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How Does Divorce Fit Luke 16?
How Does Divorce Fit into Luke 16?
Luke 16 has what many difficult segments:
• The parable of the “shrewd” manager is considered one of Jesus’s more difficult stories.
• Verse 16, about entering the kingdom, is translated in seemingly opposite ways.
• The story at the end concerning Lazarus and the rich man: Is it a parable? Is it a discussion of literal places after death?
• And how does divorce (v.18) fit into this?
That last point is the focus of this thought exercise.
There are several common threads that weave together a possible answer.
• Both illustrations at the beginning and end are about money.
• The Pharisees are said to wrongly love money.
• The Pharisees are said to wrongly justify themselves.
• What people wronly admire, God finds revolting.
• God’s law is brought into the discussion which in OT times discusses money, improper values, and unjust evaluations of self.
• God’s law cannot be thrown away and ignored.
• The Law discusses divorce and even how it is connected to hatred (either God hates divorce or the man hates the woman he divorces – Malachi 2:16, depending upon translation).
• The chapter closes with a man who loves riches, and devalues a poor man through neglect.
• The chapter also closes with an admonition of those refusing to listen to the Law of Moses.
• Is this how divorce fits in? Men devalued women over financial gain and therefore abused the law by mistreating their wives through divorce. If thisnis Jesus’s point, it fits the context. And sadly, it still happens today.
Check below to see how seeing the chiastic structure helps discover how divorce fits into this narrative of Jesus.
A – “THERE WAS A RICH MAN” (vv.1-13)
B – VALUING THINGS (v.14) 14) The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and scoffing at him. 15) And he told them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly admired by people is revolting in God’s sight.
C- OLD LAW (v.16) 16) “The Law and the Prophets were until John;
D – NEW KINGDOM: since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed,
D’ – NEW KINGDOM: and everyone is urgently invited to enter it.
• Or, “everyone is forcing their way into it”
C’ – OLD LAW (v.17) 17) “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter in the law to drop out.
B’ – DEVALUING WOMEN (V18): 18) “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and everyone who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
• Is Jesus hinting at the cause of divorce being financially driven? Jesus taught against frivolous divorce, and how harmful to women it can be, which is why it was regulated even in the days of Moses (Matthew 19:8; Deuteronomy 24).
A’ – “THERE WAS A RICH MAN” (vv.19-31)
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