Ethics & Religion
Column #1,920
June 6, 2018
(Third in a 3-part series)
"Who Is This Man?"
By Mike McManus
When Jesus was on earth, "Roman laws and social norms were designed
to protect the sexual adventures of married men," writes John Ortberg in
his outstanding book, Who Is This Man? He quotes a first-century writer:
"We have mistresses for our enjoyment, concubines to serve our needs and
wives to bear legitimate children."
A married woman who had sex outside her marriage was guilty of adultery.
The same rule did not apply to married men - unless he had sex with the
wife of another man.
The Roman physician Rufus prescribed sex to adolescents as a cure for
melancholia, epilepsy and headaches. In the Greek culture, sexual
relationships between adult men and younger boys, aged 12-16, were taken
for granted.
Jesus had a quite different idea: "Haven't you read that at the
beginning the Creator `made them male and female,' and said, `For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one
flesh. Therefore what God had joined together, let no one separate."
In effect, Jesus declared marriage Is a God-directed covenant that
reflects the "human capacity for self-transcendence and community,"
Ortberg asserts. "It is a joining of spirit and flesh. It does not serve
the state; it precedes the state."
Walter Wangerin wrote, "Marriage begins with a promise." A man and a
woman stand in church before family and other witnesses and before
Almighty God. They vow to remain together "for better, for worse, for
richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold till
death us do part."
"It is a lifetime promise, freely offered, fully embraced, joyfully
witnessed, painstakingly kept - that's what makes a marriage," argues
Ortberg.
The promise is not simply to avoid adultery and divorce. "It is to
pursue oneness on every level - physical, intellectual, and spiritual -
a oneness that does not diminish the individuality of the other but
makes it flourish," he adds.
A passage that rarely gets taught to young church people is this from
Genesis 3: "Adam and his wife were both naked and felt no shame."
In Chapter 4 we read, "Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became
pregnant and gave birth to Cain." She said, "With the help of the Lord,
I have brought forth a man." Interestingly, she doesn't mention Adam!
In the time of Jesus Corinth was a harbor town, with a temple dedicated
to the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. There were perhaps 1,000 temple
prostitutes. However, Paul wrote to the small Corinthian church: "Flee
sexual immorality."
Ortberg quotes theologian Beyonce: "Better put a ring on it." Diognetus
reports that Christians shared their table, but not their bed.
Paul was more eloquent writing Corinthians: "It is good for a man not to
marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his
own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his
marital duty to the wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The
wife's body does not belong to her alone, but also to her husband. In
the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also
to his wife...
"Now to the unmarried and the widows I say, It is good for them to stay
unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should
marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
What about divorce?
Paul's next words are clear: "To the married I give this command (not I,
but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she
does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.
And a husband must not divorce his wife."
Sadly, in this, the most Christian of modern nations, there has been one
divorce for every two marriages since the 1970s. And the marriage rate
has plunged by 57%. There were more marriages in 1970 (2,159,000) than
in 2015 (2,077,000). Millennials are not passing on America's
traditional Christian heritage. Three times as many couples cohabit as
marry, resulting in a 40% unwed birth rate.
The answer? Ortberg writes, "The same Jesus, who was a magnet for sexual
sinners who had flunked marriage was the same Jesus who redefined what a
marriage could be: `Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her."
Ironically, "the person who changed marriage in the Western world more
than anyone else, was himself never married."
___________________________________
Copyright (c) 2018 Michael J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers and
a syndicated columnist. To read past columns, go to
www.ethicsandreligion.com. Hit
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