"One Who Is Forgiven Much, Loves Much" - Jesus and the "Sinful Woman"

This amazing story of how Jesus treated a social outcast appears in Luke 7:36-50:

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This story is sometimes conflated with the story of the woman (John's Gospel says it was Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, John 12:1-8) who broke an alabaster jar of perfume over Jesus' head just before He went to His death in Jerusalem.  But that story is set at the home of Simon the Leper, not Simon the Pharisee.  (Matthew. 26:6-13 and Mark. 14:3-9 also tell the Mary story but don't name her). "Simon" was an exceedingly common name in 1st-century Palestine, so the different modifiers would be used to identify different people.

Other differences:  Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is never identified as a "sinful woman"  (i.e., a prostitute).   The perfume in Luke's story is never identified as being costly, as Mary's perfume was (its cost, not her reputation, was the source of the dispute in the Mary story). And Luke's story apparently takes place near the beginning of Jesus' ministry rather than near the end of His life.  Also, while the Mary story is explicitly set in Bethany (in Judea), this one appears to take place in Galilee, in a town called Nain. (Luke 7:11).  So I think it's pretty clear that this story in Luke is not about Mary and is unique to Luke's gospel.

However, the blurring together of gospel women is a well-established church practice, dating from the fourth century after Christ.  A Smithsonian.com article on Mary Magdalene (though it assumes-- erroneously in my opinion-- that there can have been only one woman in Jesus' life who anointed His head with perfume) details how Pope Gregory I (AD. 540-604) retold the stories in such a way that Mary Magdalene became the "sinful woman," effectively decommissioning her as a venerated, authoritative figure in the early church:

Cutting through the exegetes’ careful distinctions—the various Marys, the sinful women—that had made a bald combining of the figures difficult to sustain, Gregory, standing on his own authority, offered his decoding of the relevant Gospel texts. He established the context within which their meaning was measured from then on:

She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? 

There it was—the woman of the “alabaster jar” named by the pope himself as Mary of Magdala. . .  

Thus Mary of Magdala, who began as a powerful woman at Jesus’ side, “became,” in Haskins’ summary, “the redeemed whore and Christianity’s model of repentance, a manageable, controllable figure, and effective weapon and instrument of propaganda against her own sex.”

Despite this, it seems clear from the texts that the "sinful woman" of Luke 7 is not Mary Magdalene, nor is she Mary of Bethany. She is a nameless woman, outcast from society, who has her own remarkable encounter with Jesus. That encounter is what I am going to examine today.

I'm indebted for much of this to Kenneth Bailey, Th.D., and his book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, and David A. deSilva, Ph.D., and his book Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture.

The first thing to be aware of when reading stories like this is the fact that Israel, like most of the rest of the first-century Roman world, was a patronage culture, as succinctly explained by Truth or Tradition:

Ancient biblical societies functioned on a patron-client basis. As such, there was great inequality between the “Haves” and the “Have-nots.” The inequality existed in substance (possessions) and power and influence. As a result, the client needed the resources that the patron could offer. The patron needed (or found useful) the loyalty and honor that the client could give him.

A prostitute in that society was very much a "Have-not."  Jesus, even though He was a wandering preacher dependent on others to provide for Him, functioned towards the people in the role of a patron-- one who freely gave others what they needed, and who was to be given honor and loyalty as a result.  God was considered the ultimate Patron, and the recipients of His power in forgiveness, healing, provision and favor were the beneficiaries.  According to deSilva's book linked above, Jesus acted as the mediator of God's favor for the benefit of the people:

Jesus' ability to confer benefits of such kind derives from his relationship with God, specifically as the mediator of favors that reside in the province of God's power. . . The response to Jesus during his earthly ministry bears the stamp of responses typical of beneficiaries to their benefactors. (p. 134)

Whenever Jesus healed people, when He miraculously fed large groups of them, and when He declared sins forgiven, He was acting in the role of mediator-patron of God's blessings. The actions of the "sinful woman" towards Jesus in Luke 7 typify a beneficiary's response to a patron.  She had clearly encountered Him prior to this incident, because she deliberately brings with her the flask of perfume in order to honor Jesus by anointing Him with it.  In that honor-shame culture, the public honoring of patrons was the chief means by which their beneficiaries could return thanks.

Who knows exactly what their first encounter was like?  Just a few chapters earlier, in Luke 5:29, Jesus is seen eating and drinking with a large group of "tax collectors and sinners."  This woman may have been among them.  Her prostitution was probably her only means of supporting herself-- she could have been an orphan, a widow with no sons, or a divorced wife (women could be divorced by their husbands for pretty much any reason, even for burning food).  Though our instinct is to hold the men who took advantage of her situation responsible for her shame, she would not have seen it that way.

Jesus must have been different than any man she was used to encountering.

He must have treated her as neither an object of scorn nor as an object of self-gratification, but as a human being, a "daughter of Abraham" worthy of consideration and even respect.  When He saw that she wanted forgiveness and redemption, He may even have offered her a way out of her despised life. Perhaps He told her she could travel with His group and be supported out of their means.  Perhaps He connected her with another person who could help her to some other means of self-support allowable for a woman.  In any event, her biblical story begins with her appearance in Simon the Pharisee's home, knowing that Jesus has already considered her sins forgiven, and ready to do her Benefactor honor.

The rudeness of Simon the Pharisee, then, stands in stark contrast.

Kenneth Bailey's book linked above explains the cultural meanings that would have been understood by the original audience, which we tend to miss:

1.  The Pharisees had probably decided to invite Jesus to one of their homes in order to correct and mold Him, as a young rabbi who badly needed their wisdom and advice. They had already communicated (as I stated earlier) that they didn't like Him doing such things as eating with "sinners." The point of this dinner party was to shame Jesus into better behavior.

2.  Just as there are certain courtesies guests in our own homes expect, guests in homes of that day would have expected certain courtesies by way of welcome:  a kiss of greeting, then water and olive oil to wash and anoint their hands and feet before reclining at the low table to eat.  Simon offered Jesus none of these.  It was the same as if we were to open the door to a guest and then (in front of the other guests) turn away without a word, leaving the door hanging open for them to let themselves in, then ignore them when they speak to us and go on chatting with the other guests, making no room or offer for them to sit anywhere, and passing the refreshment trays over their heads without offering them any.  Jesus was quite deliberately being insulted.

3.  Jesus' response to this rudeness is to immediately go and recline at the table, without waiting for any older guests to recline first.  This was a probably a way of saying, non-verbally, something along the lines of "This is petty, childish behavior, so I'm assuming I'm the most mature person here."

4.  As is still traditional at Middle-Eastern meals, the lowliest members of the community are allowed to enter the room while the guests are being fed.  They can thus be beneficiaries of the host's patronage in feeding them, which accrues to his honor as a benefactor.  The woman would have entered as one of these persons, and would have been sitting against the wall when Jesus came in. She sees the way He is now being mistreated, and she is so upset that she begins to weep-- not for herself, but for Him.

5.  Her original intention was probably to anoint His hands and head after He had been washed and before He reclined.  This would have been an appropriate way to honor Him.  She did not plan to wash His feet (she brought neither water nor a towel).  But since (having been denied the washing) Jesus immediately reclines, His head and hands are now out of reach.  The woman determines to make up for the rudeness Jesus has just suffered, by washing His feet herself with the only means available-- her tears. By then kissing His feet, she is also offering an act of devotion so extravagant as to be a form of worship.

6.  Having no towel, the woman lets down her hair to dry Jesus' feet, thus willingly entering into the shame and public humiliation Jesus has just experienced by uncovering her own hair in public.  This mimics the behavior of a bride on her wedding night, which is a declaration of the ultimate loyalty to this man.  She thus opens herself to yet another rejection-- from Christ.

7.  What the woman has done is a blatant, non-verbal rebuke towards Simon and the other Pharisees.  By performing the washing ritual expected of the host, and by doing public honor to a person Simon wished to shame, she has turned the shame and dishonor back on the host (which was not how a lowly community outcast, there to receive food, was supposed to act!) and also has opened herself to attack from Simon and his Pharisee friends.

How does Jesus respond?  According to Kenneth Bailey:

Jesus accepted the woman's extraordinary demonstration, and in that acceptance confirmed her judgment regarding who he was-- the divine presence of God among his people. . . But Simon either could not see or perhaps could not accept any of this.  So Jesus turned to him (and through him to the entire assembly). . . The phrase "I have something to say to you" is a classic Middle-Eastern idiom that introduces a blunt speech that the listener may not want to hear.

 Jesus then tells a short parable in which the woman is identified with a sinner whom God forgives much, and Simon with a sinner whom God forgives little.  He thus reminds Simon that he, too, is a sinner, and ends up equating Himself with God the forgiver.  But the most extraordinary thing that Jesus does is this:  He verbally attacks the host for the same rudeness the woman has non-verbally (and very bravely) confronted.  Prior to the woman's involvement, Jesus was quite willing to simply convey His displeasure non-verbally as well, by reclining out of turn.  But now, as Bailey puts it:

Jesus shifts the hostility of the assembled guests from the woman to himself. . . Never in my life, in any culture, anywhere in the world have I participated in a banquet where the guest attacked the quality of the hospitality! . . . Jesus attacks Simon in public in his own home.  He is not a fool and must have a very good reason for launching such a public attack. . . By aggressively defending the woman, Jesus endorses her willingness to get hurt for him. . . (pp. 256-257) 

Jesus at last speaks to the woman, reconfirming her forgiveness by saying, "Your sins have been forgiven."  A rabbi was strictly warned again and again not to talk to a woman in any public place, not even to his own wife.  Jesus violates that dictum as he speaks to the woman with his word of reassurance. . . Simon and his friends refuse to follow Jesus' lead and shift their focus from the sin of this woman to her response to grace.  Simon focused on the woman's mistakes.  Now the invited guests focus on Jesus' "mistakes." . . . For Jesus, true prophethood involved getting hurt for sinners by confronting their attackers.  As the story ends, Simon is under the glass and is challenged to accept offered forgiveness, respond with love and revise the default setting of his outlook on the world. (pp. 258-259)

This is a story of a very courageous, faith-filled woman, and Jesus' final words to her, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace," are a tremendous affirmation of her dignity and worth.  His championing of the woman even goes so far as to deflect to Himself the anger she has incurred.  It is in more ways than one that He suffers on our behalf.

I myself have never been a prostitute, but I know what it is to be rejected and shamed by a roomful of people.  This story has resonated deep in my heart since I first heard it as a young, socially awkward high school girl.  Jesus' willingness to come to the defense of a social outcast-- His determination to enter into solidarity with her through unacceptable social behavior of His own--- reveal His willingness to come to my defense and His lack of concern with the social norms that labeled me an outcast.   As the Smithsonian.com article goes on to say:

Jesus’ attitude toward women . . . was one of the things that set him apart from other teachers of the time. Not only was Jesus remembered as treating women with respect, as equals in his circle; not only did he refuse to reduce them to their sexuality; Jesus was expressly portrayed as a man who loved women, and whom women loved.

Singer-songwriter Don Franciso probably said it best, retelling this story in a way that still makes me choke up whenever I hear the song:

Her sins were red as scarlet
But now they're washed away
The love and faith she's shown
Is all the price she has to pay
For the depth of God's forgiveness
Is more than you can see
And in spite of what you think of her
She's beautiful to Me.

I hope that wherever there is rejection, I too can learn to follow my Savior in championing the rejected and bringing them acceptance like this.

Christian Cliches: "Don't Cause Your Brother to Stumble"

This is the beginning of a series on various catchwords and cliches that Christians (particularly evangelical ones) are fond of using.  Like most oversimplifications, however, they usually give an inaccurate or one-sided view of the particular issue they purport to be about-- and often, they are based on misunderstandings of the Bible text(s) they are taken from.

"Don't cause your brother to stumble," is the first one I'm going to focus on.  This comes from Romans 14:21, "All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble," and 1 Corinthians 10:31-33, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.  Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God, even as I try to please everybody in every way.  For I am not seeking my own good, but the good of many, that they might be saved."*  The greater context of both these verses is whether Christians should eat meat that has been offered to idols-- which is not so much a problem nowadays, so the real issue is how this teaching should be applied today.

Twenty years ago, the way I usually heard this cliche used was in terms of drinking alcohol. Christians shouldn't drink, the idea went, because some people are problem drinkers or alcoholics, so in order to keep them from stumbling, we just shouldn't imbibe at all (even, for some reason, if there was no one in our group who actually had a drinking problem).   Of course, this was in reality a very American-evangelical notion (rooted in the Temperance Movement of the late 19th/early 20th century), because people in Europe, Christian or not, have always had a much more casual and non-uptight relationship with alcohol.  And American evangelicals have gradually loosened their attitudes in this area in recent years, too, so that you hardly ever hear "Don't cause your brother to stumble" used in this context.

Today, the way the cliche is most often used is not to discuss anything we imbibe or partake of, but to advise women to dress modestly, so as not to tempt Christian men to lust after them.

The Her-Meneutics article How "Modest is Hottest" is Hurting Christian Women puts the idea in a nutshell:

The Christian rhetoric of modesty, rather than offering believers an alternative to the sexual objectification of women, often continues the objectification, just in a different form. . .Too much skin is seen as a distraction that garners inappropriate attention, causes our brothers to stumble, and overshadows our character. Consequently, the female body is perceived as both a temptation and a distraction to the Christian community. . . (Emphasis added)

Another Her-Meneutics article, A Dad's Perspective: Why I Tell My Daughters to Dress Modestly, shows the reasoning behind applying these verses to women's dress:

Paul reminds us that, as all of Scripture does, that in all that we do, we have an obligation not only to ourselves but to others as well. This message has obvious intersection with modesty. Our bodies are not sinful or problematic—they are created by God and are beautiful things. Still, for many people, the bodies of others are tempting and cause them to think about that person in an objectified, sexualized light. This is surely more the fault of the one doing the lusting than anyone else. . . [but] we're presented with a quandary—bodies are beautiful, and yet they often cause us to think and act in sinful ways, so what do we do? . . We do whatever we can to prevent other beloved brothers or sisters from being stumbled. (Emphasis added)

To be fair, this article attempts to balance the message to women by enjoining men also to dress modestly.  But the fact remains that the primary message of the article is to women, and even though it is declared to be "more the fault of the one doing the lusting than anyone else," responsibility is also placed on the ones being lusted after to "prevent" someone from "being stumbled" (whatever that means)-- because if someone is thinking about someone in an "objectified, sexualized light," it's because they have been "caused" to do so. 

But is that idea of "cause" in the original texts?  And is it really appropriate to apply these texts about foods and eating, to women's bodies and what they wear? 

In 1 Corinthians 10:32, the word translated "do not cause anyone to stumble," is actually a single descriptive word, transliterated as "aproskopos."  The King James Version (KJV) renders this, "Give none offence."  It means "having nothing that anyone could strike [their foot] against."  The word in Romans 14:21 has the same root: it is the verb "proskopto," meaning "to strike against; to stumble." It is coupled in the original text with the verb "skandalizo," meaning "to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way."  The KJV renders it, "whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended."

The noun forms of these words are found in Romans 14:13: ". . . make up your mind not to put any stumbling block ("proskomma") or obstacle ("skandalon") in your brother's way."  Interestingly, a "skandalon" was literally the word for a trap or a snare.  These two words, with the added word "stone," are used of Jesus as a "stumbling stone" for non-believers in Romans 9:32-33.

What is missing from these texts is any actual word for "cause."  Clearly a person who puts an obstacle in someone's way that they might stumble over is responsible for putting it there-- but said person has not actually "caused" the other person to fall.  To blame Jesus because people stumble over Him is contrary to the most foundational beliefs of Christianity.

Words mean things.  The word "cause," particularly in our modern, linear way of thinking, is part of a chain of cause-and-effect that once started, cannot be stopped without another cause intervening that makes the process stop.  The KJV does not use the word "cause" in any of these texts, nor do most of the older translations.  The newer ones, like the NIV, the ESV, and NLT, all add the word.  The result is, I think, that in a way not considered by the original audience nor by readers of these texts in earlier English translations, modern readers find themselves holding other people responsible for their own stumbling.  "You made me do it!" is an attitude that women in particular find themselves confronted with, whenever they wear something that a man finds attractive or arousing.

What does it feel like when a young woman first truly experiences the male gaze?  When she understands that no matter what her intentions, many men are going to view her body as a tempting object?  That if they're Christian men and they feel attraction or arousal, they'll believe that means they have stumbled-- and if they have stumbled, it's because she caused them to?

Blogger Samantha at Defeating the Dragons illustrates this poignantly in her story:

It was Easter morning, and it was the first time I had owned a new dress– a pretty dress– in years. I felt elegant, delicate, a crocus pushing up through the snow. The chiffon skirt fluttered below my knees, and the light, cool fabric felt wonderful against my skin in hot, humid Florida. I walked into church that morning feeling like I was finally taking my first steps out of girlhood, and I felt pretty.

 After church was over, the pastor’s son confronted me in the dirt parking lot.

“Sam… Sam, I need to talk to you.”

I turned to face him, the pit of my stomach clenching. Somehow… I could feel what was coming. It was stamped all over his face, in the way he hung his head, in how he fiddled with the comb he always carried in his pocket.

“Sam… I, I really just don’t understand. The skirt you’re wearing– it,” he couldn’t look me in the eye as his voice broke.

“It caused me to stumble.”

I didn’t really hear anything after that– it was like he was far, far away, his voice coming to me from a distance and his face was frozen and warped. I caught snatches of “why would you do this to me? to yourself?” and the glow that had been inside of me all morning… it broke.

The second we arrived home from church, I dashed into my bedroom. In a frenzy driven by shame, by humiliation, by fear, I tore off that dress– the dress I had put on that morning, the dress that had made me feel that for once I could be pretty– and threw it into the dark corner of my closet and slammed the door shut. I crumpled to my bedroom floor, staring at those shut doors, and cried. (Emphasis in original)

That's how it feels.  Thank you, Samantha; a story is worth a thousand pictures.

But the passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians are actually talking about something you do that tempts someone else (who can't do it in good conscience) to do it too.   Being a woman, by contrast, is something you are.  And it's a fact that (especially if you're young or have female parts which are more rounded) no matter how you dress, someone somewhere is going to find it a stumbling block.

So how were these texts most likely to have been understood by the original readers?  Why was it that eating meat sacrificed to idols was considered to be putting a stumbling block in another's way?

First, it's important to remember that whereas modern Western culture is largely based on an underlying foundation of Christianity (going to church, at least at Christmas and Easter, is thought normative, as are these holidays themselves), Christians in ancient Rome and Corinth lived in a much different world, where the feast days and the center of worship were around entirely different gods. As  PBS's Frontline website puts it:

We have to remember that religion in the ancient world is very much a part of public life. They had no idea of a separation of religion and state. Indeed quite the opposite. Religion was one of the most important features of the maintenance of the state. One offered sacrifices on certain days as a part of the celebration of the founding of the state. One offered sacrifices on the birthday of the emperor. Cities very often mounted these enormous celebrations to celebrate the emperors and all the populace would have been expected to come and join in and for most people you wanted to join in. After all, this would have been a public celebration. A great festival....

To a newly-converted Christian in that culture, thinking of the Emperor and the Greco-Roman pantheon as real dieties for worship, was natural-- and learning not to think of them that way was hard.    That's why Paul says a few chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians, "We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and there is no God but one. . . But not everyone knows this.  Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled." (1 Cor. 8:4-7)

Older Christians, then, as brothers and sisters of the newly converted ones, would be bound by the expectations of kinship to aid their younger siblings.  The Kruse Kronicle's in-depth study of the "Household of God" as a major theme of the Bible, describes the ancient concept of brotherhood as understood in Paul's day:

The only familial relationship that seems to have been relatively free of contractual and utilitarian concerns was between siblings and in particular brothers (and indeed this was true of cultures throughout the Ancient Near East.) Brothers were assumed to be of one mind and in complete accord. (Emphasis added)

Another article in the same series shows how the concept of family (and particularly brotherhood) was applied to Christians, in order that they would see one another as fellow-members of a spiritual family:

The fictive family is Paul’s primary metaphor for instilling unity among believers and uniting them in common mission. . . Paul’s use of the metaphor seems to be used most frequently in his letters to the Corinthians, then Romans. .  . . 

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 8:9-11 to talk about how more mature Christians (whose consciences permit them to eat meat sacrificed to idols) are to act towards younger believers as older brothers: 

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. (Emphasis added)

Since brothers were to be in complete accord, seeing an older brother eating in an idol's temple would be a signal to a younger brother that he should do the same-- and, since he has not fully left behind him the emotions connected to his former worship of other gods, he would thus be ensnared into violating his own conscience.  

The mores of ancient Near-Eastern hospitality would also play a part in this ensnarement.  It was common in the culture for families to eat together of foods which were first offered to gods during religious observances.  A newly-converted Christian invited into a home where this was what was for dinner, would be conflicted in how to respond. This Santa Clara University article explains:

Just as the host is gracious, the guest is also obliged to be gracious. Whether an invitation to break bread is accepted or rejected is fraught with social implications. . . [W]hen it comes to basic humanity, no food is unworthy and all offers to share are equal. Rejecting an invitation to eat may imply an unwillingness to acknowledge the host as basically equal or valued as a human being.

In many cases the situation of being offered meat sacrificed to idols would have occurred in just such a host-guest situation.  The younger Christian guest would be trapped between the desire to not offend his host and refuse to eat, and his own belief that eating would in some sense mean a return to his former idol worship. Older Christians were being cautioned not to put their younger brothers and sisters in this type of a bind.  This was different from claiming that they were causing their younger brothers to sin-- the passages don't do that.  But Christians were enjoined not to put traps, snares or stumbling blocks in one another's way.

Conversely, when the New Testament actually talks about lust, it doesn't use the language of stumbling blocks at all (and it talks about lust far less often than it talks about food offered to idols). The principal place is Jesus' words in Matthew 5:27-28:  "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." 

Again the NIV obscures the sense of Jesus words by turning "looks at a woman to lust" into "looks at a woman lustfully."  "Lustfully" is an adverb describing the way a person looks at something.  The original Greek uses a verb meaning "to lust" plus a preposition that according to BibleHub's Greek lexicon has to do with "moving toward a goal or destination."  Intent is a clear connotation of this particular form of "to," as is also used in Matthew 6:1: "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to ("pros") be seen by them."  A better rendering into our English to contain this sense would be "in order to."

Lust is not simple attraction or even arousal, which are natural and often involuntary responses of our bodies, which God created to be sexual.  Lust isn't something you feel, it's something you do.  Lust is when you look at someone you're attracted to in terms of gratifying yourself sexually with them.  It's not about physical attraction, it's about self-gratification.  It's about looking at a person not as a person, but as an object of self-satisfaction.

Because of this, the solution to lust cannot be any external thing another person does or doesn't do. The solution is to change our attitude about the other person.  And in general, it's about men changing their attitudes about women.  She isn't causing you to stumble into lust.  Lust is something you're choosing to do with your feelings of attraction.  And if you're feeling attracted but not choosing to look at her in terms of your own gratification, you're not lusting at all.

Romans 14:21 and 1 Corinthians 10:32 are very problematic to try to apply to women's clothing choices.  She's not putting you in a bind by doing something that you feel compelled by ties of brotherhood or hospitality to do too, and that if you did it, would violate your conscience.  She's simply wearing clothes on her body-- which God created and called good.

The Her-meneutics article "How Modest is Hottest Hurts Christian Women" (linked to above) affirms:

[T]he church needs to overhaul its theology of the female body. . . Women's bodies are not inherently distracting or tempting. On the contrary, women's bodies glorify God. . . He created the female body, and it is good.

So -- if one of the words for "stumbling block" actually refers to a trap or snare, what does that mean for women who find that no matter what they do, no matter how they dress, they can be blamed for "causing their brothers to stumble"?  Doesn't this put a woman in a bind?  Doesn't it tempt her to look at herself in terms of being an object for sexual gratification, thus denigrating the image of God in her?

Christian brothers-- please stop putting this stumbling block in your sisters' way.


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*All Bible quotes are from the New International Version, 1984, as this is on the whole the version most familiar to evangelicals. 

Even the Dogs Eat the Crumbs: Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician Woman

Matthew 15:21-28 tells this story:


Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."  The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.  He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”  “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

For years I didn't know what to think of this story.  It looked like Jesus was first ignoring, and then insulting, a poor, desperate woman-- for no other reason than that she was a Gentile.  It looked like she obtained healing for her daughter only after submitting to humiliation by agreeing that she and her people were little more than "dogs."  If Jesus is really the compassionate Savior of all mankind, how could He be so racist and cruel?  

But one of my general principles of Bible interpretation is to read passages like this in light of passages that are easy to understand.  Jesus is consistently portrayed elsewhere in the Gospels as ready to help any sufferer who came to Him, including Roman soldiers, tax collectors, and lepers.  When something doesn't seem to fit, the key is to look deeper.

As I discussed in my earlier post Assumptions Make You-Know-Whats Out of You and Me, the reason some Bible passages seem jarring and out of place, is that we come from a different cultural context.  Things the original writers and readers took for granted and felt no need to explain are mysteries to us, which can make us completely misunderstand what is actually going on.

So, in looking deeper, I found three aspects of Ancient Near East (ANE) culture that shed significant light on what Jesus and the woman He encountered were actually doing.

1.  Community.

Kenneth Bailey's book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes examines this story in Chapter 16.   He says:

"A critical component in both the parables of Jesus and the dramatic stories about him is the ever-present community.  In much current reflection on many of these texts, the community is ignored.  Contemporary Western society is highly individualistic.   Most of the societies in the majority world still function as tightly knit communities. . . That community gives identity and profoundly influences both attitude and lifestyle. In the stories about Jesus, the surrounding community (on- or offstage) is a critical component in all that takes place and its presence must be factored into any interpretive effort."

Bailey points out that this story is not simply about an interaction between Jesus and a foreign woman.  The disciples are the audience, and Jesus' words and actions must also be interpreted in light of whatever lesson He intended to impart to them.   (The listeners/readers of this story both as it was told and written down were also part of the tellers'/writers' intended audience.)   Bailey points out that both to the disciples and to the original hearers of the story, Jesus' interaction with this woman (who came out to him herself and was therefore probably a poor widow with no one to send in her place) would raise parallels with the story of Elijah and the starving widow of Sidon (1 Kings 7:7-16).  Jesus had spoken of this Elijah story in the synagogue when He announced Himself at the beginning of his ministry, in Luke 4:25-27: "And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it did not rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land.Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon."  Jesus intended that His ministry be compared with that of Elijah, and that is just what the disciples would have done.

The initial response of Jesus to this foreign woman-- not answering her a word-- was entirely in accordance with the norms of the day, and the disciples knew it, which was why they asked Jesus to do the expected thing and send her away.  But Bailey points out that in the presence of this woman's suffering, and with their understanding of Jesus as a prophet, "such ethnocentric views were inevitably uncomfortable."  By interacting with this woman first within the social norms, and then by stepping outside them, Jesus was teaching His followers a new way to respond to foreigners-- and to women.

2.  Socio-Economics. 

Jane E. Hick's online article in the Lutheran magazine Word and World, entitled Moral Agency at the Borders: Rereading the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman, points out:

"Tyre was a well-known commercial center with significant trade relations along the Mediterranean. . . Tyre would have owned surrounding territories and could have claimed agricultural proceeds from these, but it would also have used its considerable clout and wealth to acquire surplus from Jewish villages, sometimes leaving less than enough for those who actually worked the land. One can imagine that the exploitative situation was exacerbated during times of drought and famine; urban centers likely took their allotment of food first, leaving shortages of food in the countryside."

Even if she was poor, the Syro-Phoenician woman was a still a member of a Hellenized (Greek-cultured) group which was known for exploiting the nearby Jewish community.  Hicks goes on to say, "Given these underlying power dynamics, Jesus’ household metaphor in which the bread goes first to the children of Israel would be understood by early listeners as a reversal of the reigning order."

Hellenized cultures such as this woman's would be well-versed in the teachings of Aristotle, to whom all others were barbarians, socially on a par with slaves.  Though the Gospel of Matthew reflects Jewish contempt of the woman as a "Canaanite," a descendant of the peoples originally displaced by the Jews, the fact remains that the contempt between these two people-groups would have been mutual.  The Syro-Phoenicians would have viewed the Jews as "dogs," and here in Syro-Phoenician territory, Jesus might very well have been ironically turning the prevailing attitude on its head for the woman to see and acknowledge.  His lesson in racism would thus not have been just for the disciples, but for her.

3.  Honor and Shame.

David A. deSilva's book Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture states in Chapter 1, Honor & Shame:

"The culture of the first-century world was built on the foundational social values of honor and dishonor. . . Those living or reared in Asiatic, Latin American, Mediterranean or Islamic countries have considerable advantage in their reading of the New Testament in this regard, since many of those cultures place a prominent emphasis on honor and shame. Readers living in the United States or Western Europe may recognize immediately that we live at some distance from the honor culture of the first-century Greco-Roman world (including the Semitic peoples in the East). In our culture the bottom line for decision-making is not always (indeed, perhaps rarely) identifying the honorable thing to do. In the corporate world, for example, the “profitable” frequently acts as the central value. Considerations of right and wrong are also prominent, but these are based on internalized values or norms rather than values enforced by overt approval or disapproval by the larger society. Typically we do not talk about honor and shame much. . . ." pp. 23, 25-26.

In the cultures of both the Jews and the Syro-Phoenicians, males and females gained honor in different ways.  Males gained honor by deeds of courage or generosity in the community, while women gained honor by maintaining the integrity of their privacy within the home and family.  DeSilva states:

In the ancient world, as in many traditional cultures today, women and men have different arenas for the preservation and acquisition of honor, and different standards for honorable activity. Men occupy the public spaces, while women are generally directed toward the private spaces of home and hearth. When they leave the home, they are careful to avoid conversation with other men. The places they go are frequented mainly by women (the village well, the market for food) and so become something of an extension of “private” space. In the fifth century B.C., Thucydides wrote that the most honorable woman is the one least talked about by men (Hist. 2.45.2). Six hundred years later Plutarch will say much the same thing: a woman should be seen when she is with her husband, but stay hidden at home when he is away (“Advice on Marriage” 9). Both her body and her words should not be “public property” but instead guarded from strangers." p. 33

Kenneth Bailey points out in Jesus Through Middle-Eastern Eyes that, just as no self-respecting woman would speak to a strange man in public, no self-respecting rabbi would speak to a woman in public (p. 221).  Jesus quite frequently ignored this prohibition: discussing theology with the woman at the well in John 4:1-42; assuring the woman who washed His feet with her tears that her sins were forgiven in Luke 7:36-50.  Here He seems at first to obey the social barrier, and then breaks it.  Why?

Bailey reminds us that in calling out to Jesus using the title "Lord, Son of David," this woman is using a Messianic title for Jesus-- very unexpected in a Gentile.  In spite of being a Syro-Phoenician, then, this woman believes that Jesus is more than an itinerant Jewish preacher.  She also opens with the beggar's standard cry, "Have mercy on me!"  This woman is so desperate for help that she deliberately lets go of  her honor by following and calling out to a man in public, and by using a beggar's words.  Socially, she has no reason to expect this Jewish rabbi to answer her-- but she believes He is more than a rabbi.   So she perseveres in the face of His silence-- but she does not (as we tend to do) read His silence as insult or cruelty.  Like the woman who touched the hem of His garment (Luke 8:40-48), she knows there are barriers to overcome and sets herself boldly to overcome them.

When the disciples, upset that Jesus has not already sent this shameful woman away, ask Him to go ahead and do it, Jesus instead gives a response clearly intended for the woman to hear: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."  This is not an answer to the disciples' request.  Instead it is a rhetorical statement of something the disciples and the woman both know,* but it functions as a challenge to the woman:  "Tell me why I should help you."  Instead of sending her away, Jesus engages Himself in the interaction.  She then is encouraged enough to come right up to him and kneel, switching from the beggar's standard plea to the simple words, "Lord, help me."

And here is what is truly astonishing.  DeSilva tells us that a challenge of the sort Jesus offers was a common social interaction in ANE honor-shame cultures-- but only for men.  He explains:

"[H]onor can be won and lost in what has been called the social game of challenge and riposte. It is this “game,” still observable in the modern Mediterranean, that has caused cultural anthropologists to label the culture as “agonistic,” from the Greek word for “contest”.  The challenge-riposte is essentially an attempt to gain honor at someone else’s expense by publicly posing a challenge that cannot be answered. When a challenge has been posed, the challenged must make some sort of response (and no response is also considered a response). It falls to the bystanders to decide whether or not the challenged person successfully defended his (and, indeed, usually “his”) own honor. The Gospels are full of these exchanges, mainly posed by Pharisees, Sadducees or other religious officials at Jesus, whom they regarded as an upstart threatening to steal their place in the esteem of the people." p. 29, emphasis added. 

The rest of the exchange between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman is just this sort of challenge-riposte.  Jesus says, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  He uses a diminutive word for "dogs," (Bailey, p. 224), which slightly softens the challenge.  But he flings up to her the attitude of her people towards the Jews, as well as their attitude towards her people.  She (perhaps wryly acknowledging that the tables are turned between them, a Hellenized woman in her own territory and a lowly Jew) answers with a pithy response-- which Jesus then acknowledges as having bested Him in the challenge!  

The challenge-riposte, if offered to a man, would be an attempt to gain honor at his expense.  But Jesus offers it to a woman who, according to every social convention of both their cultures, has already forfeited her honor in this situation.  In doing so He raises her to the status of an equal.  And in acknowledging her win, he restores her honor in the sight of the audience.

By understanding this story in terms of community, socio-economics, and honor/shame, we see that what is really going on is that Jesus has:

Echoed the mercy and miracle-working of Elijah;

Showed a foreign woman and His disciples their mutual prejudice;

Restored a woman's lost honor (at His own expense!);

Taught His followers what "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" really looks like; 

Answered a desperate mother's prayer for the healing of her child. 

And for us, of course, it illustrates again how we need to learn what things the original writers and readers took for granted and felt no need to explain, in order to keep from totally misunderstanding a Bible text. 

If Jesus had simply done as we in the modern West expect, and healed the woman's child, all the underlying dynamics would have gone unaddressed.   Instead, He used silence, followed by challenge-riposte, to deal with the full situation.  Seeing this, I have gone from embarrassment at this text and a wish to avoid it, to an even greater love and admiration for my Savior and a desire to tell this story on my blog as it it deserves to be told.

Jesus acted in concern for the whole person and the whole situation with which He was confronted.  He didn't apply bandaids, but spoke right to the heart of the matter.  And He healed more than just the child He was asked to heal.

So how do we apply this story to our own lives?

I think that for us today, this story is about how social and religious conventions can perpetuate racial and gender oppression.  Oppression hurts more than just those on the receiving end.  It hurts the perpetrators too-- and we as human beings often find ourselves in both positions.  If Jesus went against religious and social convention to set people free from attitudes that restrict and bind themselves and others, shouldn't His followers do the same?

______________

*Note:  Jesus' initial mission was to the house of Israel; it was to His followers, after the Resurrection, that the mission to the Gentiles would fall-- which renders a lesson to them like this one especially important.

Book Recommendation: A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans

I remember the excitement I felt when, as a brand-new Christian, I began to explore what kind of life Jesus wanted me to live.  The type of Christianity which I initially encountered was the gentle, fireside faith of the 1970s:  we didn't call ourselves "biblical Christians" or "Bible believing Christians" but "born again Christians" -- not because we didn't believe the Bible, but because we tended to think of our faith more in terms of our encounter with Christ.  I read the Bible more to find out what it said about Jesus, than what it said I was supposed to do.  The main things I did figure out I was supposed to do involved believing that Jesus died for me, trusting God, and being kind to people.

But something changed along the way.  Before long I found myself in a Christian group that told me there was something more to Christianity for me than I had thought.  I was a woman, and I needed to learn to live the way God had designed me as a woman to live.  It wasn't enough to just follow Jesus as a Christian-- I needed to learn to follow Jesus as a woman, which apparently was quite different from following Him as a man.

I learned "biblical womanhood."

I learned that I needed to be taught how to cook and sew and keep house, because that was how women glorified God.  I learned that my prime example in the Bible was the Proverbs 31 woman-- except that I shouldn't forget that the Mary and Martha story showed the importance of also spending time in prayer and Bible study, which was what "sitting at the feet of Jesus" meant.  I learned that as a wife I would need to submit to my husband's authority, and that I should get in practice early, by being submissive to my brothers in the church.  I learned that a Christian woman was ladylike and sat with her legs crossed at the ankles and never at the knee; that she dressed with class and style but always with modesty; that she spoke in a quiet voice; that she never gave her Christian brothers hugs from the front, which might cause them to stumble-- but only side-by-side hugs.

And because I was already naturally soft-spoken and a little quiet, and because I had a naturally yielding disposition, I found that all of this came fairly easily for me.  I was a model Christian woman-- and proud of it.

Except that I hated to sew, I had neither inclination nor desire to can vegetables or make jelly, and I disliked the "feminine" topics of conversation among the younger women at my church, which seemed to be centered around husbands, homemaking and hairstyles.

Somehow, I was still falling short.

Later, when Maranatha Campus Ministries and my religious certainty fell apart-- when I re-examined everything I'd been taught, took it apart and put it back together (missing some pieces but gaining some others) as a freer kind of faith-- this model of womanhood was one of the things I discarded.

So this October when my best friend ordered me a copy of Rachel Held Evans' A Year of Biblical Womanhood as a birthday present, I was gratified to read these words in the introduction:

"Could an ancient collection of sacred texts, spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own, really offer a single cohesive formula for how to be a woman?  And do all the women of Scripture fit into this same mold?  Must I?"

Rachel Held Evans was taking my journey, but in a much more dramatic and intriguing way.  She set out to answer a three-part question: What does it mean to be "biblical"?  What does it mean to be a woman?  And what does it mean to be a "biblical woman"?

Ms. Held Evans decided to spend a year living out the passages in the Bible -- Old and New Testaments-- which addressed or described women.  "There would be no picking and choosing," she stated.  Setting aside standard evangelical principles of Bible interpretation and standard ways evangelicals apply those interpretations to their own daily living, she would consult all kinds of women who attempt to live by and practice the Bible-- "even when those practices didn't particularly suit my own interpretation of the text."

Rachel studied and practiced orthodox Jewish women's practice of Torah and observance of holy days.  She studied and practiced contemplative prayer as done by Catholic saints and nuns.  She took part in simplicity of living and modesty of dress with the Amish.  She interviewed a Quiverfull daughter, a woman living in Christian polygamy with other "sister wives," and a female preacher/pastor.  She went to Bolivia with World Vision to learn about justice to the poor, and to a Benedictine monastery and a Quaker meeting to learn about silence.  Jewish, Catholic and Protestant; mainstream and extreme alike-- Rachel tried as much of it as was practicable.  (She couldn't, apparently, bring herself to ask her husband Dan to try polygamy; and her attempt at being a patriarchy-style "help meet" resulted in his ordering her to stop submitting to him!)

Along the way she added fun with some playful extremes.  She called her husband "Master" for a week, softening his discomfort by pretending to be Jeannie from the old TV show I Dream of Jeannie.  She spent one of her menstrual cycles camping out in her yard.  She sat on the roof of her house to teach herself not to be contentious, since the Book of Proverbs states that living on the roof, though unpleasant, is not as unpleasant as a contentious woman.

With charming honesty and self-deprecating humor, Rachel does give her own interpretations and conclusions regarding Scripture in her book-- as well as detailing the things of beauty she learns and absorbs in her year-long journey.  One thing that seemed clear to me as a reader was that the true teachings of the Bible which Ms. Held Evans said would permanently influence her-- towards care for the poor, towards avoidance of contention, towards the holiness to be found in silence-- are not exclusively for women, or for men either.  The story is enhanced by wise insights from her husband Dan's journal, which provide a quiet counterpoint to his wife's flamboyance.  It is Dan who points out that though Rachel is the one ostensibly submitting to him, the whole project involved his support of her. 

Rachel's conclusion?

"So after twelve months of 'biblical womanhood,' I'd arrived at the rather unconventional conclusion that there is no such thing.  The Bible does not present us with a single model for womanhood, and the notion that it contains a sort of one-size-fits-all formula for how to be a woman of faith is a myth.  . . As much as we may long for the simplicity of a single definition of 'biblical womanhood,' there is no one right way to be a woman, no mold into which we must each cram ourselves. . . 

[I]n the deeper recesses of my heart and mind, I think I was looking for permission-- permission to lead, permission to speak, permission to find my identity in something other than my roles, permission to be myself; permission to be a woman.  What a surprise to reach the end of the year with the quiet and liberating certainty that I never had to ask for it.  It had already been given."

Living as a Christian woman, just like living as a Christian man, boils down to two things, which are really almost one:  grace and faith.  Grace doesn't put constraints on our personhood in Christ's New Creation.  We enter as little children.  We are led by the Spirit.  And one day we will see Him as He truly is.  Rachel and I, in our different journeys through "biblical womanhood," ended up in the same place.  It makes me feel like we are sisters-- as indeed we are.

But I can't finish this book recommendation without saying something about the number of Christian voices on the blogosphere which are doing anything but recommending this book!  I don't feel that I need necessarily defend Ms. Held Evans, because she's done an admirable job of defending herself.  But it makes me sad that she needs to.  Many of the critiques go far beyond "I disagree with the premises and the conclusions of this book" or "I don't like the way this was written."  Some accuse her of only wanting a place in the spotlight-- they even question her Christianity and claim she is siding with atheists in mockery of the Bible.

Why do Christians attack one another like this?

I will briefly address the two main forms that the negative critiques seem to take.

1)  She's using shoddy hermeneutics (principles of Bible interpretation) to distort what evangelical complementarians mean by "biblical womanhood."

According to this critique, there are certain universally agreed-upon principles of Bible interpretation that all Christians adhere to, such as that the Old Testament cleanliness laws are fulfilled in Christ and no longer have to be followed-- and Rachel Held Evans either is ignorant of these or deliberately flouting them.

I suppose that since the term "biblical womanhood" was more or less coined by evangelical complementarians to refer to their particular beliefs and practices about practicing the Bible's teachings for Christian women today, evangelical complementarians might be led to believe Rachel's intent was to distort "biblical womanhood" as they understand it.

But the fact remains that there are many different kinds of people who read, interpret, and try to practice the Bible, and when it comes to what we call the Old Testament, Christians (and evangelicals) simply don't corner the interpretation market.  Judaism was here first.   Since Rachel Held Evans made a goal to research and explore as many interpretations and forms of practice as she could manage in the time allotted, I think she makes a very good case that complementarians really can't claim the term "biblical womanhood" all for themselves.  This wasn't all about evangelicalism, nor is Rachel's book about what complementarians in particular mean by "biblical womanhood." And the idea that the book should be centered around a universally agreed-upon, basic Christian hermeneutic which Rachel deliberately flouted (in addition to being inaccurate) seems to impose upon the book the critics' idea of what it should be about, and then to condemn it for not meeting that expectation-- rather than allowing the book to speak for itself and be what it is.

(In fact, I wish Ms. Held Evans had had more time to explore other major hermeneutics that seek to practice the teachings of the Bible, such as conservative Judaism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.  In a sense the book is incomplete without these.)

2.  She's making a mockery of the Bible and/or making Christianity look bad.

This critique seems to be centered on Ms. Held Evans' more out-there practices during the year, and especially the one where she sat on her roof.  Nowhere does the Bible tell anyone to sit on their roofs, and the passage (Proverbs 21:9) about contentious women is written in terms of husbands finding the roof more desirable as a place to be than with their wives.  Therefore, by doing something as silly and unbiblical as sitting on her roof, Rachel makes the Bible and all of Christianity look silly.

The issue I have with this is that the idea of interpretation (figuring out what the text might mean) is being conflated with the idea of practice (figuring out what we then should do).  Rachel made it clear in the book that she wasn't sitting out on her roof because the Bible told her to.  She was sitting on her roof as a penance, to bring home to herself the unpleasantness of what she describes as "complaining, snarkiness, nagging, swearing."  That's what a penance is-- an action a person takes to show repentance and as a self-deterrent against further wrong-doing.  As such, it falls squarely within the realm of practice, not interpretation.

And there's where the inconsistency of a critique like this becomes plain.

If Rachel Held Evans says, "I'm going to take this proverb about contentious women, and apply it to my life by finding out how unpleasant it is to sit on the corner of the rooftop, in order to remind myself not to be contentious," how is that different in substance from when a woman says, "I'm going to take this psalm about children being a blessing, and apply it to my life by never using birth control again"?

Both ideas are about application of a text to one's own life.  Sure, the Bible never says a contentious woman should sit on the roof.  But neither does it say that women should not use birth control.  There is a passage about a man named Onan getting punished by God for spilling his seed on the ground, but no one else in the Bible is punished for using birth control-- and history tells us that the Ancient Near-East cultures in the Bible did know of and use various methods.  So maybe something else (such as the fraud and covenant-breaking which are plainly described in that text in Genesis 38) was the real reason why Onan was judged.  Try as we might, it is impossible to find any place in the Bible that directly tells women not to use birth control.

So why is one application of a passage in the poetry texts (Psalm 127:3 resulting in not using birth control) being "biblical" -- while the other application (Proverbs 21:9 resulting in sitting on a roof) is "making a mockery of the Bible"?

I think that many Christians (including those making these critiques) are often unaware of how much Christian practice is rooted in tradition, and how much seems normative and unremarkable simply because Christians have done it in the past.  It's possible to believe that we are being radically sold-out for God and counter-cultural when we fly in the face of modern Western culture-- but most of the time this supposed radicalism is actually a return to earlier traditional practices which were more restrictive to women, and not new practices at all.  So when someone like Rachel Held Evans tries a practice that really is new, all we can see is how silly it looks-- not noticing, perhaps, how silly our own practice might look if no one had ever done it before.

So I'd like to request more charity and grace from my fellow-Christians who have taken it upon themselves to denounce A Year of Biblical Womanhood as a dangerous book that attacks the Bible and Christianity and might lead gullible Christian women astray.  Really, folks-- what this book is really about is that there are a great many different ways, historically and throughout various cultures today, that "biblical womanhood" has been and is being understood-- and in light of that, perhaps we should all cling a little less tightly to our assurance that we have a full and correct understanding of what biblical womanhood is supposed to mean.

And maybe we women could give ourselves, and our sisters, a little more permission to just be.

What About Divorce?

"It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." 

Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:30-31.

Many versions of fundamentalist Christianity seem to teach that if you just follow their formula for the perfect marriage, divorce need never be an issue.  But being a Christian isn't a formula, and one person's actions can't guarantee the response of another person.  Each person has his or her own choices to make, and ultimately, they are that person’s choices alone.  The fact is that even if you do everything you can, to the best of your ability, to make your marriage happy and healthy, it simply won't be everything it should be unless your spouse is doing their best too.  This isn't a perfect world, as the cliche goes.  So, given that sometimes marriages do fail, a burning question for many Christians is, when should divorce be an option? 

Now, I have to confess that I'm taking on this subject from a certain level of personal ignorance.  I have had a pretty happy marriage for almost 25 years now, and I'll freely admit that this is because my spouse and I do our best to put one another first and defer to one another in love, as well as to take responsibility for changes we need to make in our own lives.  So, while I don't think divorce should be considered a too-easy escape just because  "it isn't working out," I'm in no position to judge anyone whose marriage actually isn't working out.  I think it's important that each person follow their own conscience, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, regarding what to do in their own difficult marriages.

Christianity has traditionally taught that divorce for any reason other than adultery is unacceptable. This is based on several passages of teachings by Jesus (including the one quoted above), and one by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:10-16, that essentially maintain that marriage is the joining of two people into "one flesh" which should not be separated (though Paul apparently expanded acceptable divorce to situations where a non-Christian spouse abandons his or her Christian spouse).  It must be noted, though, that some Christians sects don't allow divorce for any reason, saying that Christian spouses ought to forgive "seventy times seven" times even in these situations.  And the problem also arises that these two exceptions just don't seem to adequately address some of the other reasons why, many of us feel instinctively, people really ought to be able to end marriage-- such as physical, emotional or financial abuse or neglect.  

I don't think either Jesus or Paul intended the New Covenant kingdom to be merely a stricter version of the Old Covenant, with its laws and regulations.  The New Covenant is supposed to be about a living relationship with God, a leading by the Holy Spirit into a life of love.  I believe Jesus' teachings, and Paul's, should be viewed in those terms.  So there came a time when I had to ask the question: would Jesus-- the Jesus I have come to know-- really tell a spouse who was being used and abused that she/he had to stay in that marriage?  I had to answer, "no."  And this led me to the question I have asked in an earlier blog post:  Is there something we're missing, or misunderstanding, about the "no divorce" texts?  Some assumptions that we're making which they wouldn't have made?  Or vice versa?

So, using a question-and-answer format, I'm going to look at marriage and divorce as it would have been seen in Jesus' day, and Paul's.  

How are marriage and divorce viewed in the Bible? 

Both Old and New Testaments view marriage as a solemn contract, or covenant.  A covenant is a kind of treaty between two parties, characterized by promises that need to be kept.  When a covenant has been violated-- when one of the parties breaks the covenant promises so frequently, callously or heinously that the wronged party must consider it irrevocably broken-- there are ways for the one who has been wronged to end the covenant.  Marriage is no different.  In Jeremiah 3, Israel’s covenant with God is pictured as a marriage contract.  God had kept His covenant promises, but Israel had continually broken them without repentance or any attempt to right the wrongs.  In verse 8 God says, “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce. . . .”  Divorce, in and of itself, is not inherently evil.  God describes Himself here as the wronged party in a marriage covenant.  The promises of the covenant had been broken beyond repair-- not by God, but by Israel.  God’s divorce of Israel did not break the covenant; it merely acknowledged that the covenant had been broken.  But God nevertheless described Himself as getting a divorce.  Since God would never sin, it could not have been wrong for Him to get a divorce-- because He was not the one who broke the covenant.   Covenant-breaking is a wrong that we must avoid; but when the other party has irretrievably broken the covenant, the wronged party is not obligated to pretend that the covenant is intact.  It is up to the wronged party to decide when enough is enough.  Forgiveness is important, but forgiveness alone will not restore a broken covenant.  The party who broke the covenant must repent and bear the fruit of repentance, showing a real desire to change his or her ways and beginning to honor the covenant again.  Israel refused to do so in Jeremiah 3, and the Bible gives us a picture of God finally deciding that enough was enough, and withdrawing from His covenant with Israel. 

But doesn’t God say, “I hate divorce” in the Book of Malachi?  And didn’t Jesus say, “what God has joined together, let not man separate”?

We will examine more closely what Jesus said shortly, after examining the shared understandings He and His audience would have been working under, that we today may be missing  But here is what Malachi 3:11-16 actually says: 

“Judah hath dealt treacherously. . . and hath married the daughter of a strange god. . . Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. . . Therefore take heed your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.  For the Lord, the God of Israel saith that he hateth putting away, for one covereth violence with his garment. . .”

God was angry because in this case, the divorce itself was a breaking of the marriage covenant, because the women who were being divorced had done no wrong.  Instead, it was the men divorcing their wives without cause who were doing wrong, committing treachery against the covenant by marrying other women.  It was the breaking of the covenant that God hated, for He looked at it as tantamount to committing violence and then covering it over. When the marriage covenant has not been broken, then divorce itself breaks the covenant and is therefore wrong.  But in the case where the covenant is already broken, divorce could not be wrong, or God would not have spoken of Himself as initiating a divorce.

But isn’t it true that what’s wrong for the creature is not necessarily wrong for the Creator, because as Creator He has rights and powers over His handiwork that the creatures don’t?

Yes, and that would apply when God is spoken of, or speaks of Himself, in the Bible as Creator or Lord.  But when God speaks of Himself as a husband, He is applying a human metaphor to Himself, and the rules that would apply to humans in that relationship would apply to Himself in the metaphor He uses.  God would not speak of Himself doing something in a metaphorical marriage covenant, that would be wrong in a real marriage covenant.  

So when Jesus taught about the marriage covenant, how did He understand it?

The marriage covenant, as understood in the Bible, included basic promises that the parties had to fulfill.  These are set forth in the Old Testament law, and it was Old Testament law that Jesus referred to when He talked about marriage.  It’s important to understand that Old Testament law, as understood by the rabbis of Jesus’ day (Jesus Himself, of course, also being a rabbi) was of two different kinds.  There were the general laws, such as the Ten Commandments.  These were basic, overarching laws that applied to a variety of specific situations.  These are similar to today’s statutory law, which is made by governments and codified into books of statutes and rules.  But there were also the specific laws, and these were understood very much the way we understand case law today: when a specific case regarding a specific situation, is judged by a court, and the court’s judgment is then applied to similar situations.  

We can see this type of interpretation in Paul’s discussion of the law, “muzzle not the ox” in 1 Corinthians 9:9-14.  Paul understood a specific law about oxen to apply generally to every situation where a worker deserved payment for work done.  Paul, too, was a rabbi, and he demonstrates here the way rabbis understood the specific case laws of the Old Testament-- that whatever principle was set forth in the specific situation detailed in a law, applied generally to other, similar cases.

Turning, then, to the Old Testament marriage laws as Jesus and His original audience would have understood them: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” was statutory-type law.  But a law such as Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was case law.  It referred to a specific situation:  a man who has married a woman and found “some uncleanness [that is, sexual immorality]” in her.  It says that her husband can give her a bill of divorce, and she is then allowed to go and be another man’s wife, but she may not return to her first husband.  This is the law that formed the basis of God’s divorce as described in Jeremiah 3:8.  The principle of this law was that sexual immorality was grounds for divorce, and that there was to be a legal procedure for ending the marriage when the covenant had thus been broken.

Another marriage law in the Old Testament was even more specific:  Exodus 21:8-11.  “If [a maidservant] please not her master who hath betrothed her to himself. . . If he take him another wife: her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish.  And if he does not do these three unto her, then she shall go out free.”  This law referred specifically to one particular case: a man who has married a maidservant and then taken another wife, and has ceased to fulfill his marital obligations of food, clothing and marital love to the first wife.  Jewish rabbis interpreted this as a principle that the obligations of marriage included giving marital love to the married partner, as well as the duty to meet the partner’s physical needs.  As it was understood in Jesus’ day, laws such as this one were not exclusively for maidservants in a particular situation, but for all married people.  To refuse to bring home food, or to prepare meals, or to turn away again and again from any other marital obligation, was to break the covenant.  And this Exodus law clearly gave the right to “go free” from a broken marriage covenant, to wronged wives.   (It’s important to note that a valid divorce, as Jesus and His audience would have understood it, included the right to remarry.  That was just part of what it meant to be divorced). 

So what was going on when Jesus said anyone who got divorced, except for adultery, was himself committing adultery?  Was He annulling the law of Exodus 21:8-11?  

To understand this, we must dig a little deeper into the historical situation in Israel in AD 30, when Jesus was preaching.   David Instone-Brewer, one of today’s foremost scholars on first-century Judaism, summarizes it very well:

[U]ntil about the time of Jesus’ birth . . . both Jewish men and women could divorce partners who broke their marriage obligations, as defined in the Old Testament.  These grounds for divorce (based on Exodus 21:10-11) were in use until about A.D. 70, but by the time that Jesus was preaching, in about A.D. 30, they were being used only rarely.  During Jesus’ lifetime [a] new, groundless divorce gradually grew in popularity, until by about the end of the first century, it had totally replaced divorces based on Old Testament grounds.  This new type of divorce was invented by a rabbi called Hillel, who lived a few decades before Jesus, and was called the “Any Cause” divorce.  The phrase that inspired it is in Deuteronomy 24:1, where a man divorces his wife for [as it read in their text] “a cause of sexual immorality.”  . . . Hillel asked, why did Moses use the phrase, “a cause of sexual immorality,” when he could simply have said “sexual immorality”?  Hillel reasoned that the seemingly superfluous word “cause” must refer to another, different ground for divorce, and since this ground is simply called “a cause,” he concluded that it meant any cause.  

Hillel therefore thought that two types of divorce were taught in Deuteronomy 24:1:  one for sexual immorality (adultery) and one they named “Any Cause.”  The Hillel rabbis . . . concluded that an “Any Cause“ divorce could be carried out only by men . . . and that it could be used for any cause-- such as the wife burning a meal-- so . . . this fault could be such a small thing that it was, in effect, a groundless divorce.

Very soon the “Any Cause” divorce had almost completely replaced the traditional Old Testament types of divorce. . . .

Not everyone accepted this new type of divorce.  The disciples of Shimmai, a rival of Hillel who often disagreed with him, said that Hillel had interpreted the Scriptures wrongly and that the whole phrase, “a cause of sexual immorality,” meant nothing more than the ground of sexual immorality; it did not mean two grounds, “sexual immorality” and “Any Cause.”

David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, IVP Books 2003, pp. 55-57.

This internal conflict in early first-century Judaism was huge, and had been going on for some time by the time Jesus began His public ministry.  Deuteronomy 24:1 and its meaning were what everyone was talking about.  But the other just-cause divorce law of Exodus 21:10-11 was never in dispute, and thus was not a topic of discussion; indeed, it was gradually being forgotten because of the prevalence of the “Any Cause” divorce and the dissent over it between the two rabbinical groups.  When someone spoke against divorce in Jesus’ day, they were assumed to be talking about a Deuteronomy 24:1 “any cause” divorce (just as today, if someone speaks against “drinking,” they are assumed to be speaking of alcoholic beverages, because the drinking of non-alcoholic beverages is not in dispute and is simply assumed to be ok).   Similarly, for anyone hearing or reading about a discussion on divorce in Jesus’ day, the Hillel/Shimmai dispute over Deuteronomy 24:1 would be at the front of their minds.  Exodus 21:8-11 divorces were simply unquestioned and assumed valid.

Jesus often didn't mention matters that were unquestioned and assumed, such as the worship of one God.  There was no need to address understandings that needed no changing.  Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount  was largely Christ’s correction of certain passages from the Law that were being misinterpreted or misapplied, or where the letter was being focused on to the point of ignoring the spirit of the passage.  Matthew 5:31-32, then, shows Jesus’ correction of  the Hillelite reading of Deuteronomy 24:1.   Jesus was saying that a Deuteronomy 24:1 divorce could only be for sexual immorality (’fornication“ in the KJV, but this was a word referring to all forms of sexual immorality).  A divorce under Deuteronomy 24:1 for “any cause” was not a valid divorce in God’s eyes, and therefore the divorcing person could not marry again without committing adultery. 

Both Matthew and Mark also record a conversation Jesus had with a group of Pharisees about this very issue (Mark 10:2-9, Matthew 19:3-9).   The Gospel of Matthew, with its more in-depth detail of Jesus’ teachings and its emphasis on showing the links between Jesus’ life and teachings and the Old Testament (see Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible, Lion Publishing, 1973), mentions the “any cause” divorce by name.  The King James Version translates it as “every cause,” (Matt. 19:3), but the Greek words are “any cause” as used as a legal term to refer to this kind of divorce, which is documented by Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-circa 100) in  Antiquities of the Jews 4:253.  The Hillelite explanation of their interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1 is found in their rabbinic commentary Sifre Deuteronomy 269. 

Matthew 19:3 reads as follows:  “The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every [any] cause?”   Jesus responds that God created marriage and that humans should not “put asunder” what God had put together.  But as the passage in Jeremiah 3 shows us, it is the one who breaks the marriage covenant who has “put asunder” the marriage.   Because sexual immorality is a breaking of the covenant, Jesus says in verse 9 that it is a valid reason for divorce, so that a person divorcing for sexual immorality would be able to remarry without adultery.

The Pharisees then asked (Matthew 19:17):  “Why did Moses then command to give her a writing of divorcement and to put her away?”  Jesus answered (verse 8), “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”  “Hardheartedness” was also a word that had particular significance in Jesus’ day.  It meant “stubborn unrepentance,” and was a special word used in the ancient Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, which was not used in ordinary, conversational Greek  The Pharisees would have known, then, that Jesus was quoting the Septuagint-- and probably the one place the word “hardheartedness” appeared in the Septuagint with reference to divorce: the same passage where God speaks of Himself as divorcing Israel.  Jeremiah 4:4, continuing the story of His divorce from chapter 3, warns Judah to “circumcise your hardheartedness” lest God divorce Judah as He had divorced Israel. 

Jesus, in saying “your hardheartedness” to the Pharisees, is not talking about just the Pharisees, but the whole nation, just as He spoke to the whole nation in Jeremiah 3 and 4.  Because of the tendency of God’s people to be stubbornly unrepentant, God permitted divorce for sexual immorality in Deuteronomy 24:1.  The idea is that divorce should be a last resort; even as God divorced Israel only after repeated attempts to restore the covenant.  But when the partner breaking the covenant continues to break it and will not truly repent (which is turning from wrongdoing and changing one’s ways), then the wronged party may declare the marriage to be at an end.  Exodus 21:10-11 and Jeremiah 3-4 show this; and Jesus never said otherwise.   

But what if the wronged spouse still doesn't want to leave?  Didn't Paul say that if we leave a marriage, we must either remain single or be reconciled to our spouse?

Divorce is an option, not a requirement, when the marriage covenant is broken.  And the existence of this option can be very important to the marriage.  One result of understanding marriage as a covenant which can be broken, is that the wronged party has the power to end a broken marriage covenant.  This changes the power dynamics of the marriage.  If your covenant-breaking spouse understands that you have a scriptural right to say “enough is enough,” it may be that this knowledge will be enough for your spouse to begin considering you worthy of respect in the relationship, and to really change his or her ways.  But as long as she/he knows you will stay no matter how much you and the children are suffering, your spouse may not have enough incentive to face his or her own errors and take responsibility for changing them.

But if you do come to the place where you must leave your spouse, it’s important to understand exactly what Paul intended to say, as his original audience would have understood it-- because that was the message that was inspired by God.

Paul’s words on marriage are contained in the seventh chapter of his letter to Corinthians.  The church at Corinth was subject to the laws of ancient Rome-- and Rome’s divorce laws were even easier than the Jewish “Any Cause” divorce.  Rome had what was called “divorce by separation.”  That is, any man or woman who wanted a divorce, for any reason at all, could get legally divorced simply by walking out of the marriage.  Whoever owned the home could simply throw out the non-homeowner, and the non-homeowner could simply take his or her possessions and move out.  They were then free to marry anyone else they wanted.

It is in this context that we must understand Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 7:10-11: “And unto the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband.  But if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband; and let not the husband put away his wife.”  Paul is saying that a Christian must not do a divorce-by-separation for any and every reason, because in the eyes of the Lord, a groundless divorce is not a divorce at all.  Therefore, a person who has already had one of these divorces should either remain unmarried, or be reconciled.

But does this mean Paul is opposed to divorces where there are valid grounds, such as adultery, desertion or neglect?  Here is what he says regarding a Christian whose spouse has left them:  “But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.  A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God has called us to peace.”  1 Cor. 7:13.  “Under bondage” here is the Greek word “douloo,” meaning “to be enslaved.”  It is the same word used six times in Galatians to speak of being in bondage to rules and regulations, as opposed to being free in Christ (see, for instance, Gal. 5:1).  Paul is saying that having to stay married to someone who has deserted or abandoned us is a form of legalistic bondage, contrary to the freedom of Christ.

But Paul was not saying a person who was divorced for good cause could not remarry.  He uses another word, “deo,” for being “bound” or under obligation to just law, in 1 Cor. 7:26-27 and again in 7:39.  The first says that Paul “supposed” that under the “present distress“ (referring to a period of famine and hardship in Corinth, it was better to remain in one‘s current condition, at least for the time being. “Art thou bound unto a wife?  Seek not to be loosed.”  In verse 39 he uses it regarding widows:  “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth, but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”  Read together, these verses are saying that being “loosed” (as the opposite of “bound”) means being free to remarry.  Paul is not saying there can be no such thing as valid divorce and remarriage, or he would not imply that it is possible, when not under “the present distress” to be “loosed.”  (Note:  Verse 39 was written specifically for widows and should not be construed as a special binding of women only, to be unable to be released from marriage except by the husband’s death-- because this reading would directly contradict verse 13.) 

Again, his original audience, understanding Roman divorce laws as we do not, would have grasped Paul’s meaning without all this explanation.  Just as with the “Any Cause” divorce with the Jews, the “divorce by separation” would have been the default kind of divorce that Paul’s Roman audience would have understood him to be talking about.  But when Paul speaks of desertion by an unbelieving partner, his audience would also have understood Rome’s other law of divorce-for-cause.  As David Instone-Brewer puts it in Divorce and Remarriage in the Church:

[T]hese grounds for divorce [neglecting/refusing to meet the needs for food, clothing or marital love, per Exodus 21:8-11] had . . . spread through the whole known world via the Babylonian and then the Persian empires [influenced by assimilation of the Jews during the captivity in Babylon], to Greek culture and eventually to Roman law.  These three grounds for divorce were written into both Jewish and Greco-Roman marriage documents.  This meant that if you were suffering neglect from your husband or wife, you could present your case in any court-- Roman, rabbinic, Egyptian, or, as far as we know, any of the other provincial legal systems of the first-century civilized world.

David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, IVP Books 2003, p. 99.

Paul’s discussion of marriage in 1 Cor. 7 speaks specifically in terms of these commonly understood marital obligations, in that he discusses marital love and “due benevolence” in verses 3-5, and the meeting of physical needs (by mentioning that it’s better not to marry during a time of “distress”) in  verses 26-27 and 32-35 (“carefulness” towards “the things of this world” being an inevitable condition of marriage in needing to “please” one’s spouse).  In our own marriage vows today, we usually promise to ‘love, honor and cherish.”  These vows come from Ephesians 5:28-29 (where Paul tells husbands that they must love, nourish and cherish their wives), and reflect the marital obligations shown in 1 Corinthians 7, which ultimately came from Exodus 21:8-11.  To chronically refuse or neglect to meet these obligations has always been considered a breaking of the marriage covenant, which gives grounds for a just-cause divorce.  God is a God of covenant, and it is covenant-breaking which God is against. 

But if all this is true, why have most Christians never heard it before?  How could we all have gotten it so wrong for so long?

The main thing to remember is that after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, Christianity became divorced from its Jewish roots.  Jews blamed Christians for deserting Jerusalem at the time of its destruction.  Christians blamed Jews for the death of Christ rather than recognizing the universal nature of Christ’s death for all sin.  Jews and Christians regarded one another as enemies.  Also, at the same time, the early church (reacting against the decadence of Rome), began to overemphasize celibacy and virginity, which gradually affected its understanding of marriage and remarriage.  The doctrines which arose out of this became the traditional Christian understandings, which continued to be passed down.  Christianity became a Greco-Roman religion, and then a European one, and its access to its own history, including the underpinnings of Jewish rabbinical scholarship, was broken.  In the past 150 years, however, events such as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have greatly increased our understanding of how the original hearers of these messages would have understood them. 

We can’t know how many misunderstandings might have been avoided had the developing Church truly practiced Jesus’ command to “love our enemies and do good to them.”  We might have been able to help more of the Jews and their scholars survive the Roman destruction, and thus held onto more of the original understandings of first-century Christian teachings.  But we have always had access to Jesus’ teachings that to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves, are the central commands, and let our understanding of these simple truths govern our understandings of all other rules, laws and regulations Christians have imposed on themselves through the ages.  It is not according to love to force a victim of marital abuse, neglect or desertion to stay in marriage covenant that has been irreparably broken and has become nothing more than a prison-- or to force one’s children to stay in a home where they are being harmed. 

God has graciously provided for the victims of broken covenants, that they may be set free and not enslaved or under bondage.   Both Jesus and Paul understood just-cause divorce to be allowed by the Scriptures, and neither Jesus nor Paul ever spoke against just-cause divorce.  If you are in a situation where your marriage covenant is broken and your marriage and family life have become intolerable, God’s merciful provision is for you and your children.

Remember, God’s goal in the New Covenant is to restore marriage to what He intended for it from the beginning.  In order to do that, both parties must have the ability to enforce the marriage covenant and hold the other accountable.  If that fails, just-cause divorce is the last resort-- but if that last resort is needed, it is available to His children. His love and grace are ours always. 

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Note: The ideas in this article were not written by a licensed marriage counselor and are not intended to replace licensed, professional counseling.

This topic is discussed in greater detail in David Instone-Brewer‘s 211-page book Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, IVP Books 2003, and in more scholarly detail in his larger work, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, Eerdman‘s, 2002.  Also see the website http://www.divorce-remarriage.com/ for answers to frequently-asked questions.