I hope you had an opportunity to reflect on what laying down your life for your spouse means to you, as we discussed last week. Whether you’re married or not, you should think on this topic, because even if you will never be married, the concept of sacrificing one’s self for others is the one fundamental theme that Yeshua taught throughout His ministry. This week, we’re continuing our study of marriage with the examples provided by Yeshua during His time on earth.
We left off last week with Yeshua’s wilderness temptation, and the next event we see recorded in scripture is the actual beginning of His ministry. While each gospel has recorded slightly different details about it, as a whole they describe the beginning of His ministry as a time of Him gathering His disciples and preaching a message of repentance throughout the region (Matthew 4:12-22, Mark 1:14-22, Luke 4:14-30, John 1:35-51). It may not seem like it, but even this portion of His ministry is a lesson for marriage, because it’s another common theme throughout His whole ministry.
We saw in a previous study that there was a reason Yeshua spoke in parables. The message He was giving was intended for a certain group of people (Matthew 13:11). Regardless of whether it was a parable or just plain speaking though, Yeshua’s ministry was nothing but truth from the very beginning. From the very first message, there was no deceit in His mouth, not even a lie of omission, when someone purposefully withholds some aspect of truth so as to deceive a person by using that person’s own assumptions to complete the picture.
Yeshua’s first “sermon” was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15). This word, “near,” is not just one of time, but also of space, of physicality. The word, “kingdom,” is not just one of physicality, but also of authority and royal power. Yeshua was telling everyone that YHWH’s kingship, His authority, His rule, is now among them and, for those that had eyes to see and ears to hear, that it was Him.
Our marriage, just like Yeshua’s ministry, has to be based on truth or it is doomed to crumble. You see, the thing about truth is that it’s open and undeniable. The people Yeshua was preaching to, including the disciples, had never heard such truth, and had certainly never heard it from someone who knew, without a doubt, that what He was saying was 100% factual (Matthew 7:28, 22:33, Mark 1:22, 6:2, 12:17, Luke 4:15, 32). People can hear falsehoods and be convinced they are true, but deep down there is something that doesn’t sit right with them, whether they realize it consciously or not.
Eventually, that deep down feeling grows and the individual puts things together, realizing that the world they thought they were living in is a lie. But there’s something about truth that gets right through to a person’s heart. You see that by the number of people that flocked to Yeshua during His ministry. Yes, there were those that were there just because of the healings, but He didn’t start with healings, He started just by teaching in the synagogues. You also see it when the crowd of Jews was cut to the heart after hearing the truth from Peter about their involvement in the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:37).
By remaining in the truth during our marriage, and this means the truth about everything, we follow Yeshua’s example of His leadership to the ekklesia, the church that He is building. Not only that, we give our marriage the best way, the only way, to succeed. There are many verses speaking to the inevitable destruction that is brought about by lies (Psalm 5:6, 101:7, Proverbs 6:16-19, 12:19, 22, 19:5, 21:6, Ephesians 4:25, 1 Peter 3:10, Revelation 21:8), so, out of all people, we should be completely truthful with the one to which we have become one flesh. After all, when you really think about it, because we are one flesh with our spouse, if we lie to them we are really lying to ourselves.
What we also see here at the beginning of Yeshua’s ministry, and throughout it, is leadership. He tells His disciples to follow Him, and then proceeds to at least try to lead them to the truth. We’ve already identified multiple times that the husband is to follow Yeshua and the wife is to follow the husband. Similarly, the children are to follow the wife. Each spouse has a leadership role, and it involves not just teaching truth, but also providing what is needed for those following to succeed.
The disciples had a specific role in Yeshua’s ekklesia, and as a result, they received some additional instruction from Him beyond what the crowds were taught. They needed this additional instruction, because after what needed to be done, Yeshua’s crucifixion, they were the ones charged with teaching the people. Similarly, Yeshua taught that just as we who are evil try to give our children what they ask for, so much more will YHWH give to those who ask them (Matthew 7:9-11, Luke 11:11-13), so that they can succeed in what they are trying to do.
One of the harder parts of instruction, but arguably more important, is rebuke and correction. Yeshua’s ministry is rife with rebuke and correction, even when people weren’t saying what they were thinking (Matthew 9:3-6, Mark 2:6-11, Luke 5:21-24)! He rebuked and corrected the religious leaders of the day (Matthew 9:11-13, Mark 2:16-17, Luke 5:30-31), and even the people He was closest to, His own disciples (Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, Luke 8:22-25).
Rebuke and correction in a marriage is hard, because it requires confrontation of the person closest to us, but it is absolutely necessary. Inevitably, those that are taught will encounter a situation that was not specifically covered in a teaching and will have to apply what they learned. This doesn’t always go well, as we just saw with Yeshua’s rebuke of the disciples in the storm.
The disciples believed in Yeshua being the Son of YHWH, their Messiah, and He was emphasizing the importance of faith throughout His teaching. For example, He marveled at the centurion’s faith and told the disciples He hadn’t found anyone in Israel (which included them, by the way, a hard truth for the disciples) with as much faith as him (Matthew 8:10, Luke 7:9). Yet, they still feared for their lives from the storm despite YHWH’s Son being in the same boat and Yeshua’s teaching of the importance of faith.
Yeshua didn’t kick them out of the boat and tell them to go work on their faith though, did He? He didn’t go off and find different disciples to lead, did He? No, He did His best to work with the disciples, alongside them, guiding them and leading them to help them improve in their faith and their understanding. They continued to live and travel together, because Yeshua knew that going out into the world to figure it out themselves was not going to work. The best place for them to be was with Him, observing His example and continuing to learn as much as they could from His teachings.
The other way to look at this is from the perspective of being Yeshua’s body. Taking that figurative language to the extreme, as Yeshua was ministering on earth, He was essentially growing His body from infancy. The disciples, of course, were His first real members. Does it make sense for Him to lop off an arm or a leg because it wasn’t working quite right while His body was learning to crawl and then walk? Of course not!
In the same way, in a marriage, as one flesh, it doesn’t make sense to sever a half of you simply because that half is having a tough time learning, understanding, functioning, in the relationship. And how would you then provide an example to that half in an effort to restore yourself to wholeness if half of your body is somewhere else? Listen, a true, Godly marriage is not easy for a couple to live, especially initially. There’s a lot of unlearning we have to do from what the world has told us in terms of how we should think, live, and act in a relationship.
I guarantee you though, that simply the desire to live a Godly marriage is the first step in the right direction and puts you leaps and bounds ahead of anyone trying to make a relationship work any other way. The next step, which is exponentially further ahead than those who have reached the first step, is realizing that you have to work together, in close coordination, in order to get through difficulties, understand what living a Godly marriage really means, and then apply that directly to your marriage. There is no other way to create a stronger bond and a more bulletproof marriage than this. Just look at the disciples to understand that, because nearly all of them suffered horrible, torturous deaths for Yeshua, and the only reason they endured those things is because Yeshua never gave up on them and He continued to work side by side with them despite their failings and their faults.
Until next week, Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!
-Rob and Sara Gene
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