WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Clear guidelines in law are essential. But take time to consider how frequently they are insufficient. Debating the law Jesus and the disciples are approaching Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish faith and practice. Questions of the correct application of the Law of Moses inevitably begin to take centre stage. The Pharisees loved such debate for its own sake. It could appear so spiritual! Under what circumstances might a man divorce his wife (though not the wife her husband)? Some held a liberal interpretation of the Law of Moses and others were much more conservative. First principles Jesus, however, takes them back to radical first principles defined at creation. At that point God intended lifelong covenanted partnership (vs 5–9). Later on God commanded Moses to make allowance for divorce because the people clearly struggled to remain committed in marriage. A long history of legal wrangling followed. The disciples once again found his teaching difficult and queried him about it. Jesus repeats that marriage is for life. In Matthew’s account of this story Jesus is recorded as allowing breakdown only when the marriage covenant has been fractured through sexual sin (Matthew 19: 9). But the point in Mark’s account is that a radically committed attitude to relationship is what matters. Children in particular (vs 13–16), classically the vulnerable ones, depend on it. Respond: Does your Christian radicalism extend beyond merely dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of your discipleship? At which points do you retreat into comfortable legalism? http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-09-19