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Herod Antipas thought he had silenced Yochanan (John) upon killing him. Yochanan only preached in a small area by the river Yarden (Jordan), but Yeshua and His disciples were spreading the message everywhere. A common teaching on remarriage — that doing so is a sin — overlooks the likely teaching, shown in Antipas’ fear: divorce and remarriage in the course of adultery is what’s sinful.
Texts: Luke 9:7-9; Matt. 14:1-12; Mk. 6:14-28
This happened after Yeshua had sent out his disciples out two by two to preach His message throughout the land of Israel. The first group had 12, which would have been six groups. The second group was the 70, which would have been 35 groups going throughout the land preaching Yeshua’s message. Although these missionary endeavors did not include Samaria, the Decapolis (Ten Cities) or other non-Israelite areas, Herod Antipas still heard about Yeshua’s ministry and feared it.
The parallel accounts in Luke, Matthew and Mark tell us the main reason Yochanan condemned Herod was he had divorced his wife to marry his brother’s wife.
This goes back to what Yeshua said about divorce. Yeshua reminded the people that Moses gave them the laws of divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. But Matt. 5:31 says, “It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Brad Young, a scholar on the Hebrew origins of the Apostolic Writings, proposes that the Hebrew original saying recorded in this Greek text could have been a grammatical construction called the “vav consecutive,” which uses the Hebrew letter vav/waw and a verb to show a while or in order to connection to the preceding sentence. If true, the phrase in Matt. 5:31 could be translated as “everyone who divorces his wife for the purpose of unchastity (meaning to marry another woman), makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
That directly speaks to Herod’s sin of divorcing his wife for the expressed purpose of marrying his brother’s wife.
The pattern of the story of Yochanan’s execution hints back to the story of Esther and Purim, but the characters are mixed a bit. Strictly speaking, Yochanan’s accusation against Herod and his new “wife” was an accusation to death. Their sin was a death penalty offense.
We are, in a spiritual sense, in an arranged marriage with the Lord. We have to learn how to love Him. We don’t know how to love Him when we first come to Him, but as time goes on, we develop more love for Him and learn how to please Him.
Speaker: Jeff. Readers: Bill Kastrinos and John Walsh. Summary: Tammy.
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