Mis-Interpreting Doctrine ...

Start with a bad premise, and you will end in a bad place.  There are many books, authors, and scriptures in our collection of both Old and New Testaments.  But both the Old and the New “Testaments” are supposed to be testaments of the love of our God who is bent on our redemption and reconciliation with Himself.  If you remove that guiding principle of a loving God whose entire mission is to redeem you; the lack of love you apply when reading and interpreting scripture can be used to form some very hateful doctrines that focus more on punishment than they ever will upon reconciliation with our God.  That focus on punishment is a very human thing to do, a very human perspective.  You could go so far as calling it a natural one.  We are content when the wicked are punished for what they did to us, or to those we love.  But the evil in the heart of the wicked is not changed or removed from the hate they earn from us; no, if anything that mutual hatred is only amplified by more hate.  Evil is removed when it is confronted with the love of Jesus Christ that has the power to change how we think, how we love, and why we do what we do.  It is not hell that changes the wicked, it is surrender to the love of Jesus that does.  Hell can put an end to the life of one bathed in wickedness.  But Jesus can take that same life, end the evil in it, and show that person what it truly means to live once freed from the evil that is like a cancer upon our souls.

Throughout history, many have opened scriptures who did not understand who our God is, and what redemption is all about.  They have a notion of it, but no personal encounter with it.  So the doctrines they create; they reason are based upon texts in the Bible, sometimes a collection of them, where the conclusion seems reasonable, logical, and Biblically based.  Yet those conclusions should, and could have been denounced by pure common sense – if not by examining them through the lens of a loving Jesus Christ bent on our redemption.  We could begin for example with how women are depicted in doctrine.  The fact that Eve sinned first, and as a result, was asked to take a secondary role in the support of her marriage with Adam.  Not fighting with him, but choosing to defer to him, reminding him of the love of God, to help build him up and keep relations in the family harmonious through self-less service, this was a sampling of what was asked of her.  Men degenerate how women are treated throughout history until during the time of Moses they are completely secondary citizens.  Women could not hold property, without a male heir, or husband to affirm their ownership.  Was this what God intended?  NO.  The entire life of Jesus affirms this in how “He” treats women.  But in the minds of men, who lack the perspective of a loving God who would have sent His Messiah for Eve alone if it were Eve alone who sinned, it is now how scripture came to be interpreted.

Even to our day, the roles of women in the church are still debated.  Even though there have clearly been women who were prophets.  Women who first encountered Jesus even before He had ascended to His Father.  Women who first carried the gospel to the disciples who were still cowering in fear.  Women who headed the charitable services in the Early Church.  And women in our day who have clearly been given the gift of preaching and teaching.  Yet somehow, despite all the evidence of the Holy Spirit on these topics, some continue to believe “scripture” is very limiting on the roles of women in the church.  Not surprisingly those men who choose to continue to believe the roles of women are “limited” in the church, also have very definitive notions about the roles of women in a marriage.  These men preferring subservience by edict, rather than a woman choosing to serve her husband and family by becoming the chief support person of both.  A choice she makes only because her God asked her to, and in His wisdom, she finds a fulfillment no other choice could offer.

But a wife choosing to live in service is not about power or dictatorships, it is about redemption and reconciliation – the absence of self-love, and the embrace of the love of Jesus – through a choice.  When a man dictates this role, the marriage is doomed at the outset.  Treating women like property, and denying them property rights, is more akin to treating women like animals, not like people.  Even if culture develops traditions of these types, that does not mean scripture agrees, or that God wishes this.  It is the evil in the hearts of men looking for a doctrinal basis to remain evil.  Choosing to serve is a reflection of the love of Jesus.  Demanding what is due, is not the way of Jesus, nor should scripture be used to try to justify a “do it or else” mandate.  So the farther back in history we go, the more oppressive men are related to the roles, and rights, of women.  How marriage is seen then, in the days of Moses, is a reflection of how oppressive society was against women in general.  A bad premise, ending in a bad place.

Enter Matthew writing his gospel to his fellow Hebrews; it was the Sadducees turn at attempting to trap Jesus.  The Pharisees had failed.  They were up.  They determined to attack Jesus on two fronts; first on how a woman (treated no better than property) would wind up in heaven.  And of course implicit in that, a denial the resurrection could exist because of the kinds of problems it would create in perfection.  The Sadducees had come to the conclusion that life itself was a one-and-done proposition.  Doing good then, was a way to keep God from torturing or killing you early.  This is a punishment centric view of the Old Testament, and surprisingly similar to what some evangelists teach today.  But it is based on a bad premise, and it leads to a bad place.  Matthew picks up this story in chapter twenty two of his gospel.

Beginning in verse 23 it states … “The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, [verse 24] Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. [verse 25] Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: [verse 26] Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. [verse 27] And last of all the woman died also. [verse 28] Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.”  So many things to unpack here.  To begin, the laws of Moses, written in Deuteronomy to which the Sadducees refer should be understood in context.  The children of Israel were former slaves.  Their every movement was dictated by the will of the Pharaoh as carried out by their taskmasters.  They did not understand freedom, or what it meant to be able to do anything without anyone telling them “no”.  So the precepts Moses outlined in that book (of duties) were designed to put some practical limits around their societal behavior.

In those days, women were hardly treated better than cattle.  They could not hold property without a male heir, or husband to validate the claim.  That was NOT what God intended, but this was such a cultural norm, the people were nowhere near ready to abandon this kind of practice.  So the scenario outlined above by the Sadducees in such a callous way, was actually intended to benefit the woman in question – allowing her to raise up an heir to hold her property and namesake in Israel.  It was targeted at keeping her in the family (as a recent widow) rather than turning her out into the streets to find a stranger somewhere who might be willing to take her in.  In fact, as this duty or precept is written, should one of those brother’s refuse to marry her – he would be publicly ridiculed in Israel for failing to protect her rights through this arcane practice.  Was it ideal?  No.  Was it what God intended, or wanted for His precious daughters? No.  But it was a safeguard to keep them from having a tragedy of losing a husband become an even greater tragedy of losing everything they knew.

Ignoring the fact that Moses was actually trying to protect widows (for which he writes quite a bit more in Deuteronomy), the Sadducees present this as a resurrection dilemma.  The Sadducees are fairly certain there is no good answer to this riddle, and that they will humiliate Jesus while getting Him to acknowledge there is no resurrection at all.  But they would be disappointed.  Jesus responds in verse 29 saying … “Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”  Those words are haunting and they echo through time, all the way into the sanctuaries we visit each week while we worship God, and cling to premises that end up in bad places.  “YE DO ERR”.  Let that sink in for a minute.  These men were SURE of their doctrines.  They did not just casually read the scriptures, they lived in them.  They read every day.  They debated every day.  They honored the scholars among them who made new discoveries and debated the merits of each one.  They did not just stumble on their beliefs, their beliefs were the results of generations of scholars who reached the same conclusions.  ALL of them wrong.

Are we any different?  Do we become so comfortable resting on the work of our church forefathers, and the conclusions they reached, that no message from outside our walls can ever penetrate our thinking?  Are we so sure we are right about everything, we have no more room to learn, only room to recite.  But the words of Jesus to these church leaders echo down to us.  Ye Do Err!  We look at scriptures with the lens of punishment and an angry God, and therefore come to conclusions He never intended us to reach.  Just like they did.  What is more, just like them – we deny the POWER of GOD!  We do not account for it in our thinking, or in our doctrines.  Some would like to say that this is a specific example of Jesus telling the Sadducees that they are mistaken about the resurrection.  But they were also mistaken about marriage, the roles of women, divorce, the value of women, and what love looks like in heaven.  Worst of all they underestimated the power of God.  Perhaps we are all just as guilty on all of the above topics.

Jesus continues in verse 30 saying … “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”  First, there WILL BE a resurrection.  News I am certain they did not want to hear or accept.  Second, in the “resurrection”, not in all eternity, or the earth made new, or a hundred other points or descriptions we have about heaven, but at least during the resurrection and perhaps for a while thereafter – there will not be people getting married and more importantly nobody getting divorced.  Keep in mind how we think of this institution has degenerated a long ways since Eden.  And our notions of forever need quite a bit of adjustment where it comes to a single partner throughout eternity.  Being like the “angels” – can anyone tell me if angels have a special partner or not, like something we would refer to as marriage on earth?  Show me the scripture please that explains this, outside of this reference right here. 

What I do believe is meant by being like the angels is an understanding of perfect love we have no idea about today.  Perfect love you could think of in a number of examples.  Imagine every person in heaven looking at every child in heaven (babies, kids, rugrats, you know the younglings) and loving each one as much as you would have loved your own child.  Imagine every man loving every other man as much as you would your own father, son, or brother.  Imagine every man loving every other woman as much as you would your own mother, daughter, or sister.  Only the love of a special intimacy remains untapped in the scenario of perfect love, and the power of God might account for that quite nicely, as it is God who picked Eve for Adam in the first place.  But perfect love decimates the ideas of treating any woman as a second class anything.  Instead perfect love treats everyone else as the greatest person ever.

But Jesus was not content to leave the Sadducees in their error on their main topic of descension with the Pharisees and with the entire purpose of redemption and reconciliation in the first place.  So He continues in verse 31 saying … “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, [verse 32] I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. [verse 33] And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.”  Jesus points out, that without a resurrection, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be dead forever.  God is not the God of the past alone, He is the God of the present, and of the future.  There will be a future for them as when the resurrection comes, they will be redeemed and reconciled to the side of Jesus Himself.  Just as all the other children who sleep in the hope of our God will see.

The crowds were amazed at this.  Are you?  A bad premise leads to a bad place, but a premise based on His love can lead to an astounding place.  As a woman and wife, are you ready to make service to your husband and family the choice that brings you fulfillment every day.  Never seeking for what you deserve, or what you have earned, but only for what you can offer.  Separately, and having nothing to do with how your wife has chosen to live -  husbands, are you ready to choose to love your wife and family so much, that you would literally lay down your life for them, and while you draw breath find ways to demonstrate that love for them so that they never doubt your heart on any day they draw breath.  No wife should wait for her husband to live this way, before she reciprocates.  And no husband should demand anything from his wife, before he is willing to show her the full measure of his heart and dedication to her own.  It is a different way of thinking to decide “how” you are going to love regardless of what others do.  If this seems foreign to you, take your life to Jesus, surrender to His love, and watch what happens to you.  It is breathtaking.  And it is beautiful.

But the traps for Jesus had one more shot …