“Testing The Word” – MARK 10:1-12

Here they come again! These Pharisees do not come to Jesus with pure motives and clean hearts, they come to spring a trap for the Teacher (10:2b). In this exchange we learn a lot about ourselves, marriage and God.

Some people come to the word of God to glean truth, while others look for justification. Still others, like these Pharisees come to try to get God to contradict Himself. They were not trying to learn anything from Jesus (10:2).

History is filled with man’s attempts to pit Jesus against Moses (10:4) and Peter against Jesus and Paul against James – in other words, pitting the Bible against itself. In denying the deity of Christ, the Pharisees missed the key to the whole equation … Jesus IS the Word. It is the good and honest heart that comes to Jesus to listen and learn. Human abuses of this divine gift of privilege lead hearts, minds and souls away from salvation.

The Pharisees wanted to believe that God is “pro-divorce” because Moses included a provision for writing papers of divorce. In a patriarchal society where inheritance and property were funneled through sons, the Hebrews looked upon women as just another piece of property instead of as a piece of themselves that God gave them to nurture. Using their economic leverage, Hebrew men began callously putting away wives. Moses commanded them to give a writing of divorce, not as a permit to carry on, but as a stamp of shame on their hard hearts (10:5). Marriage was given to mankind as a blessing, but men have made it into a burden.

Marriage was given to mankind as the nucleus of families, but men have created a fiasco.

It matters not what a human court decrees, marriage is from God (10:9) and is between one man and one woman (10:6-8). God separates this bond in the case of death of a spouse and fornication (10:11-12 and Matthew 19:9). It matters not that a civil judicial entity claims the power to dissolve a marriage for other reasons. Even in this, we tend to miss the point of what Jesus is saying.

Do not come to this passage for proof that God is “anti-divorce”.

Instead see the will of God and the beauty of the fact that He is “pro-marriage”.

If you enter into a marriage with an eye toward an “escape clause” in the future, chances are that the only real question will be the exact date your divorce will be finalized by a judge. On the other hand, what if we choose to see the awesome plan that God has for men and women and this thing called love?

All comes back to the way we look at scripture, ourselves and God.

The ones who condemn God for His alleged arbitrary rule-making are usually the ones that come to the Bible looking for justification in loopholes. You cannot trap God with His own words. Instead of testing the Teacher, should we not listen, learn and do? It is no accident that this teaching is “bracketed” by Jesus teaching about children (9:36-37, 9:42 and 10:13-16). The time to teach our children about marriage, divorce and re-marriage is not when they come back to our homes in tears because they have left their spouse. The time to teach them about marriage is all through their childhood as we teach them about coming to Jesus as little children!

God is a divine joiner, not a family splitter (10:9), and the only testing allowed is to test Him and watch Him bless your family through your marriage!