How do you care for your spouse, or for those working alongside you? Chapter 24 highlights the proper exercise of authority. The first area under consideration is marriage; do not trivialize the dignity and honor of marriage (Deut. 24:1–4). As much as we are to esteem the image-bearing nature in humanity, so too God calls His people to esteem the union between two persons—husband and wife. God does not condone any rupture of this union, as though siding with man’s fickleness, even in terms of a divorce. God, in his mercy, reveals the breach of union as result of mankind’s sin (as Jesus points out later: Matt. 19:8). The three “A” code of permissible, biblical grounds of divorce includes: abandonment, abuse, adultery. Not getting along well or “falling out of love” are despicable reasons from hardness of heart and unwillingness to grow together in union, reliant upon the sovereign grace of God to transform—covenant marriage is under the authority of God, not our fickle hearts.

Further outworkings of this pattern for how authority and relationships operate are here elucidated. The reverence applied to the covenantal union between man and woman is again supported in the institution of keeping men at their home the first year of marriage, so to establish the home order and cultivate proper affections (Deut. 24:5). This patriarchal system of honor depicted here is a cornerstone of the health of western civilization. However, we men do much to mar the system by abusing or growing lazy in exercising such power rightly in marriage, family, and other relationships (Deut. 24:7). How we accumulate wealth, treat the impoverished, or squander resources point to areas outside the home where a view of God’s sovereign rule ought to bring us to prayerful submission to His design.

Further outworkings of this pattern for how authority and relationships operate are here elucidated. The reverence applied to the covenantal union between man and woman is again supported in the institution of keeping men at their home the first year of marriage, so to establish the home order and cultivate proper affections (Deut. 24:5). This patriarchal system of honor depicted here is a cornerstone of the health of western civilization. However, we men do much to mar the system by abusing or growing lazy in exercising such power rightly in marriage, family, and other relationships (Deut. 24:7). How we accumulate wealth, treat the impoverished, or squander resources point to areas outside the home where a view of God’s sovereign rule ought to bring us to prayerful submission to His design.

The antidote is not to remove God’s design of headship for men, but to remember our own weaknesses and infirmities, our own times of want and need, and in this way become compassionate and servant-hearted (Deut. 24:9, 18, 22). We recognize the importance not of simply remembering, but of applying the true purpose of the memory—I am to treat others the way I want to be treated because God so treated me with grace and mercy when He led me to Himself.

These are all instances, in greater or lesser properties, where those who exercise authority are not to abandon such authority, but promote right use and so demonstrate the provision of the true king. How are you supporting God’s design this week? Where can you be trained to exercise right authority from Scripture’s model? How has God shown you His true authority this week?

Pastor Chris