What does First B Jackson teach about divorce?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on divorce starts where Jesus starts it: with the heart. In a message working through Matthew 5, Pastor Jeff explained that when Jesus addressed divorce, he was doing the same thing he does with every commandment in that chapter. He was not loosening the standard Moses permitted; he was intensifying it. The Mosaic allowance for divorce existed, Jesus said, because of hardness of heart. The standard he sets for his disciples reaches further than what the law merely allowed.
Pastor Jason returned to the same territory in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, where the Pharisees come to Jesus with a test question about divorce. Jason noted that the Pharisees were themselves an example of what he called a bad hermeneutic, people who knew the Old Testament better than anyone and still managed to miss what it was saying. They came to the text looking to confirm what they already wanted to do, and the question about divorce was that kind of question.
Both messages treat the subject as serious without treating people who have experienced divorce as beyond the reach of what the church is for. The thread running through the teaching is the same question Pastor Jason put to the whole congregation: do you believe God is good and that He loves you? That question does not disappear when the subject gets hard. It is the lens through which First B Jackson asks people to keep reading.
Taught from Matthew 19:1-12 · Mark 10:1-12 · Matthew 5:31-32
The passage taught · 1 Peter 5:7
7 casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- September 8, 2023 Checking Your Lenses Pastor Aaron explores how the lens we bring to Scripture shapes what we find there, and why trusting God's goodness changes everything we read.
- January 9, 2022 But I Say to You Jesus intensifies the law's demands on murder, adultery, oaths, and retaliation, calling His followers to a righteousness rooted in the heart, not mere rule-keeping.
Mentioned along the way
- October 8, 2023 Checking Our Lenses A Wyoming pastor explores how the lens we bring to Scripture shapes what we see, using the healing of Bartimaeus and Jesus's teaching on marriage and divorce.
- October 30, 2011 Secrets of a Lasting Love A sermon on lasting love from 1 Corinthians 13, exploring how extending grace, expressing faith, expecting the best, and persevering keep love alive.