For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Comment: My wife has just found a series of sermons by her grandfather. His writing was difficult to read and he never fully wrote out his sermons but tried to preach with certain freedom that having prepared faithfully you just preach from a list of points! I don’t know who kept the notes for this sermon which Jesus gave, but they just put down headline short notes. NT Greek, as I understand, did not have chapters and verses in the original books. They have been added. How did Jesus connect talking about hell to the statement ‘For everyone will be salted with fire’? I guess that it might be that hell is fiery, but why add salt? Maybe to ‘smother’ it, as we would with sand or a blanket? More likely related to the Levitical command to add salt to every sacrifice, most of which were burnt. Or possibly because He wanted His followers to put some ‘fire’ (saltiness) back into the ‘salt’ which their lives were meant to be in the communities in which they lived! The next phrase (“and be at peace with one another.”) again seems disconnected. Perhaps in our society Christ’s disciples do need to be stirred up to live in unity and love – peacefully!
And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them.
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Comment: The Pharisees question was no doubt meant to stir Jesus up. There were a group of people (mainly Sadducees) who were saying that divorce rules from Mosaic law were not to be followed. In fact even a not perfectly prepared meal was enough reason to divorce! (cf modern laws!) Jesus went straight beyond Mosaic Law to what God said when He first made male and female human beings. Matt 5;32 adds a bit bit more to the subject by adding an extra except phrase – stating that immorality, extramarital relationships is an exception. There are a number of very relevant passages in Scripture. Malachi has God saying very pertinent things for us to hear. Paul in 1 Corinthians also faces the situation when Gentiles were beginning to become believers. Sometimes partners who were not both believers just walked out on their relationship. What should the believing partner do then? If this is a big issue to you (and most of us are affected either personally or within our families with this issue. Prayerfully consider all the relevant passages asking the Holy Spirit to lead You into Truth!
Proverbs 6: 27-29 Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.
Prayer: Thank you, Father, that many of Your children give us good examples to follow in our marriages.
As I read it! 