Matthew 5: Faithfulness in a Throwaway Age

Introduction

You may have made this kind of trip before: you are on your way to see someone you love, you know you have to tell them something hard to hear, and you rehearse your sentences ten times, twenty times, on the road. Pastor Benjamin, of the Église du Tabernacle, confides that he made that journey all week before this message. Today's text is about marriage, divorce and keeping your word.

He knows that some people in the congregation have been hurt in their marriage, that others carry regrets, that some have been through a divorce or are thinking about one, and that others grew up with divorced parents. And as for broken promises and betrayals, he asks: who has never been hurt? He says he prayed a lot that his wording would fit each person, and he trusts the Holy Spirit to bring peace to hearts.

This message is part of the series "At the King's School" on the Sermon on the Mount. Several times Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said... But I tell you." He does not erase the law; he restores its full reach, which the teachers of the time had twisted. The text is Matthew 5:31-37, and the pastor handles it in two parts: a commitment that holds, then a word that holds.

Message outline

1. The context: divorce for any reason

Marriage is a paradox: there is nothing more beautiful than a wedding celebration, and few forms of distress run as deep as an unhappy marriage, because that distress is waiting for you at home every evening. As a pastor, Benjamin says these are the hardest situations he walks through with people, and they are not rare. He points out that there are more than 100,000 divorces in France every year and that the Church is not spared.
The Sermon on the Mount is most likely a condensed version: read aloud, Matthew 5 to 7 takes about fifteen minutes. Matthew 19:3-9 records another teaching of Jesus on the same subject, with many more details. There the Pharisees ask whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause.
In the first century, a man did not need a judge to divorce: a few lines in front of witnesses, the document handed to his wife, and it was over. The woman did not have that right. The letter provided for in Deuteronomy 24:1 was meant to protect her: without it, a husband could throw her out on a day of anger and take her back the next day like a piece of paper you crumple and smooth out again. With that document, she could rebuild her life.
The debate was about the expression "something shameful." One school saw it as a serious sexual fault. A second saw in it anything that displeased the husband: a ruined meal, a wife who "lets herself go" while another woman seems more beautiful. The pastor asks which school appealed most to men. The second. "Men never change."
Before thinking we are far from all that, he cites an OpinionWay survey from May 2026 on the causes of breakups. Infidelity comes only in sixth place. In fourth: weariness. In third: disappointment. In second: "I could no longer stand their character." In first: "we no longer had the same life plans." And one person in three admits that their separation could have been avoided. Times and reasons have changed, but the question remains the same.

2. They talk about the exit, Jesus talks about the entrance

The pastor invites us to imagine a wedding at the town hall. At the end, the mayor asks if there are any questions, and the groom raises his hand: "Which form do I fill in to cancel?" The mayor would ask him whether he knows why he is getting married. That is exactly what the Pharisees do: standing before the one who invented marriage, their only question is how to get out of it.
Jesus answers: "Haven't you read?" In the beginning, the Creator made them male and female, and they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). The Pharisees look for a reason; Jesus recalls the plan. "They talk about the exit, Jesus talks about the entrance." You are not just two people in a marriage: God instituted it and God has joined you together.
According to the Bible, marriage is a covenant, a commitment, and not first of all a matter of feelings. There are two ways to live it. As a consumer product: "I stay as long as I get something out of it." Or as a covenant: "I stay because I promised, even on the days when I get nothing out of it."
On the wedding day, we do not say "I love you today"; we say "I will love you tomorrow, I will love you the day after tomorrow," until death parts us. "Feelings come, they go, they come back," but promises carry them. The pastor believes marriage is an experience God gives us to discover the covenant he makes with us and to become more like Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5). Happiness often arrives along that road.
Discouraged by his couple counseling, he once asked his mentor, a pastor of long experience, how many couples he had seen make it through. For those who arrived already talking about separation, the answer was about one in ten. Benjamin makes clear that it is not lost for those who are thinking about it. But the lesson is plain: what kills a marriage is not only the crisis, it is the exit door left ajar. When you tell yourself the door is open, you fight with half your heart.

3. The hardness of heart behind divorce

The Pharisees object: why then did Moses prescribe the certificate of divorce? For them it is a right, it is legal. Jesus changes the vocabulary: it is because of the hardness of your hearts that Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. "Permitting and commanding are not at all the same thing."
The pastor's illustration: when you go on a trip, you keep an accident report form in the glove compartment. Nobody gets into the car looking forward to using it. It is there because accidents happen and the damage then has to be sorted out. The certificate of divorce is of that kind. Moses was protecting mistreated women, and the Pharisees turned it into a right for themselves.
Jesus touches the real problem: "A heart that hardens, a heart that no longer forgives. A heart that no longer asks forgiveness, a heart that keeps accounts." He is not talking about your spouse's heart, he is talking about yours, and the pastor adds: about mine.
This is Jesus' method throughout the passage: the anger behind murder, the look behind adultery, and here the hard heart behind divorce. He goes beneath the rule down to the heart, because that is where everything begins. "The law stops the hand that wants to strike, but the heart makes sure the hand is never raised."
The husband who wrote the letter and had the witnesses sign believes he is in the clear. Jesus tells him it is over for him, "but not in God's eyes." The Pharisees see a procedure; Jesus looks at the person.
Jesus also does something revolutionary: he speaks of the man as well as the woman. In those days, a man who went to see an unmarried woman thought he had nothing to be ashamed of. Jesus ends this double standard: men and women are equal in dignity. Some men grew up with the idea that their lapses are forgiven and a woman's are not. For Jesus, that does not exist.

4. The exception: when the covenant is struck at its heart

Jesus mentions an exception: sexual immorality. The Greek word is porneia, which the pastor finds poorly rendered by "adultery"; other versions speak of sexual misconduct, which is broader. But you first have to understand the plan in order to understand the exception.
For eight years, in northern Côte d'Ivoire, he chaired the board of a hospital. Leg fractures were common there because of motorbike accidents. The whole team had one idea: repair. A cast if possible, an operation with pins if necessary. And sometimes, when everything has been tried, the surgeon says an amputation is needed to save the person. It is terrible for everyone.
Most couple crises are sprains to be treated. Some are fractures, which call for an uncomfortable position of each toward the other. Others call for an operation. And sometimes you have to amputate. Sexual misconduct strikes the covenant where it holds, the one flesh, and the wound is of a different nature from weariness or an argument. To the one who has been betrayed, Jesus says neither "you must stay" nor "you must leave." He says: if you leave, you are not the one who broke the covenant.
Is it the only ground? The pastor acknowledges that the question divides. With a large part of the Reformed tradition, he thinks not. Paul adds abandonment in 1 Corinthians 7:15: if the unbelieving spouse leaves, the brother or sister is not bound, for God has called us to live in peace. Jesus was not drawing up a closed list, he was giving a principle.
He wants to be clear about his position: he believes that the spouse who hits, who terrorizes, who destroys the other day after day breaks the covenant. "Flee as fast as you can and come and talk to us." He also asks whether there is not abandonment when the other buries you in debt to the point that you will never be able to get back up. We need to be careful with our closed lists.
Going back to a rule would run against the whole dynamic of the Sermon on the Mount. It is like money: we would like a 10% rule so we can be at ease, but 2 Corinthians 9:7 says that each one gives as he has decided in his heart. A figure lets you be in order without your heart moving. Jesus does not abolish the law, he takes away our ability to hide behind it.
Even when the ground exists, Jesus permits, he does not command. He does not want the exception to be a button you press. The pastor has known two situations, once with a man, once with a woman, where one spouse had deprived the other of a sexual relationship for years; the other fell into adultery, and the first said he or she had the right to divorce. Adultery remains a sin, but the Word also asks spouses not to deprive one another (1 Corinthians 7:5). The clause can become an alibi. Jesus never spoke a word so that people would do harm to others.
A divorce remains an amputation, and an amputation always hurts: your soul, what you have built, your children, your family, your friends. The pastor does not address remarriage on that day, for lack of time. Every story is different, and there is no rule to add, but a divorce must not happen for bad reasons, because the stakes are spiritual.

5. Before amputating, try everything

The pastor wants to be concrete: "Before amputating, we must try everything" so as not to get to that point. The leaders of the Church are available. Many come too late, with their mind already made up. Everyone has problems in their marriage; it is better to be accompanied early, to reflect, pray and heal your hard heart.
He even says he is ready, at times, to accept a temporary separation so that each person can breathe and let time do its work.
Jesus ends by saying that whatever is added comes from the evil one. We are in a spiritual battle, and Satan wants to destroy families and couples. One man once described to him his marriage on the edge of the abyss and everything he had put in place. The pastor asked him how he prayed about it, and whether he had gotten on his knees with his wife. He was not praying for his marriage.
Then he gives his testimony. The first years of his marriage were "catastrophic": differences of culture, character, past and expectations. He was very often angry with his wife, who was frustrated with him. One day, sitting on the edge of the bed in northern Côte d'Ivoire, they said to each other: "Is this marriage? How are we going to get through?" At no point did they open the door to divorce. They got on their knees and begged God: "Lord, we can't do it."
Nothing changed all at once. It took years, a great deal of forgiveness, effort and prayer. But God raised their marriage back to life. "Anger no longer governs my home," he says in front of his wife, and both are fulfilled today. He still prays every morning to be a good husband, and his wife reminds him every month that the two of them need to pray together. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, don't you believe he can raise your marriage?"

6. A word that holds

"Marriage is the greatest word you will ever give in your life." But Jesus moves on to our other words, with the same logic: do not swear by heaven, or by the earth, or by Jerusalem, or by your head. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no. "For marriage, we look for an exit with the paperwork. For our word, we look for one with a formula."
The teachers of the law had built a system: swearing by the name of God was binding, swearing by heaven or by Jerusalem let you work your way out. You just had to know the right formula. Jesus sweeps all of that away: God hears what you say, wherever you are.
While learning Dyula in Côte d'Ivoire, the pastor noticed that one exchange kept coming back in stories: is God a witness to what you are saying? Until the other person has said so, they are not believed. He also remembers middle school, where you had to say "on my mother's head" to be believed. A commentator sums it up: "Oaths appear because people are too often liars."
Beware of a wrong reading: Jesus does not forbid taking an oath in court, he did so himself before the high priest. He aims deeper: disciples whose yes needs nothing added, because the citizens of the kingdom are people of their word.
Two stories show it. The pastor shared the gospel with a man in Côte d'Ivoire and a woman in France. Both were gripped by the gospel and by the life of the Church described in Acts 2. Then a brother, and a sister, borrowed money from them, swearing to repay it "in the name of brotherhood." They are still waiting. The man stayed in the faith, the woman did not: "If these people's word is worth nothing, what is the message they proclaim worth?"
We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14). "When a Christian does not keep their word, it is not only they who are no longer believed, it is the God they proclaim." The pastor would like people to say of Christians: they do not lie. In practical terms: you said "I'll call you back," do you call? "I'll stop by," do you stop by? "I'll pay you back at the end of the month," do you pay? What you promise your children, what you declare on your honor in an application, do you do it? And when you say "I'm praying for you," do you pray?

7. The cross carries our unkept yeses

Each of us has a yes somewhere that we did not keep. The pastor knows that some felt a weight on their chest during the part on marriage, and he does not want them to leave with it. At the cross, Jesus carried our broken marriages and our betrayed promises.
"There is no fault that God does not forgive in the one who comes to him." The consequences sometimes remain: the pain, the damaged trust. But the condemnation does not remain, because there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
He wants it to be clear in the community: the divorced and the remarried in the Church are not "second-class" Christians. If you were on the receiving end, God does not charge you with another person's fault. If you bear your share, there is no sin the cross does not cover.
"I want you to go away with grace," he says, with the desire to hold on in your marriage, because it is a matter of a covenant made before God, and the desire that each of your yeses be a real yes. "Because our king keeps his word, we can learn to keep ours."

Key takeaways

Marriage is a covenant and not a consumer product: you stay because you promised, even on the days when you get nothing out of it.
What kills a marriage is not only the crisis, it is the exit door left ajar. The root of the problem is hardness of heart, starting with your own.
Jesus recognizes cases where the covenant is struck at its heart, such as sexual misconduct; Paul adds abandonment, and the pastor believes violence belongs there too. But the exception is never a button you press or a weapon against the other person.
The citizens of the kingdom are people of their word: your yes needs no formula to be believed.
At the cross, Jesus carried broken marriages and betrayed promises. The divorced and the remarried are not second-class Christians.

Personal application

In your marriage, are you living a covenant, or a relationship that lasts as long as you get something out of it?
Is there an exit door you leave ajar, in your head or in your words?
What hardness of heart does Jesus bring to light in you: a forgiveness refused, a forgiveness you no longer ask for, accounts you keep?
When did you last pray for your marriage, alone or on your knees with your spouse? Who could you go and see right now, before it is too late?
Which "I'll call you back," "I'll stop by" or "I'm praying for you" have you not yet kept this week?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does Jesus say about divorce in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19?

The Pharisees ask whether a man may divorce for any reason. Jesus does not start with the exit but with the entrance: in the beginning, God joined the man and the woman as one flesh. Marriage is a covenant and not a consumer product. Moses permitted the certificate of divorce because of hardness of heart; he did not command it.

Is sexual immorality the only possible ground for divorce?

The preacher, along with a large part of the Reformed tradition, thinks not. The Greek word porneia refers to sexual misconduct, broader than adultery, and Paul adds abandonment in 1 Corinthians 7:15. Jesus gives a principle, not a closed list. In his view, the spouse who hits and terrorizes breaks the covenant: you must not stay under the blows. But the exception is never a button you press.

Why does Jesus say not to swear an oath at all?

The teachers of the law distinguished between oaths that were binding and oaths that let you work your way out. Jesus sweeps these formulas away: God hears what you say wherever you are. He is not targeting the oath in court, but he wants disciples whose yes needs nothing added, because the citizens of the kingdom are people of their word.