Slideshow image

This week we are working through Mark 10:1-12, a passage in which Jesus addresses a challenge from the Pharisees pertaining to Divorce. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

In a world not too unlike our own, divorce was thought of as acceptable and almost part of everyday life. There were even provisions for it within the Law that Moses had given the Israelites. 

Jesus flips their understanding upside down. For the Pharisees, they look at the law to find the loopholes, seeing what they can get away with. But Jesus essentially tells them that divorce is not lawful, because God had designed marriage to be united from the beginning. The problem that persists in humanity is the hardness of hearts. 

How can a marriage fall apart when those in it are loving the other as they love themself? How does a couple get divorced when each is putting the other first and putting themselves last? When they are each being the servant of all? Marriages do not fall apart when our hearts are humbled and we put each other ahead of ourselves as Jesus calls us to do in all areas of life. It is the life he has called us to live from the beginning.

Where do you need to soften your heart to the needs of another? Whether that is your spouse, your child, your neighbour, your friend?