Bonus Features from Matthew 19

If my sermon was a movie, this would be on the DVD release as a bonus feature-- something that didn't make the final edit, but I believe it's still interesting and worthwhile.

Matthew 19:3-5

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" 4 He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'?

In the sermon I pointed to the significance of Jesus' phrase "Have you not read" in making the point that the Pharisees needed to re-read the Scriptures with different eyes to discover the answers they were seeking.

But there is another subtle reinforcement of the authority of Scripture as God's Word in these verses. Not that the Pharisees doubted this, but it is certainly a needed reminder for our day.

Note that Jesus' answer is that "he who created them [God]... said, 'Therefore....'" What's the point? Well, in Genesis 2:24, which is the source for the quotation in verse 5, the words are simply those of the narrator/author Moses, but Jesus attributes them to God. Thus, even though written by Moses, they are, as Scripture, just as truly God's words.

Jesus took the Scriptures, written by men, to be the Word of God. Don't you think it would be wise to take the same view?