Year 2, Week 36, Day 1 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 36, Day 1

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Matthew 19; Mark 10.

Today’s reading involves readings from two Gospel accounts that have significant parallel to each other. Matthew 19 and Mark 10 both report on an episode involving some Pharisees, who question Jesus about the matter of marriage and divorce: “And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (Matthew 19:3). Mark’s report does not explicitly contain the phrase, “for any cause,” but offers the same inquiry: “And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2). Both accounts preface the Pharisees’ inquiry with the note that they were seeking to “test” Jesus, suggesting that they were not there to genuinely learn from Jesus, but perhaps hoping to stump Him or trip Him up. Perhaps the Pharisees’ inquiry was motivated by enticing Jesus to declare a critical word against divorce so that Jesus might land in the same trouble that John the Baptist got into with Herod: "For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife” (Mark 6:17-18). John the Baptist’s declaration got him killed. But Jesus supplies an answer and He roots His reply in the Scripture: “He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” (Mark 10:3). Mark’s arrangement of Jesus’ reply is in a different order than Matthew’s, but they each show how Jesus drew from Moses to touch on the permanence of marriage as well as the issue behind divorce. Jesus framed the matters of marriage and divorce as issues involving the supreme Biblical standard and the qualified Biblical concession.

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading is Jesus’ distinction between a Biblical standard and a Biblical concession. On the matter of marriage, Jesus roots His understanding on a basic command and declaration, established in the Garden: "But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Mark 10:6-8a). Quoting from Genesis 2:24, Jesus adds a tag for emphasis and concludes with a declaration: “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:8b-9). Matthew’s account records nearly similar wording but places these words on the standard of marriage before the concession of divorce. The Biblical standard concerning marriage is a physical sexual union involving one man and one woman: “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6). Anything other than a union of one man and one woman sexually bound together for life is a violation of God’s Law. Marriage is not required of all people, but marriage is required for a sexual union to lawfully occur: “The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (Matthew 19:10-12).

While Jesus makes the case for the permanence of the marital union, the Pharisees press Jesus with another inquiry: “They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” (Matthew 19:7). Mark builds on Matthew’s account and records a further statement they made: “They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away” (Mark 10:4). The actual statement about divorce from Moses states: “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house” (Deuteronomy 24:1). Moses’ actual words concerning divorce are not framed as a command, but an allowance or concession. Moses permits divorce in certain contexts and then regulates how a permitted divorce was to unfold. The language of allow or permit is confirmed by what Jesus explains next as to the reason behind Moses’ concession: “He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:8-9). God permitted and tolerated divorce because of the hardness of human hearts. Jesus wants to restrain divorce, not encourage it. He regulated and restrained divorce to diminish its consequences and reduce its frequency. Where sexual unfaithfulness occurs within the marriage covenant, a divorce is not required but it is permissible. Mark adds that where sexual unfaithfulness has not occurred, the person who divorces their spouse on insufficient grounds and the divorced person marries someone else, he or she “commits adultery against” the first spouse: “And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12). Divorce, except in cases of sexual immorality, is actually a form of adultery.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe