Divorce

 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
Mark 10:2 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/mrk.10.2.ESV

It may seem like an innocent enough question, but God knows the heart and He knows that the religious people were trying to test Jesus. They weren't even just trying to see where He was in the culture wars- conservative or liberal. They knew John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod for rebuking his illegitimate marriage.

Jesus didn't dodge the question, red herring though it may have been. He comes across more conservative than most conservatives today. Here He gives no grounds for divorce.

Of course, if someone is habitually adulterous or abusive, there needs to be a separation. Yet in Mark's account Jesus gives no grounds for divorce whatsoever: that's how seriously God views marriage. In other accounts adultery is grounds for divorce, but Jesus makes no allowances for remarriage even while the divorcees are alive.

The disciples, like most of us today, found Jesus' teaching hard to take. They decided it would be better not to be married. Marriage is a gift of God, yet it is so precious that it should not be discarded.

'Heavenly Father, please give us Your respect for marriage. Thank You for how it pictures the relationship between Christ and the church, which will never be broken, despite our failings. In His name, amen'

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