Before we get to Jesus on divorce, we have to understand what Jesus is walking into. In his day, the school of Hillel had taught that a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason. The certificate of divorce Moses had permitted in Deuteronomy 24, originally given...
Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a claim that should have emptied the synagogue: unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and Pharisees were the religious overachievers...
Jesus tells us to tear out eyes and cut off hands. Nobody in his audience took him literally; nobody should today. Blomberg rightly calls this hyperbole, a deliberate overstatement meant to drive home a point that understatement would blunt. But hyperbole is not...
Notice what Jesus does not say in verse 28. He does not condemn the glance, the split second moment when an image crosses the screen of your awareness. Morris is careful on this point: the verb Jesus uses points to a present, ongoing action, not a fleeting experience....
The seventh commandment looked so clean from the outside. “You shall not commit adultery.” For the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, it was easy to measure. Either you had lain in another man’s bed, or you had not. Keep the line, keep the law. The commandment was understood...
