10:1
We now enter a controversial topic, one which was controversial then and still is today, though possibly less so than it used to be, namely divorce! Jesus had arrived in Perea, a region in Judea. Mark, as he so often does, mentions that Jesus taught the multitudes. And let me say again, people need teaching. We can denigrate teaching within the church in a misguided attempt to be “accessible” of more “contemporary”. Now, this does not mean we don’t use drama or music, or various modern means of presentation, but at the end of the day we need to feed people with solid food. Just think, what is viewed as essential to enable to people to become “liberated” or “empowered” in worldly terms? Education! The world knows that education is vital, it is no different in the kingdom.
10:2
The Pharisees came up seeking to trap Jesus with a question. They were not really interested in the answer for its own sake, they just wanted to trap Jesus. It is much the same today when people ask questions about LGBT issues, often they have no interest in the truth, they just want to entrap people. We should learn from Jesus’ approach to this question in order to help us to answer LGBT questions.
It is also important that we understand the background, otherwise we will misunderstand Jesus’ answer. And it is vital to the interpretation I am going to put on things. There were two schools of thought on the issue of divorce, depending upon how Deut 24:1, which allowed for divorce, was interpreted. The Shammai school took a strict interpretation, essentially seeing unfaithfulness as the only just grounds for divorce. In contrast, the Hillel school allowed a husband to divorce his wife for almost any reason, even burning the toast! Indeed a later Hillel rabbi said a man could divorce his wife if he found someone more beautiful. We will come back to this point later. See Mishnah Gittin 9:10.
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