3rd May 2010

Mark 10:1-12 – Jesus answers questions on divorce.

• Several different things to think/pray about here.
• First, Jesus tells us that the reason the law was given in Deuteronomy 24 is because the people’s hearts were hard. The law was about justice; previous to that a lot of people did unjust things and so the law came in to set just boundaries. In this case it forced men to divorce their wives only if they found ‘indecency within her’.
• The problem is – as per usual – that is open to translation. Hillel said that burning a meal was grounds for divorce. My guess here is that even them he was probably referring functionally to more than just one meal but a poor or incompetent cook [perhaps due to lack of appropriate care/laziness?]
• Shammai interpreted indecency as unchastity.
• Jesus sides with Shammai. Which is interesting for a couple of reasons:
1. He often sides with Hillel. Hillel was about 30 years older than Jesus and Jesus uses Hillel’s 7 rules of exegesis in his teaching. It is one of the things that gave his teaching authority as Hillel’s techniques were cutting edge and recognized as legitimate in the days of Jesus.
2. There was/is a Jewish tradition that in the times of the Messiah that the stricter rules of beit-shammai [the house of] would become the standard.
• This is another example of Jesus tending to give halakhic teaching only to questions. He leads with Haggadah but responds with Halakha when pressed. I am convinced that He was much more prone to want to discuss the heart of the matter than the rules./ He would happily discuss the rules but only after He first taught understanding as to why they were there in the first place.
• I need to pray that I become like that!
• I don’t want to be the rules person but the heart person but to do that I need to be in love with Jesus not simply His rules.