Rev. Dustin Beck, pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Warda, TX, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Mark 10:1-12.
Jesus’ ministry of teaching continues in the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. In the same area where John the Baptist had once spoken against Herod’s sin against adultery, the Pharisees come to Jesus to test Him with a question about divorce. When Jesus turns the question back to them, they quote from Moses in Deuteronomy 24. Jesus’ response makes it apparent that they are looking at the wrong text because they are asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, “How can a divorce be lawful?” they should ask, “What is marriage?” The answer to that question is found in Genesis 1 and 2, where God creates marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman as one flesh. What God has joined together must not be broken by man. The disciples receive the same answer from Jesus privately. These words from Jesus are difficult for us still today because of our own hardness of heart. We must take heed of the goodness of God’s gift of marriage as we rejoice in the forgiveness that is ours in Christ.
“The Gospel in Action” is a mini-series on Sharper Iron that goes through the Gospel according to St. Mark. The Evangelist hits the ground running with the very first verse of his Gospel account, and he never lets up the pace. As one deed of Jesus comes right after another, always paired with His authoritative Word, St. Mark proclaims the good news that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, revealed conclusively by His death on the cross.
Sharper Iron, hosted by Rev. Timothy Appel, looks at the text of Holy Scripture both in its broad context and its narrow detail, all for the sake of proclaiming Christ crucified and risen for sinners. Two pastors engage with God’s Word to sharpen not only their own faith and knowledge, but the faith and knowledge of all who listen.
Sharper Iron is underwritten by Lutheran Church Extension Fund, where your investments help support the work of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Visit lcef.org.
Mark 10:1-12
Teaching About Divorce
10 And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them.
2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” 5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,[a] 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Footnotes
- Mark 10:7 Some manuscripts omit and hold fast to his wife
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
