knock-out punch.

And just to emphasise the point, Jesus takes the whole thing back to first principles – something the Pharisees failed to do, and something today’s Church often fails to do as well.

The Principles

To take things back to first principles and to God’s design for marriage, Jesus goes back to Genesis. He quotes from Genesis 1:27, the verse which declares that all humans are made in the image of God, when he says,

⁶‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female”.

In doing so, he establishes the equality of men and women in relationships. It is not that one sex owns the other.

And then Jesus goes into the other creation account in Genesis chapter 2, where he quotes verse 24, and draws a conclusion:

⁷“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, ⁸and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

Jesus very clearly tells his opponents that rather than look for all the get-out clauses, you should look for what marriage is about in the first place.

And what is marriage in Jesus’ eyes here? It’s between one man and one woman, exclusively, for life, and where the sexual act belongs as the sign (almost the sacrament!) of that lifelong unity.

The Methodist ‘God In Love Unites Us’ report tried to wriggle out of these clear conclusions by claiming that Genesis 2 was only about mutual help. Well, it begins there but it blatantly doesn’t end there and Jesus won’t let it end there. He authoritatively declares as the Son of God that this text teaches much more than that.

So where does that leave Jesus when it comes to the question of divorce?

The Problem

Jesus addresses this more when he goes into the house with his disciples:

¹⁰When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. ¹¹He answered, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. ¹²And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.’

In the context, Jesus is referring to the people who throw away their spouse because they are no longer wanted. That was what the Pharisees had in mind. That was the ‘easy divorce’ culture that had grown up in Jesus’ day because Judaism had taken the teaching of Moses as a permission rather than a concession.

And not only do we know from this passage that Jesus had a concern for those who are treated as disposable objects by their spouses rather than equally made in the image of God, we also know from Matthew’s version of this incident that Jesus specifically allowed divorce for those whose spouses broke their marriage vows by sexual immorality.

And it is this twin approach of Jesus – holding out high ideals while having compassion for those who are hurt – that shape our Christian approach to marriage and divorce.

On the one hand, we say to those who want to set out on this adventure that it will take commitment of a level they may well not have known before in their lives. Marriage takes work. It doesn’t just happen, which is why the modern idea that ‘marriage doesn’t work’ or ‘we just drifted apart’ do not sit easily with the Christian vision of marriage. I remind couples whose marriages I am taking that in their vows they won’t say ‘I do’ – they’ll say ‘I will’, which is both a promise and a commitment to an act of will. In fact, they say, ‘With God’s help I will,’ because they will need God’s help to live up to their vows.

On the other hand, we are not here to castigate those who are let down by a spouse who treats them as inferior and does not consider them worthy of loyalty and faithfulness. I once met a couple who wanted a church wedding, but the bride had been divorced after her first husband left her for someone else. She had rather cruelly been told by a vicar they had approached before me that she was ‘damaged goods’.

Can we – like Jesus – support and celebrate life-long marriage, while tending to the wounds of those who have been hurt by those with whom they had exchanged vows?

Because I believe that’s what he calls his church to do.

[1] James R Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, p299.

October 3, 2021 2

Good News in a Bad News Story (Mark 6:14-29) Ordinary 15 Year B

Mark 6:14-29

I expect that, like me, most or all of you have been besieged in the last few years with scam messages – some by phone, some by email, others by text message.

The other day my mobile phone began ringing and it identified the calling number as being in Czech Republic. I have no connections with that country. At a push, I could name one or two of their footballers, but that’s about it. So I ignored the call.

It nevertheless went to my voicemail, and I later retrieved a message accusing me of misusing my National Insurance number and demanding I press 1 on my keypad to speak to an officer. Well, not likely! And all the more so, given that much of my work in the Civil Service was to do with National Insurance numbers! I can’t say I lost any sleep over it.

But sometimes these messages hope to trick people by playing on a possible sense of guilt. That’s certainly the idea behind those messages which say they’ve loaded software on your computer and they know all about your viewing of pornographic websites. The criminals hope that someone who has done that will be so terrified that they will be duped into the scam.

When there is lurking guilt over our past actions, all sorts of things can trigger a response of fear. I think that’s what happens in our reading when Herod Antipas hears about the ministry of Jesus. He thinks that John the Baptist, whom he ordered to be beheaded, has been raised from the dead (verses 14-16) and perhaps he’s come back to haunt him or expose him.

This is not the same Herod as who tried to kill the infant Jesus – that was the so-called Herod the Great. This is one of his sons. Herod Antipas proved to be every bit as ruthless as his wicked father, but he didn’t have the same political skill. He wasn’t actually a king, but he liked to be known as one – hence ‘King Herod’, as Mark calls him, is an ironic title. He also loved luxury and magnificent architecture. Jesus summed up his character in Luke’s Gospel when he called him ‘that fox’[1].

If you want an example of his lack of political skill, the divorce which John condemns morally here got Herod into trouble politically as well. His first wife, whom he so cruelly dumped for his sister-in-law, was the daughter of Aretas, king of Nabatea, a region east of the Red Sea. Aretas took out reprisals against Herod, inflicting a crushing military defeat on him in AD 36. Three years later the Emperor Caligula had had enough of Antipas, and he banished him and Herodias to Gaul (modern-day France)[2].

Ultimately, the life of Herod Antipas is a story of someone who was never willing to be free of his baser instincts. They harmed him and others. Imagine the innocent people killed when Aretas took out his reprisals – all because Antipas wouldn’t control his lusts. Imagine the pain of John’s disciples and family at his execution, because Antipas wanted to suppress his conscience and also made such a foolish vow in front of witnesses to his daughter.

When we would rather pursue our own selfish desires there are costs not just to ourselves but to others as well. It’s surely clear that one of the reasons for the huge rates of family breakdown in our society is to do with that. I know the situation is more complicated than that, but by way of illustration consider this: Becky more or less forgot Father’s Day this year. Why? Because she had planned to go out that evening with five friends. None of those five friends had a father living at home, and so Father’s Day just wasn’t on their agenda, and hence Becky, mingling with these friends, forgot too. Obviously, I don’t know why all her friends’ parents split up, but inevitably I wonder.

The life of Herod Antipas, then, is a sombre warning for us about what life looks like and what life leads to when we live without the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Sin has devastating consequences. If we cherish our sin above other things, we wreak havoc in our lives and the lives of others, both those close to us and strangers.

And that’s without even talking about the eternal consequences of choosing sin over grace. In some respects the consequences in this life can be variable. Depending on how just the society is and how much power the offender has, someone may or may not get away with brutality or slavery to one’s own senses and appetites.

But eternity is different. There, a verdict is certain and so is a sentence. It involves eternal separation from God, the source of love, truth, and beauty. What kind of existence would that be?

But while that sentence may be certain it is not inevitable. What Herod Antipas needed was grace. It was tantalisingly close to him, if only he had accepted it. John the Baptist’s call to repentance was the call to put himself in the place where he could receive the free and unmerited grace of God. The ministry of Jesus that he heard about and which evidently troubled his conscience would have done the same, only more.

When we struggle with unhealthy desires, or with good desires gone bad, there is a remedy, and it is the grace of God. For in Christ God looks at each of us with favour yet in the full knowledge of our sin, providing forgiveness at the Cross. There is hope for us when we struggle with our besetting sins. There is hope for those who are addicted to their passions. That hope is found only in Jesus. To him we turn in our own need; to him we point when others are in similar need.

So, if one thing we learn from history in this passage is about our need of grace, what might we learn from the context of the reading?

You see, all we’ve done here is read this particular episode. But this story is the filling in a sandwich, something Mark does quite a bit. He puts one narrative inside another. So, if this is the filling, we need to look at what forms the slices of bread.

The filling ends with the decapitation of John, his head presented on the same kind of platter from which Herod’s dinner guests had been eating, and then we get the grief of John’s disciples as they bury his body (verses 28-29). The taste of the filling is pretty horrible.

It makes us think of persecutions right up to this day, where evil regimes and organisations seek to ‘decapitate’ a movement by targeting its leaders[3]. Only the other day I read the story of how the Chinese police had arrested the pastor of a church under false charges of fraud, so that he was removed from his congregation. It used to be that the Chinese authorities targeted the unregistered churches, but now they are also going after the churches that registered with the government as well.

And every week, my prayer email from Christian Solidarity Worldwide documents similar stories around the world – from obvious places like China, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran to Nigeria, Mexico, India, Sri Lanka and many other nations.

We often give thanks for the freedom with which we can worship God, but we live in a generation where across the world there has never been more persecution of those who own the name of Christ. It’s something the first readers of Mark’s Gospel would have understood well, living in Rome where Claudius had expelled Jews, including leaders of some early Christian groups, and where Nero was using the Christians as scapegoats. Many of them would face the same fate as John the Baptist.

As I said, it’s an ugly filling to the sandwich. It’s enough to cause despair.

But that’s why you need the slices of bread on either side. Because Mark has sandwiched this inside the account of Jesus sending his disciples two by two on mission to villages to proclaim and demonstrate the kingdom of God. In verse 13, immediately before our reading, we hear that they cast out many demons and healed a lot of people; in verse 30, the verse immediately after our reading, they return to Jesus and tell him all their amazing stories.

Therefore if the filling of the sandwich is a sombre warning that being a disciple can come at a terrible cost, the bread of the sandwich tells us that no matter what happens, no matter how much evil forces seek to decapitate the kingdom of God movement, the mission always goes on. God will not allow his mission to be defeated by the forces of evil.

Here is the good news for the faithful believing church. Whatever attempts are made to curb the influence of the Gospel, be it secular opponents, hostile groups from other religions, or even those within the church structures want the Gospel to capitulate to modern cultural norms, the assurance here is that the Gospel will prevail. We could lose our leaders, we could lose our buildings, we could lose our finances and charitable status, but Jesus will never stop building his church.

This apparently gruesome tale, then, is a good news story. There is good news for God’s faithful people even in the face of opposition and suffering. And there is good news for sinners who will cast themselves upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

[1] Luke 13:32

[2] On Herod Antipas, see James R Edwards, The Gospel According To Mark, p184.

[3] I take this idea from Ian Paul’s blog post What Is God Doing During The Beheading Of John The Baptist?

July 11, 2021 0

Sermons On Mark 10:2-16

I noticed last week that a lot of people were coming to this site to look for sermons on last Sunday’s Lectionary Gospel passage of Mark 9:38-50. If people want to find what I have preached in the past on this coming Sunday’s Gospel passage, they may struggle with conventional Google searches. The assigned passage is Mark 10:2-16. However, when I preached on it six years ago, I preached on Mark 10:1-16, because verse 1 makes a significant difference to understanding this difficult passage. So if you want to know what I’ve said on the painful subject of marriage and divorce, you need to go here.

October 3, 2012 1

The Wife-Swapping Club

(My last repost in this series. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to tell you what’s been happening.)

“If you get bored, then look at the windows.”

So said our leader at the beginning of a course I attended.

“They are beautiful stained glass, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them if you find what I say is boring.”

I didn’t need to gaze at the windows. But her self-deprecating comment reminded me of other occasions.

There was my friend Pete, struggling through a boring and lengthy sermon by an earnest and well-intentioned preacher. “I know exactly how many window panes we’ve got in the church,” he told me a few days later.

But there was also the time at college in Manchester. Once a year the college put on a lecture to which old students and friends were invited. A distinguished speaker was always invited. This was my first year. I wasn’t any the wiser.

He was well-known for his views on marriage. We, however, remembered very few of his views from that lecture. His inspiration level was that of window-pane counting.

Except that … we all latched onto one of the things he advocated. He said that given the fragility of marriage today, it should not be viewed as a life-long commitment but as something that should be reviewed by the couple after ten years. More like a fixed-term renewable contract. This was not what we expected to hear from a Christian speaker on the subject.

And so it was that over coffee afterwards, one of the students went around canvassing to start up the college wife-swapping club. He was generous enough even to include the single students.

Christians may be known for sharing (or we should be), but this is not an area to which our generosity is expected to extend. An early Christian leader called Tertullian said, “We share everything except our wives.”

I suppose our distinguished speaker wanted to take seriously the tragedy of relationship breakdown in our society. Being married now to a divorcée myself, I am not without sympathy to that concern.

I know too the statistics that suggest second marriages on average last fewer years than first marriages. I have heard the saying that a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

Yet for all this there is no way I want to model a relationship on the fixed-term renewable contract idea. My understanding of love must come from Jesus, whose love is unconditional, unchanging, and a covenant commitment of faithfulness.

Yes, that means relationships where we burn our bridges. But what kind of love is it that does not have risk and vulnerability at its heart?

February 19, 2010 0

Todd Bentley: What Does Restorative Discipline And Repentance Look Like?

I have been sitting on this post for three days. I’ve fiddled with it, wondered whether to publish it, but in the end I’ve decided to go ahead. Feel free to make constructive comments in response.

On Tuesday, Bill Kinnon linked to the latest sign of Todd Bentley’s return to public ministry. He has a new website that is a variation on his old ministry’s name. There is much talk on it of ‘restoration’. To me, it still looks like Bentley is rushing/being rushed (delete as applicable) back into the public arena.

Now I have to say I like the word ‘restoration’ when it comes to church discipline. It is Jesus’ intention. Church discipline is not violent vengeance. The aim is not ultimately to condemn but to bring someone’s life back in order in relation to God and the church. However, if some talk more about discipline than restoration, there is more talk about restoration than discipline on the new site, insofar as I can see. (Do tell me if I am wrong.) Yes, there are passing references to Bentley’s fall and the damage caused, such as in this article. However, it is also peppered with references to Bentley having ‘lingered with the Word Face-to-face’, so he still seems to claim Moses-like stature for his spiritual experiences. And that makes me nervous. Not because I deny the possibility of such experiences, but because it looks like they are being used to validate the spiritual superhero. How can you argue with someone who claims such an experience? It’s the charismatic trump card.

I see the references to having fallen from grace and past mistakes and so on, all on the same page that advertises all sorts of product. Guys I’m sorry, please give me eighteen dollars. What would be ‘fruit in keeping with repentance’, though? Some of it depends on how you weigh the thorny question of divorce and remarriage. I am not an ‘indissolublist’ (one who believes that any subsequent marriage after a divorce while the first spouse is still alive is automatically adulterous, because all marriages last for life whatever happens). I believe that the New Testament exemptions for divorce under certain circumstances only make sense if they end the marriage and leave the wronged partner free. Indeed, that was the position of my own wife when we first met. (See this sermon for an exposition of a relevant passage.)

But to me, I struggle to see how such exemptions could be relevant to someone like Bentley, although if I am right they would be true for his ex-wife Shonnah. From what I know (and I have to acknowledge there may be more that is rightly being kept from the public eye for the sake of Bentley’s children and ex-wife), I would normally expect that the Christian thing for Bentley to do would be to remain celibate. Sex is not a right; it is a gift. The same is true of ministry.

(By the way, I am not alleging that Bentley caused marital breakdown by actual adultery. I do not know, and I do not wish to pry. But what is undisputed is that it was the emotional involvement with another woman, and that has led to a new bond that should not have been made.)

There is an issue of public scandal to be addressed for the sake of public witness. For example, I have seen churches act decisively when scandal has rocked their congregations and their witness in the community. That such churches took action was respected by those non-Christians who had wondered about the standards of the church. Had the church not done so, there would have been a legitimate charge of hypocrisy. I don’t see an equivalent action in this case. Yes, Bentley had to step down from Lakeland immediately. But in only a few months he’s back back back. Is that right?

I am also aware that the ‘mainstream’ Christian Church has not always acted with integrity in this area. I know of an instance where a minister left his wife for another woman, whom he then married, and he was allowed to remain in the ministry. What message that sends to his ex-wife is deeply troubling.

And there is also then everybody else’s situation. None of us is without sin. Who can cast the first stone? If I am not perfect, what sin am I entertaining? How do we distinguish between the struggles we all have and outright flaunting of God’s word? Are there different degrees of sin? These for me are the most difficult questions of all. However, they cannot be used to disallow any possibility of discipline. The same Gospel – Matthew – that says ‘Judge not’ also has the clearest passages on church discipline. People have been clearly wronged. Relationships have been damaged. Injustice has happened here. The Gospel has been brought into disrepute. That must be addressed.

And if I am so imperfect, why even write about this? (I could even be writing for poor motives – like getting more hits for my blog.) That is because this whole sorry saga has unfolded in public and in the light of the massive public claims Bentley and others made about the Lakeland movement and the like, all of which were discredited by the actions of certain ‘apostles’ and Bentley himself. Following that, the restoration process is being played out like a reality TV show on the web. And as I’ve said before, you don’t do pastoral care like that. Right now, you still have to wonder what the motives are for getting Bentley back on platforms so soon. I continue to have some very cynical ideas about why, and I wish I didn’t.

UPDATE, 26th June, 2:00 pm: Maggi Dawn has a post here and she ends with some prescient words:

Rick Joyner’s voice welcomes you to the website, bigging it up with “God mobilising”, at this “strategic time”, “miracle power”, etc etc. There are links galore to Bentley’s teaching, and you can buy his books, and invite him to minister. OK, so allegedly he isn’t actually taking UP any invitations right now, as he is still in a period of “restoration”… still, you don’t launch a new website when you aren’t planning your comeback, do you?

That’s rather how I feel about the invitation/not taking up invitations issue.

June 26, 2009 63

Tag: divorce