201. God’s Will

Short Meditations in Mark’s Gospel: 201. God’s Will

Mk 10:3,4   ”What did Moses command you?” he replied.  They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

For the Jews of Jesus’ day, God’s will was encapsulated in the Law given by God through Moses, so if you wanted to know what God’s will is, you referred to the Law. So when the Pharisees come and ask Jesus about divorce, his immediate response is, well what is God’s will on it, what does the Law say about it?  Do you remember when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness by Satan? How did Jesus deal with Satan? By referring him to God’s Law again and again as it came in different forms in the Old Testament.

Which raises the question, when we want to know right and wrong, to what do we refer? Is it, indeed, to God’s word? I am of the impression that for many Christians today God’s word does not carry the authority it used to – it should! Maybe it is the work of the crusading atheists attacking the Bible, and modern Christians’ inability to bring good answers, that this is so.  I am sure most churches hold Bible Studies and preach from the Bible on Sundays, but I am still left with the impression that the modern Christian is not well equipped to answer the challenges that come, and don’t, therefore, see the Bible as the ultimate authority of what is right and wrong, what God’s will is.

So Jesus refers them to God’s Law and like well taught Pharisees that they were, they were able to come up with what the Law said. Now bear in mind what we said previously: these Pharisees were here to put Jesus in an awkward position. They were, the text says, out to test him. They have not come to learn. In fact, if you asked them, they would almost certainly have viewed Jesus as inferior to them on knowledge of the Law, which is perhaps why they have come to ‘test’ him as well as get him into trouble with Herod. Just a reminder, in passing therefore, that not everyone who comes asking questions, comes with the heart of a learner. There are a lot of varying motives for asking questions!

So, they come up with a correct answer. Yes, in the Law we find, “a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce…” (Deut 24:1). The points of dispute were over the meaning of ‘something indecent’. One school took it to mean marital unfaithfulness and the other referred to the earlier part of the verse and made it anything that displeased the man, a much more liberal approach. But what was God’s intent behind it? That is the big question which Jesus is going to point them towards.

200. Dubious Questioning

Short Meditations in Mark’s Gospel: 200. Dubious Questioning

Mk 10:2   Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

We pondered in the first verse of this new chapter the motivation of the people who came to Jesus. A significant point that we did not pick up previously is that Jesus has moved down into Judea and what is now taking place in Herod’s jurisdiction. Now we know that Herod had had John the Baptist beheaded and it was mainly because John had denounced Herod for wrong marriage practice: “Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” (Mk 6:17,18)

It is probably therefore that these Pharisees came asking this question because they wanted to stir up trouble for if Jesus also denounced Herod’s activities either directly or by implication, it might cause Herod to seize Jesus in the same way.

Thus when we read they “came and tested him,” it is probable that it had more behind it than just checking to see if Jesus conformed to the Law, although would surely have been part of it. So if indeed the people came with mixed motives how much more were the motives mixed of these legalistic Pharisees who came seeking trouble for Jesus.

Divorce was not a contentious matter as such for the Jews for, as we shall see, Moses had regulated it. The only areas of dispute, which the Pharisees would have been aware of, were the grounds permitting divorce and different schools taught different things. In many ways this was a minefield, and whatever way you look at it they were seeking to put Jesus in an awkward position.

In this we observe the same sort of reaction or response to Jesus that we so often find in the world. Questions are asked about Jesus or God or the Bible or the Christian Faith, not simply to genuinely find answers, but to sow discord and disharmony and to try and reveal each of these subjects in a bad light. The enemy’s tactic is to ridicule or scorn these things and thus turn the unbeliever even further away, and concrete them even more securely in their unbelief, while sowing doubts in the mind of the believer.

Never be afraid of questions about the faith because there are always good answers but check the motivation for such questions. What is the heart of the questioner? Are they genuine seekers or do they come, like these Pharisees, to bring discord, disharmony and doubt?  Questions in themselves are not wrong, but it is what is behind them which is important.