<p>19:4&nbsp;<em>And he answered and said: Have you not read-</em>&nbsp;The Lord is addressing the literate Pharisees, rather than the illiterate crowds who&nbsp;<em>heard</em>&nbsp;rather than&nbsp;<em>read</em>. His implication is that He wondered whether they had even read the opening passages of the Torah, which describe the creation of Adam and Eve. They had of course read them, but the Lord&rsquo;s implication is one which echoes down to us today- we can read, many times, and yet not really read as God intends, and not grasp the most essential meaning of the text. So many times the Lord uses this challenge- &lsquo;Have you not / never read?&rsquo; (in Matthew alone: 12:3,5; 21:16,42; 22:31). This perhaps is one of our greatest temptations in this over-literate age- to read, but not really read.</p>
<p>The parallel Mk. 10:3 records the Lord asking &ldquo;What did Moses command you?&rdquo;. We note He doesn&rsquo;t say &lsquo;command&nbsp;<em>us</em>&rsquo;, not because He considered Himself above the Mosaic law, but maybe because the law was a bond of covenant between God and Israel, and He saw Himself as the mediator of a new and different covenant. His point was that Moses had written this command to &ldquo;you&rdquo; the hardhearted, those so hard and spiritually dry that they needed such concessions from God (Mk. 10:5)- but the Lord wasn&rsquo;t in that category. The two questions are connected to each other- &lsquo;Have you not read?&rsquo; is followed by a request for them to quote what they had read [&ldquo;What did Moses command you?&rdquo;]. This highlights the Lord&rsquo;s point that one can know the text of Scripture and be able to quote it and even sensibly discuss it- without having&nbsp;<em>really</em> read it for ourselves in the sense of grasping the personal message and implication for ourselves.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In Mark, the Lord begins His reply by pointing out that Moses&rsquo; teaching about divorce was &ldquo;for the hardness of your heart&rdquo;, and was a concession to their weakness not found in God&rsquo;s original intention &ldquo;at the beginning&rdquo;. Their legalistic mindset considered that if Moses stated something, then it was a command to be obeyed. But the Lord tried to demonstrate there were different levels accepted by God- rather as He had taught in chapter 18 that in the case of personal sin, we can drag the person through the synagogue discipline process, or apply the higher level of forgiveness without qualification and condition. And He repeats that here- seeking to get them to see that the higher level was to stay together and remain in with the process of unity between persons that God wishes to operate; and the lower level would be to make use of Moses&rsquo; concessions to human hardness. Assuming a literal record of the Lord&rsquo;s words here, Mt. 19:8 repeats the point that Moses allowed divorce &ldquo;for the hardness of your heart&rdquo;; the idea of Moses having granted a concession was significant to the Lord. Because His theme here as in chapter 18 was that there are different levels upon which we can live before God, and thus had it ever been.</p>
<p><em>That He who made them from the beginning made them male and female</em>- The whole nature of creation was so that there would be a process of division, separation and then uniting together to produce fruit. The processes of separation and unity were inbuilt to creation, but we are to allow them to operate in the way that God intends- not needlessly separating and not uniting in wrong ways at the wrong times. Various views of evolution are disallowed for those who believe the Lord's words here- that male and female were created by God in the beginning.</p>
