Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

For a lot of you, today's reading may have hit a tender spot because Jesus touches on something that's really personal.

One of the things this shows us is that there's no area of our lives that is untouched by God,

no space he's restricted from or inactive in or that he doesn't care about and have plans for.

That's one of the things about sovereignty. It knows no bounds.

Sovereign means overall.

So when Jesus launches out with a sermon on divorce, some of you may have felt yourselves tense up. It's okay. He can be trusted. And if you read through his words and found that you didn't live up to them somehow, welcome to the club. The club is called humanity because that's all of us. We all fall short of Jesus' teachings, which is why he came to pay for our sins because he knows we're not going to nail it.

And he doesn't just pay for our sins. He takes our shame. Romans 8-1 says, there is therefore now

no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you read through his teaching on divorce

and felt ashamed, that is not what God speaks over you. That's either a lie from the enemy

or a lie from the pride of your own flesh. And you can rebuke both of those enemies with the truth God speaks over you. Despite all the wrongs we've done, he paid for our sins, he carries our sorrows, he takes away our shame. So let's see what he says about divorce. The Pharisees approach him one day and ask him a question that could be interpreted one of two ways in English.

I don't know if the question is quite as slippery in Greek, but this definitely feels like a trap right off the bat.

They ask, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any reason?

This could mean, are there any circumstances at all under which divorce is acceptable?

But it could also mean, can we divorce our wives all under which divorce is acceptable? But it could also mean,

can we divorce our wives for any old reason we want? Typically, the Pharisees are the ones who build a fence around the law, adding on to God's laws with their own traditions. But remember that they also

sometimes choose to ignore God's laws when it serves their own purposes, like with honoring their

parents. And the thing that usually determines whether they're adding or subtracting from God's laws when it serves their own purposes, like with honoring their parents.

And the thing that usually determines whether they're adding or subtracting from God's law is whether or not it's an inconvenience to them personally. Where they've added to God's

laws with their own traditions, Jesus breaks those traditions to show they're not the law.

Where they've subtracted from God's law, Jesus always dials it back in and points to the

heart. And here, with the laws regarding divorce, it seems like the Pharisees had loosened the reins on

...