Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
We return to Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10:2-12 on the thorny subject of divorce. After affirming the extraordinarily high value of marriage (verses 6-9), Jesus spoke specifically about divorce: “And in the house His disciples asked Him again of the same matter. And He saith unto them, ‘Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery” (verses 10-12). Two points reveal the hardness of the hearts of the Pharisees. First, they looked at the subject of divorce from a husband’s perspective only: “’Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?’ tempting [testing] Him” (verse 2b). They did not consider the possibility of a wife initiating divorce; it was against their law. Their limited mindset was inherently misogynist. Second, they were not really interested in a definitive answer. We have already considered that their motives were evil, for they were “tempting [testing]” Jesus in hopes of having Him say something that they could use against Him. This antagonistic approach is confirmed by their lack of interest in asking for clarification. Their unwillingness to follow up their initial question shows that they did not care about the truth. The disciples, for all their flaws and failures, did care about the truth and asked for more information. Let us remember that Jesus is “the Truth” (John 14:6) and that we must heed His words.