In The Word
Read: Mark 10:1-16
Jesus’ Teaching about Divorce
10 Setting out from there, Jesus *went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds *gathered to Him again, and, as He was accustomed, He once more began to teach them.
2 And some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began questioning Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. 3 And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, God created them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, 8 and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore, what God has joined together, no person is to separate.”
10 And in the house the disciples again began questioning Him about this. 11 And He *said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; 12 and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”
Jesus Blesses Little Children
13 And they were bringing children to Him so that He would touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Allow the children to come to Me; do not forbid them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” 16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
Jesus, being surrounded again by a large crowd, did what He was known to do: teach. With every crowd, there are those that believe that they know more than the teacher. And so it was with the Pharisees, who were not there to learn but to trap Jesus.
They pressed Him with the hot topic of divorce. What would this Teacher teach now? In true form, Jesus answered with a question. In verse 3, He asks, “What did Moses command you?” What Jesus did was expose the deep root of the problem. This was not a question of divorce, it was a question of the heart. Divorce was not from God, and they knew it. It was because of the brokenness of the heart.
The truth is that God hates divorce (Malachi 2: 16), but divorce is a by-product of a hardened heart. If only they would have had the faith of a child, they would have taken God at His word! Once again the issue here is not divorce but the heart of the hearer. A hard heart knows what God wants but refuses to do it. In the case of marriage, God always wants reconciliation. But will the hearer have childlike faith to take God at His word? These are the ones that will inherit the kingdom of God.
Beloved, know that God’s desire is that you would let down your guard and be vulnerable to His will. If we will allow Him, He will take our heart of stone and turn it back into a heart of a child.