Mistakes Were Made

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Matthew 19.8-9

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this is an Old Testament blog, but bear with me. For the time period between whenever Moses permitted divorce up until Jesus’ statement here (1,200-1,300 years or so) the relationship between husband and wife was, well, wrong.

I asked some of the kids in my youth group to complete the sentence, “a woman’s place is in the…”, most of the guys wouldn’t answer it, the girls gave the responses home, and kitchen. Then I had them read Proverbs 31.15-18

She gets up while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls.

She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.

She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.

As soon as they were done reading these verses one of the guys said “women’s roles have really kind of flipped”. He’s kind of right. Apparently the ideal woman dabbles in real estate, plants a vineyard, and profitably trades. In other words, she’s entrepreneurial.

When was the last time you heard that teaching in a church? I’ve never heard it, and I’ve heard a lot of teachings in a lot of churches. Is it possible, I mean remotely possible that the church has missed the boat on this teaching for the last, oh, 1200-1300 years? I mean, if its possible for Jesus to correct a teaching about marriage that had gone uncontested for that long, is it possible the same thing has happened on this issue?