The Bible Study Podcast, episode 416. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. We're still studying the sermon on the mountain. We're going to for a few weeks.

We talked last week about Jesus saying the fulfillment of the law, that not one stroke of the law will pass away until heaven and earth disappears, and about being salt and light.

And from there, Jesus went on and compared that hating your brother is like murder, that

lusting after a woman is like adultery, that both are part of the same thing, that both are

heading in a direction away from the way that God intends us. So let's see the verses today on

divorce, on oaths, on eye for an eye as part of this same theme. And he continues,

It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce,

but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her a victim

of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorce woman commits adultery.

These have been very difficult verses for the church, and different churches, different

denominations have dealt with them differently. Obviously, we know that the Catholic Church has

made a very hard stance on divorce, and we understand why. Look, there are verses right here that

say that you can't marry again after divorce, and we understand why. Look, there are verses right here that say that you can't marry

again after divorce or that it's sin. Now, of course, put this in the context of the whole chapter,

which also says that if I look at a woman with lust, I've committed adultery because I'm basically

I'm up a creek anyway, because that's a much harder verse for me to follow

than this one in some ways. Not that staying married and not that building a good marriage is an

easy thing to do. But clearly the tone here, as we get with the, it's murder to hate your brother, its adultery to lust after a woman, is that God doesn't desire for us to go into marriage or to be in a marriage and to be thinking about divorce.

That basically divorce is not in, in generally, with this one exception here made for sexual immorality, is not God's intention

for our marriages. And I think that's what I would take away from this is that God desires

for our relationships with him and our relationship for others to be healthy, and especially

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