Selections from Chapter 4: (Click here for full text)
The Church Can’t Do Without It
Jesus criticised those who abandoned Old Testament law
The preceding chapters have shown us that the Old Testament has some very useful and practical things to say about divorce, but we live in the New Testament age, and many people would say that we have to put the Old Testament behind us. It’s true that we cannot simply apply the Old Testament law as though nothing has changed, but Jesus called us to take note of every letter of God’s law so we cannot simply ignore it.
You may have heard the following story. I had already heard it in Christian circles when a Jewish professor from Jerusalem told it to me as something which actually happened to a friend of his in New York. Perhaps I have found the origin of the story, or perhaps his friend was just passing it on as a good story:
A semi-religious Jewish family went to a new synagogue and their eldest son, Adam, reluctantly attended the Sabbath School. Afterwards, over lunch, his father asked Adam what he had learned. At first he seemed reticent to say anything, but after thinking for a bit he replied enthusiastically:
"We learned about how Moses took his people across the Red Sea and defeated the Egyptians. He lined up his tanks against them, then sent amphibious craft onto the Red Sea to start building a pontoon. When it was finished the Israelites all ran across while their fighter planes gave them cover. The Egyptians chased them, but Moses blew up the pontoon and the Egyptians all drowned."
"Now, Adam," said his father, "I’m sure that’s not what the teacher told you!"
"Well, no – not quite," admitted Adam, "but if I told you what he really said, you’d never believe it!"
The Old Testament is just too old for some people. The culture it was addressing is now ancient and the laws it contains are largely unworkable today. No-one today can imagine putting a suspected adulteress through a life-threatening ordeal to see if she is guilty or not (as in Num.5), or treating a woman as unclean for 40 days after she has given birth to a boy, or 80 days if it is a girl (as in Lev.12). We do not sell our children as slaves (as at the start of Ex.21), or buy foreign slaves and leave them to our children in our wills (as in Lev.25.44–26).
Our culture is very different now – thanks largely to the effect of the Gospel – and many of these Old Testament laws no longer apply. Even some New Testament ethics are now out of date, because no Christian leader would send a slave back to his owner like Paul did with Onesimus, even if they sent him with a letter which was as wise and culturally transforming as the letter Paul sent to Philemon. And although some churches still insist that women keep their heads covered in church, the reason for this is no longer a question of common decency as it was in the days of the New Testament, when uncovering your hair was equivalent to wearing a bikini or less.
Despite the cultural changes however, believers today would not think of putting aside the whole New Testament, but some Christians do act as though the whole Old Testament can be ignored.
More in this chapter...
God has given us his laws to help us in a practical way. Imagine what would happen if God’s marriage laws were kept without exception for just one generation – all the sexually transmitted diseases would be wiped out for ever! So as well as providing a model for the world of the ancient Near East, the Old Testament law also provides a model for our modern world – because human nature has not changed very much!
In the following chapters we will look at what the New Testament says about the specific Old Testament law concerning the victim of marital neglect or abuse. As I have mentioned, some interpreters say that Jesus’ teaching brought the Old Testament law about divorce to an end, but we will see in the following chapters that Jesus and Paul actually affirmed it, and that Jesus criticised the Pharisees for changing it.
