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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
When Jesus had finished saying these
things, He left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of
the Jordan. Large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.
Some Pharisees came to Him to test Him.
They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every
reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at
the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and
said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to
his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but
one flesh.”
Matthew 19:1-6
“It was because your hearts were hard that
Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God
‘made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one
flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined
together, let no one separate.”
Mark 10:5-9
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Last month, my wife and I had our 25th
wedding anniversary. It was a milestone event worthy of great celebration, a
celebration of love and longevity as we looked back on our many years together
and the experiences those years brought. We rejoiced in our union, a union the
Lord had ordained and blessed over the long haul.
It’s this word “union” that I feel is
critical to the matter of discussing marriage because it really is what it’s
all about in the end translation. A man and woman unite and that union means
the two have become one, not just for the short term but forever. It’s this
concept that will be at the heart of the next few devotions as we look at what
Jesus had to say about marriage in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Look again
at what He had to say in Matthew’s account:
When
Jesus had finished saying these things, He left Galilee and went into the
region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed Him, and
He healed them there.
Some
Pharisees came to Him to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t
you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and
female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father
and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So
they are no longer two, but one flesh.” Matthew 19:1-6
Note here that as Jesus traveled into the
region of Judea, drawing large crowds and healing people as He so often did,
some Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders of the day, approached Him with a
question. Of interest, the question was about divorce not marriage.
Or in other words, the Jewish religious
authorities came asking about ending a marriage, not establishing or trying to
save one. They asked Jesus not just to query but test as well, asking:
“Is
it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
How did Jesus answer their question?
The scriptures show us that He changed the
subject to marriage and how it should be looked at first.
“Haven’t
you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and
said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to
his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but
one flesh.”
Perhaps the Pharisees were trying to see
what Jesus knew about Old Testament law which definitely discussed divorce and
provided legal guidance as to criteria and required actions. Knowing what they
were up to, Jesus directed them to another Old Testament passage and words
spoken by God, His Father and theirs. He quoted these words from the Book of
Genesis, Chapter 2:
For Adam no suitable
helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and
while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the
place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out
of the man, and He brought her to the man.
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she
shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man
leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one
flesh. Genesis 2:20-24
Jesus takes the Pharisees back to before
any law had been composed, back to the time when mankind began. There, God
created man and then a partner for the man so a union could be made. This first
couple would begin the family tree for every man and woman who would ever
follow.
That’s how significant Adam and Eve are in
the big scheme of things. And it began where a man and a woman became one flesh.
This is how God intended marriage to be, no matter how many people in the world
today want to make it something different. God said a man would leave his
father and mother to be united to his wife and the two would become one flesh. The
scriptures could not be more clear on this.
So back to the initial question raised by
the Pharisees, the question regarding divorce.
What was Jesus getting at by shifting the
discussion to marriage?
The point is this. If marriages function as
God expects and ordains them to function, the man and the woman truly becoming
one flesh, bound together by the Lord who made them, then there will never be
any need to discuss divorce because the marital unions will be unbreakable.
Or as Mark put it in his account:
“Therefore
what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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