{"id":61444,"date":"2022-12-30T21:46:45","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T21:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=61444"},"modified":"2022-12-30T21:46:45","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T21:46:45","slug":"five-husbands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=61444","title":{"rendered":"Five husbands"},"content":{"rendered":"

From The Preacher<\/strong><\/p>\n

FIVE HUSBANDS<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 The Insight of a Prophet<\/strong><\/p>\n

One tiring thirsty afternoon, Jesus broke a long-distance trip on foot to sit by a midway Samaritan well where He struck a conversation with a local woman.\u00a0 By prophetic insight, at one point in their discussion, Jesus said to her, \u201cthou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband\u201d (John 4:18).\u00a0 She was very shocked at how the stranger knew so much about her private life, and that opened the door to other matters.<\/p>\n

*2.\u00a0 Every Man is not a Husband<\/b>*<\/p>\n

When Jesus said\u00a0 \u201cthou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband,\u201d He was making a distinction between husbands and non-husbands, irrespective of the level of intimacy between the partners.\u00a0 Jesus was specific that the woman had had five men who were husbands, and that she was at the moment with Man Number Six who was not a husband, or not yet a husband, notwithstanding that she \u2018had\u2019 him at the time.\u00a0 Having a man does not make him a husband, or make one the wife.<\/p>\n

*3.\u00a0 A Hostel or a Home?<\/b>*<\/p>\n

In the Complete Jewish Bible, the New Living Translation, and a couple of other Bible translations, the expression,\u00a0 \u201che whom thou now hast,\u201d is rendered as\u00a0 \u201cthe man you\u2019re living with now.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, the woman was already living in with Man Number Six, probably checking out if, at last, that was going to be the man of her destiny and her peace; if that relationship would \u2018work\u2019 at last, after five failed cases.\u00a0 Whether she moved in with him or he moved in with her, we cannot say, but given that orthodox culture, it is more probable that it was she who moved in with the man.<\/p>\n

When Jesus said the man that she \u2018had\u2019 at the time was NOT a husband, not HER husband, He probably meant that she was dating a married man \u2013 another woman\u2019s husband, or that the man had not yet done the customary rites to announce him a husband, and make her the wife.\u00a0\u00a0 Secondly, and of more serious concern, Jesus seemed to have been saying that to have \u2018had\u2019 a man; to be \u2018living with\u2019\u00a0 the man; to move in with him, did not mean marriage to the man.\u00a0 The reverse would also be true, that to \u2018now have\u2019 a woman in the house, to be \u201cliving with\u201d her\u00a0 \u201cnow,\u201d does not make her a wife.\u00a0 In other words, residency is not marriage \u2013 no matter how long the stay.\u00a0 Flashy as a hostel might be, a hostel is no home, and marriage is much more than consensual cohabitation.<\/p>\n

Jesus was addressing two kinds of relationships: marriage and cohabitation.\u00a0 With the previous five, it was marriage; but with Man Number Six, it was cohabitation, which neither society nor God, unfortunately, had recognised as marriage.\u00a0 Jesus knew what marriage was, and what it was not.\u00a0 The woman knew, too.<\/p>\n

*4.\u00a0 Five New Testament Husbands?<\/b>*<\/p>\n

The next point is what bothers me: five husbands!\u00a0 Did Jesus really call those ex-men \u201chusbands\u201d?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t it He who said, in the same New Testament, that if someone divorced and remarried while the other partner was still alive, it was adultery, unless there had been a case of fornication (Matthew 5:32; 19:9)?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t Jesus then have said that she had had a husband, and thereafter four adulterers, or at best, four subsequent concubines or \u2018sugar daddies\u2019?\u00a0 Did Jesus really call those past relationships marriages?<\/p>\n

There was a hypothetical parable about a woman consecutively marrying seven brothers after the previous husband had died, from the eldest to the last (Mark 12:19-22).\u00a0 Was consecutive deaths the case with the woman of Samaria?\u00a0 Did each of the five husbands die, thus warranting her next marriage, and validating the subsequent man\u2019s title as \u201chusband\u201d rather than \u201cadulterer\u201d \u2013 and she _\u201cno adulteress,\u201d according to Romans 7:3?\u00a0 It is very unlikely that consecutive death was the cause of all five dissolutions.<\/p>\n

If death was not the cause of the five failed marriages, was it fornication?\u00a0 Did someone commit fornication in all previous marriages to warrant a divorce and legalise the next marriage, according to Matthew 5:32?\u00a0 Or were there other causes for the divorces?<\/p>\n

If this had been a parable, we might have had theological pathways to ease the puzzle, but this was a real-life encounter with a real woman who had had FIVE HUSBANDS!\u00a0 If it had been a man who had had five wives, we might also have bothered differently.\u00a0 What is marriage?\u00a0 Who is a husband?\u00a0 What makes a wife?\u00a0 What did Jesus mean in Matthew 5:32 that one is unable to see in John 4:18?<\/p>\n

*5.\u00a0 Men or Husbands?<\/b>*<\/p>\n

The word translated \u201chusbands\u201d in the story of the woman of Samaria is the Greek word aner; the same word in Matthew 1:16 and 19, where Joseph is called \u201cthe HUSBAND of Mary.\u201d Of course, there are instances in the English Bible where the same Greek word is translated as \u201cmen,\u201d as in Matthew 14:21 where Jesus fed _\u201cfive thousand MEN.\u201d\u00a0 The reference in John 4, however, seems very clear: \u201chusbands,\u201d especially as Jesus was also careful to distinguish the five ex-men (husbands \u2013 aner) from the sixth man (no-husband; co-tenant).<\/p>\n

What did Jesus mean?\u00a0 Does His language in John 4:18 reinforce or extend His warnings in Matthew 5:32? In the same New Testament, could one have had a dissolution and be guilty of adultery, and another have as many as five dissolutions, and still earn the legal title of wife and husband?\u00a0 What don\u2019t we understand from the comparative cases?\u00a0 Maybe a matter for another epistle.<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0e The Preacher can be reached at +2348035115164; +2348035115025; info@thepreacher.info;\u00a0 http:\/\/thepreacherdiary.com\/; www.thepreacher.info<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/facebook.com\/www.thepreacher.info\/<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Preacher FIVE HUSBANDS 1.\u00a0 The Insight of a Prophet One tiring thirsty afternoon, Jesus broke a long-distance trip on foot to sit by a midway Samaritan well where He struck a conversation with a local woman.\u00a0 By prophetic insight, at one point in their discussion, Jesus said to her, \u201cthou hast had five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5772],"tags":[1534,5409,1015],"class_list":["post-61444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faith","tag-five","tag-husbands","tag-jesus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}