Mark 10:1–12
Kingdom faithfulness restores God’s original intent for marriage.
1 He arose from there and came into the borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan. Multitudes came together to him again. As he usually did, he was again teaching them.
2 Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 He answered, “What did Moses command you?”
4 They said, “Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her.”
5 But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.
6 But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.
7 For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife,
8 and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9 What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
10 In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter.
11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her.
12 If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Kingdom faithfulness restores God’s original intent for marriage.
To present Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of God’s original design for covenant marriage.
This section transitions Jesus from Galilean ministry toward Jerusalem and intensifies conflict with religious leaders while deepening discipleship instruction.
First-century Jewish debate centered on Deuteronomy 24:1, with Hillel allowing broad grounds for divorce and Shammai restricting it. Jesus transcends both by returning to Genesis 1–2 as normative.
The Way of the Servant King: Marriage, Children, Wealth, Cross, Ransom, and Sight
Jesus forms disciples on the road to Jerusalem by restoring God's design, welcoming the dependent, exposing rival treasures, predicting his suffering, redefining greatness as service, giving his life as a ransom, and opening blind eyes to follow him.