Project 119: Mark 10:1-16
| Project 119
“Like a Wife, Like a Child”
God loves the family. Family was God’s idea, after all: He created the first one in Genesis. Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24 in today’s reading as he discusses marriage and divorce with the Pharisees: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
We see that divorce breaks God’s heart because divorce was never God’s will for marriage. In Mark 10:5 Jesus reveals that Moses permitted divorce only because of the hardness of humanity’s hearts—God hates to see marital unions dissolve. Why?
Time and time again in Scripture we see the Church described as the Bride of Christ. The body of believers is Jesus’s wife. Marriage exists to portray that unity, that oneness, that will exist between Christ and his Bride at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 16:6-9). Wives are to submit to their husbands “as Christ is the head of the church” and husbands are to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:22, 25). From Scripture, we then learn that marriage is not all about human happiness: It’s about being an example of the love between Christ and His Church. Therefore may we be like a wife, faithful to Christ, loving Him more than all else.
May we also be like a child. Instead of rebuking the little children in Mark 10:13-16, Jesus uses them as an example of great faith. The kingdom belongs to those of childlike faith—those who are trusting, those who approach God with reverence and awe. Children are a picture of humility, and we are to emulate that humility when approaching and beholding our Father. May we remember that we are just like children when it comes to dependence on Christ.
Father, thank you for the gift of family. May my own family be a shining example of Your love and grace. Help me to be faithful, like a bride, to You and Your Word. Help me to remain as humble and obedient as a child. Amen.
Mark 10:1-16 (ESV):
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.”
13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.