Today’s passage: Mark 10:1-16
Helpful thoughts:
- When crowds gathered, Jesus taught (John 8:31-32).
- In response to this disingenuous question from the Pharisees (They had used the law as a permission to divorce at will, for any reason), Jesus not only reiterated God’s purpose for the permanence of marriage, but He also affirmed God’s design for gender, for heterosexual marriage, for the link between sexual intimacy and marriage, etc.
- Jesus was willing to serve children. Caring for them is not beneath God, nor us.
- A child’s content and peace is rooted in the fact that without the leadership, love and provision of the adults that care for them, they wouldn’t survive. They have to trust in others to provide for them entirely. This is how we enter the kingdom of God (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Questions to consider:
- Knowing what we also know from Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7:15, what was the overall point Jesus was making when speaking about marriage and divorce in these verses? If we are reading the Bible to find out what we can and can’t “get away with” what has gone wrong in our hearts already? With what countenance should we approach God’s Word?
- Why is it wrong for people to argue that Jesus never spoke about sexuality or anything pertaining to the LGBTQ movement? How does this very passage speak to that? What has Jesus affirmed?
- What does it mean to have faith like a child? Why isn’t it about being gullible or blissfully ignorant? How does the description above point us to the truth of the Gospel and our need to wholly rely on God’s grace for our salvation?