“Marriage, Children, and Stuff”
- Mark 10 will show us discipleship in marriage, with our children, and with our possessions / stuff.
- God is giving you a vision for your future and/or a picture of his abiding and care-filled grace for your future full of forgiveness, mercy, love and wholeness as well.
- Whenever we look at Jesus we see:
Colossians 2
9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.
10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
Hebrews 1
Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.
2 And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.
3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.
John 14.6
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
7 If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
9 … Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!
Mark 10
Then Jesus left Capernaum and went down to the region of Judea and into the area east of the Jordan River. Once again crowds gathered around him, and as usual he was teaching them.
2 Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?”
- Mark tells us about Jesus doing by answering questions - even questions with wicked intent!
- The parallel passage for this interchange is found in Matthew 19.3, where the following question is rendered there as “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any AND EVERY reason?”
Mark 10
3 Jesus answered them with a question: “What did Moses say in the law about divorce?”
4 “Well, he permitted it,” they replied. “He said a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away.” (Numbers 24.1-4)
The Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus -they KNOW Jesus thinks and speaks differently from and against their traditions; they KNOW it will be the same here!
Schurer says
“Divorce was relatively easy in those days and the Pharisees and rabbis intended to keep it so.” They see marriage as a disposable contract. That doesn’t match anything that God created.
The Pharisees reference Deut 24.1-4 and what they miss entirely is that God gave instructions on divorce to “limit the ill-effects of divorce” and these trap-setters are using it “as a pretext FOR divorce.”
Mark 10.5
But Jesus responded, “He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts.
6 But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation.
7 ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife,
8 and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one,
9 let no one split apart what God has joined together.”
10 Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again.
11 He told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her.
12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery.”
Jesus points us toward God’s will for marriage, not to argue about possible exceptions to it. His opponents ask what is permissible; he points to what is commanded.
Deuteronomy 24:1–3 is not a pretext for divorce but an attempt to limit its worst consequences for women.
- The divine intention for marriage cannot be determined from a text about divorce.
- Jesus takes us back to the Creation account, where God’s intention and plan can be most clearly seen.
- Everything after that in all of Scripture is to deal with the horrific effects of sin.
- Remember that God created marriage in a ‘sinless’ environment, not creating in response to broken-ness, but Creating for the purpose of wholeness.
PNTC:
“Mark 10:1–12 is a blueprint for an entirely new norm of marriage, as necessary in our day as in Jesus’. According to the plain sense of 10:1–12, Jesus does not allow grounds for divorce. Matt. 5.32 qualifies and allows for the case of adultery. “Whether or not Jesus allowed for divorce on the basis of adultery is therefore not certain; and even in the case of adultery there is no indication that he demanded divorce…”
- If the guilty person in adultery repents and stops the sin of adultery and the other partner is willing to receive God’s grace for forgiveness, the marriage can be redeemed.
- Again, the key isn’t equipping ourselves for the disaster of divorce, but points our hearts to the delight of God’s design!
- God is true even when everyone else is a liar (Romans 3.4)
Edwards:
*”The intent of Jesus’ teaching is not to shackle those who fail in marriage with debilitating guilt. The question is not whether God forgives those who fail in marriage. The answer to that question is assured in 3:28, “ ‘All the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven.’” *
“… Will we seek relief in what is permitted, or commit ourselves to what is intended by God and commanded by Christ? Will we fall away in trouble and difficulty (4:17), or follow Jesus in the costly journey of discipleship, even in marriage? Will we sunder the divine union of “two become one flesh,” or will we honor and nurture marriage as a gift and creation of God?”
Mark 3
28 “I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, 29 but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with eternal consequences.”
Mark 4
14 The farmer plants seed by taking God’s word to others.
15 The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message, only to have Satan come at once and take it away.
16 The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy.
17 But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word.
18 The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God’s word,
19 but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced.
20 And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”
Ephesians 5
31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.
33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Galatians 5
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.
25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
Philippians 2.12
Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.
13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
