The Question of Divorce
Audio
Audio will be available shortly after the completion of the service.
Scripture
and
Sermon Notes
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, 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.”
Mark 10:1-12 ESV
Mark 1:15 ESV - 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
1. The Context
Mark 10:1 ESV - 1 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.
Mark 1:38 ESV - 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”
2. The Controversy
Mark 10:2 ESV - 2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
Mark 2:17 ESV - 17 he said , “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 3:6 ESV - 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Mark 7:8 ESV - 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
Mark 1:13 ESV - 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted (tested) by Satan.
Mark 6:18 ESV - 18 For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
3. The Clarification
Mark 10:3 ESV - 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?”
Mark 10:4 ESV - 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”
Deuteronomy 24:1 ESV - 1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,
Mark 10:5 ESV - 5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
Leviticus 20:10 ESV - 10 ”If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Deuteronomy 22:22 ESV - 22 “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
2 Samuel 12:13 ESV - 13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
John 8:2-8 ESV - 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
John 8:10-11 ESV - Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”