Topical Bible Study: Manna, Bread of Life, and Communion

Mind Supernovae

Wednesday afternoon and evening into Thursday morning was a day of several "aha" moments that came in rapid succession, making connections in my mind between things I hadn't experienced contemplating together, yet.

Number One: The Justification for Divorce

1 Corinthians 7
"12 If a brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with him, she must not divorce him....15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances, for God has called us to live in peace."

Matthew 19 gives the justification for divorce as being adultery, in pretty strong terms: "I tell you that any man who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9).

I have good reason to believe, based on my understanding of the character of God, that He would not call it sin to separate from someone who was physically abusive, especially to the point of putting your life in danger. But I had not been able to find any explicit Biblical justification for it outside of Matthew 19. So I had reasoned that the desire to murder your spouse would fall under the category of infidelity, since you'd be blatantly breaking your spousal commitment to honor them and protect them and pursue their best interest. But since Matthew 19:9 didn't directly address violence, it was a bit of a stretch, even if I supposed that Jesus took it for granted that His audience would agree that violence was impermissible in marriage.

I think now that I misread the passage. Assuming for now that the English renders the grammar equivalent to the original Greek, then Jesus isn't saying that sexual immorality is the only permissible reason to divorce. It's more grammatically appropriate to understand Him as saying that sexual immorality is the only permissible reason to remarry. But once again, since His audience is all Jews, it seems to be in the context of divorcing a woman who is of the faith.

So now, the synergy:
* 1 Cor 7 says that divorcing an unbeliever is permissible (not required), on the basis of whether the unbeliever wants to divorce.
* 1 Corinthians 7:11 says that if you divorce a fellow believer, you may not remarry
* Matthew 19 gives the only condition where remarriage is permissible as being if your believing spouse committed sexual immorality against you -- infidelity.

And the application:
* If you're a believer yoked to an unbeliever, you can divorce them if they want to divorce
* If you're a believer who divorces a believer for any reason other than that they committed adultery against you, you may not marry someone else. You must either reconcile with them and remarry them, or (my interpretation) if they marry someone else, you're no longer bound to them because the consequence of remarrying them would require an additional divorce, compounding the sin.
* If your spouse commits a pattern of abuse toward you and/or threatens to murder you, that person is not a believer. I'll stand up and say that anyone who wants to harm their spouse -- let alone murder them -- does not have the Spirit of God in them. And as we saw above, you are free to divorce an unbeliever who clearly doesn't want to live with you as a husband or wife.

So we see then that the Bible justifies divorce in the case of infidelity, physical abuse and terrorization, and attempted murder. You are free to remarry in each of those cases.

What the Bible does not justify is "no-fault divorce." If you separate because you dislike each other's personality, don't enjoy sex any more, are feeling bored or tied down, don't find your spouse attractive, etc, those are not valid reasons to divorce or remarry. Considering that since your divorced spouse is still your spouse, if you marry someone else, the act of consummating that marriage constitutes sexual immorality, which then justifies your first spouse's right to marry someone else.

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Number Three: Bucket Lists Are Borne of the Fear of Death

This one's shorter (gotta get to the Bible Study topic). I got the idea here: http://the-end-time.blogspot.com/2015/03/of-bucket-lists-fear-of-death-and.html

The major premise of having a "Bucket List" is to accomplish a certain amount of things before you die, because after you die you won't have any more opportunities to check off the things you wanted to experience -- be it skydiving, surfing, riding an elephant, climbing a mountain, etc. The problem with this belief is that it's totally contrary to Biblical Christianity. For us, this life doesn't end at death. We have continuity of experience between this life and the future glorified state we'll exist in in eternity. If you don't get the chance to climb Everest or dive to the bottom of the Marianas Trench or orbit the earth or walk on the moon or ride a dolphin or glide over the Alps or any number of exciting adventures, you won't miss anything because the future holds even greater adventures. "Eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, the wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love Him." I don't have to get all the adventure in before earthly death, because I'll have an infinity of adventure to look forward to. What does it matter if I see the Andes through a PBS broadcast and never walk it myself? We can't overlook the adventure that we're a part of in Christ. Just being owned by Him is an adventure all its own, because there are new things to be discovered every day (look at what I'm writing about!). I not only look forward to flying and trekking all over His New Creation after death, but I'm not overlooking the adventure I'm in the midst of right now! I'm free from the fear of death, to pursue things other people might consider mundane, but which are important in the grand scheme of things, if only because it pleases God and is part of His master plan.

And now, for an explanation of how a David Jeremiah Turning Point broadcast led to an epiphany for me about the significance of the bread in the Lord's Supper. I've said before that I'm a lover of symbolism in God's Word. You likely already know that the bread symbolizes Christ. But we're about to go even deeper.

Number Two: What Manna and "Bread from Heaven" do to illuminate the sacrament of communion

Text Treatise: Suicide's Real Victims

This post does not speak flippantly or use vulgar terms or graphic descriptions. It does, however, touch on an extremely sensitive subject and employs strong opinions while discussing it, although this is done with an attempt to be sensitive to people who have been hurt by, or are contemplating suicide. Choose whether to read based on how you know you will react. 

Someone I actually sort-of-knew recently died. They were a couple of years younger, and had moved away in the middle of high school, but I'd interacted with them enough that of all the people who have died in my age group from my county, this was the first time it was someone who I'd spent any length of time talking to.

Whereas it appears to have been a drug overdose of some kind, it is unclear whether it was suicide or accidental. When I initially heard about it, the rumors favored suicide, and that's what provoked me to think about the subject. What follows are my thoughts to a friend over text one evening, followed by some further thoughts in response to statements they made in reply.

This is probably going to be very different from anything you've ever read before on the subject, because I don't treat the person who commits suicide as a sympathetic victim. I advise you to think about that before you begin, and while I encourage you to consider my view, I also don't want to unnecessarily offend people who are by nature sensitive and have a hard time dealing with heavy issues in a very straightforward manner. So this is my best effort not to be ham-fisted in how I write. Thanks for reading this before beginning the post proper.

Alert: Read the above introduction before proceeding to digest the body of the post.