Mark 10:1-16 - Marriage, Hardness of Heart, and Children

The Pharisees ask what a man may dismiss. The disciples decide whom they will allow to reach Jesus. In both scenes, the human heart tries to manage a gift that belongs to God: the one-flesh covenant in the first, the kingdom and its little ones in the second.

Jesus answers by directing attention away from human control and toward divine action. God joins husband and wife. The kingdom of God is received. Christ takes children into His arms and blesses them. The passage therefore moves from a question about permission to a revelation of the heart. A hard heart looks for a defensible way to discard; a childlike heart comes with empty hands and receives.

This teaching stands on the road to Jerusalem, within the long section of Mark where the disciples are learning what it means to follow the Son of Man toward the Cross. Christ speaks with uncompromising truth about covenant faithfulness, then shows what His authority looks like by welcoming those His own disciples tried to turn away. The Lord who guards communion is also the Lord who gathers the small and dependent to Himself.

What God has joined together (Mark 10:1-9)

¹ Then He arose from there and came to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan. And multitudes gathered to Him again, and as He was accustomed, He taught them again. ² The Pharisees came and asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” testing Him. ³ And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.” ⁵ And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. ⁶ But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ⁸ and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Mark places Jesus in “the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan,” without naming an exact town. The route matters because Jesus is no longer simply teaching in Galilee; He is drawing nearer to Jerusalem. Crowds gather, and He resumes His customary work of teaching. Mark’s verbs already show a moral contrast: the multitude gathers to be taught, while these questioners come to test Him.

Their question sounds legal: “Is it lawful?” Mark immediately tells us that it is also a trap. Later Jewish tradition preserves real disagreement over how broadly Deuteronomy 24:1 could be used, ranging from a narrow ground for divorce to remarkably permissive ones. It does show why a question about lawful grounds could become a charged religious dispute.¹

Jesus makes His questioners distinguish two words they would rather collapse. He asks what Moses “commanded”; they answer that Moses “permitted” a certificate and dismissal. The certificate had a real legal function, but Christ refuses to let the document become the moral center. Moses wrote the precept “because of the hardness of your heart.” The Greek word sklērokardia names stubborn inward resistance, a heart that has become unyielding toward God and toward the person placed beside it. Christ is diagnosing more than marital strain or an isolated failure of patience. He exposes the condition that can turn covenant into inconvenience and permission into self-justification.²

Augustine, in Against Faustus, reads the written bill as a restraint placed in the path of an angry dismissal, so that “the eagerness for separation might be checked”³. His insight helps us hear the relation between concession and command. Moses’ provision addresses life already damaged by sin; it does not redefine the damage as God’s beginning. A restraint upon hardness is mercy, but it is not the same thing as the healing of the heart.

Jesus therefore goes behind the concession to Genesis. His answer follows a deliberate sequence: God made them male and female; a man leaves father and mother and is joined to his wife; the two become one flesh; God is the One who joins. St. John Chrysostom, preaching on Matthew’s account, observes that Christ defends Moses from accusation while returning the questioners to creation.⁴ The Lord does not merely make divorce more difficult. He reveals what marriage is before hardness distorts it.

The final sentence begins with God’s work: “what God has joined together.” The verb translated “joined together” carries the sense of yoking or joining, and God is its explicit subject.⁵ Human restraint follows reverence for divine action. Husband and wife do not remain two private lives temporarily aligned by convenience. Their one-flesh communion is a gift and calling to be guarded through fidelity, truth, repentance, forgiveness, prayer, and the patient surrender of self-will.

This reaches the conscience before it reaches anyone else’s case. Hardness grows whenever winning matters more than reconciliation, silence becomes punishment, contempt is rehearsed in private, confession is postponed, or a spouse’s weakness is used to justify one’s own unfaithfulness. Christ does not expose hardness in order to leave the heart condemned. The One speaking is on His way to give His life “a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He can bring the hard heart to repentance because His faithful love goes all the way to the Cross.

The permanence of marriage must be taught beside the protection of persons. These verses cannot be used to force someone to remain in immediate danger, conceal abuse, or avoid civil protection. Safety, truthful disclosure, concrete help, and priestly pastoral care are consistent with Christ’s defense of covenant; violence and coercion are violations of it. Mark gives the Church the Lord’s clear word about hardness, one flesh, and God’s joining. The Church reads these words together with Matthew 19:9. The application to a particular marriage belongs to her bishops and to the priest who knows that marriage, not to a public verdict passed by other parishioners.

Adultery against her (Mark 10:10-12)

¹⁰ In the house His disciples also asked Him again about the same matter. ¹¹ So He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. ¹² And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

The public test ends, but the disciples’ question continues in the house. Mark often lets the Twelve receive further explanation away from the crowd. Here Jesus strips away the protection of abstract debate. He names divorce followed by another marriage as adultery, and He describes the husband’s sin as adultery “against her.”

That final phrase matters. The abandoned wife does not disappear behind a valid document or a debate between interpreters. The Greek wording preserved by the NKJV gives the offense a personal direction: it is committed “against her.”⁶ Sin against covenant is also sin against a person. Christ makes visible the one whom male privilege and legal procedure could render voiceless.

Verse 12 states the corresponding responsibility of a woman who divorces her husband and marries another. Jesus brings both husband and wife under moral accountability. This reciprocity should not be used to pretend that power, danger, and vulnerability are identical in every marriage. It does prevent either spouse from treating the other as disposable while claiming innocence through procedure.

A legal appearance can conceal covenantal betrayal, but it cannot make betrayal faithful before God. The Lord’s words take us beneath the status of the paperwork to the truth of the bond and the injury done.

For the parish, the right response is neither cold legalism nor evasive reassurance. Married people need help before resentment hardens into a private verdict against one another: confession, prayer together when possible, truthful conversation, wise counseling, priestly guidance, and practical protection where danger exists. Divorced, separated, remarried, and abused people need the truth of Christ without being exposed, shamed, or recruited as examples. The Physician addresses real wounds and real sins. His truth gives repentance a name; His mercy gives the wounded a place to stand.

Let the little children come to Me (Mark 10:13-16)

¹³ Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. ¹⁴ But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. ¹⁵ Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” ¹⁶ And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.

People bring children because they want Jesus to touch them. The disciples answer with rebuke. Perhaps they think they are preserving order or protecting the importance of the Teacher, but Mark records no defense of their motive. He records Christ’s response: “He was greatly displeased.” The underlying verb can be rendered “became indignant.” His command, “do not forbid them,” has the force of stopping an obstruction already taking place.⁷

Mark’s wording also reaches back to the previous scene. In Mark 9, John said, “we forbade him,” and Jesus answered, “Do not forbid him”; here Jesus says of the children, “do not forbid them.” The same Greek verb family, kōlyō (“hinder” or “forbid”), exposes a recurring habit in the disciples: they appoint themselves gatekeepers around Christ.⁸ The literal children remain the center of this scene. The echo widens the examination without erasing legitimate ecclesial discernment. Discernment serves truth, order, safety, and communion under Christ; it becomes disobedient when loyalty to our circle, adult convenience, or status blocks people whom He is receiving.

Christ’s indignation reveals the seriousness of spiritual gatekeeping. The disciples are not neutral ushers managing a crowded line. They stand between dependent children and the blessing of Christ. Chrysostom reads the disciples’ action as a misplaced defense of Christ’s dignity; Christ welcomes the children to teach lowliness and overturn worldly pride.⁹ A sense of reverence had become distorted because it protected status at the expense of the people Christ welcomed.

“Of such is the kingdom of God” does not make childhood a sentimental emblem of innocence. Jesus explains the likeness through the next verb: the kingdom must be “received.” A child in this scene is brought, comes when welcomed, depends upon another, and receives a blessing that cannot be earned or controlled. The kingdom is God’s reign arriving as gift. Adult competence, religious experience, and visible service cannot seize it. We enter as receivers.

Childlike reception includes teachability, faith, and reverent obedience before Christ, the One who receives and commands. Childlike faith is openness before God, not credulity before every human leader, suppression of honest questions, or passive submission to misuse of authority. Any teacher who uses this verse to make people easier to control has reversed its direction. Jesus speaks it while correcting His own gatekeeping disciples.

The last verse gives childlike reception a visible form. Jesus takes the children into His arms, lays His hands on them, and blesses them. The Greek verb behind “took them up in His arms” means to embrace or enfold.⁷ The kingdom is not presented as an idea explained at a distance. Its King gathers the small to Himself. His authority is tender without becoming weak, and His tenderness is holy without becoming indulgent.

This places a real demand on family and parish life. Children should be brought to Christ through prayer, Scripture, worship, blessing, instruction, repentance modeled by adults, and careful protection from harm. They are not background noise until they become useful servants. Nor are they props for adult sentiment. They are persons Christ receives now. A parish shows whether it has heard Him by the patience of its teachers, the seriousness of its safeguarding, the place it gives children in worship and formation, and the way adults speak about them when they are inconvenient.

The two scenes now illuminate each other without becoming a simplistic analogy. The hard heart asks how much it may dismiss; the childlike heart receives what it cannot possess. The disciples’ heart appears in both places: they need further teaching about marriage, and they need correction when they hinder children. Christ does not abandon them. He tells the truth, removes the obstruction, and takes the little ones into His arms. The Son of Man who will give His life as a ransom for many shows that divine authority guards communion and makes room for the lowly.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

On Wednesday of the fifth week of Great Lent, Matins reads Mark 10:1-12. At the Liturgy, Luke 13:6-9 tells of the barren fig tree given another season of care.¹⁰ Heard together, the diagnosis of hardness becomes a summons to repentance while time is still given. Christ exposes what destroys communion because He calls the heart to change.

At Vespers for the Feast of the Wedding at Cana on Toba 13, the Church hears Matthew 19:1-12, the parallel teaching on God’s joining. The Liturgy reads John 2:1-11.¹¹ On the feast that remembers Christ’s presence at a wedding, the Church hears His defense of marriage. Babah 6, the commemoration of the righteous Hannah, mother of Samuel, has the same Vespers Gospel.¹²

On Mesra 8, the commemoration of Sts. Eleazar, Salome, and the children, Matins reads Mark 10:13-16. Vespers proclaims Matthew 11:25-30, and the Liturgy hears Matthew 18:10-20 with Hebrews 11:32-12:2.¹³ Christ’s blessing of children stands beside the warning not to despise the little ones and the witness of those who endured for God. Children are not future members waiting to matter. They belong within Christ’s present care and the Church’s present responsibility.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

1. Bring the loophole-seeking heart to Christ. “Is it lawful?” can hide a second question: “How far may I go without admitting what is happening in me?” Notice where correct language has become cover for contempt, retaliation, secrecy, or refusal to reconcile. Name the condition honestly in prayer and confession. Christ exposes hardness so that it can be softened, not so that the sinner can perfect an argument.

2. Interrupt hardness while it is still becoming a habit. Covenant is often injured through repeated small permissions: the cutting remark left unrepaired, the grievance rehearsed until it becomes identity, the private bond that should have been ended, the decision never to listen again. Take one concrete step before the heart settles further: ask forgiveness without defending yourself, seek pastoral or professional help, establish a boundary that protects truth, or return to prayer together where that is safe and possible. God’s joining deserves more than crisis management after contempt has matured.

3. See the person hidden behind the procedure. Jesus says “against her.” Before judging a marriage, defending a decision, or discussing someone else’s history, ask whether the wounded person has vanished behind technical language. Refuse gossip and public case-making. Where you have caused injury, repentance includes listening to the harm, accepting accountability, and repairing what can be repaired. Where you have been wounded, Christ’s wording assures you that the offense is not invisible to Him.

4. Stop hindering those whom Christ receives. Examine the places where impatience, adult importance, rigid convenience, mockery, or the desire for quiet makes it harder for children and other dependent people to draw near. A faithful response may mean learning a child’s name, preparing carefully to teach, making worship more intelligible without making it trivial, taking a safeguarding concern seriously, or changing the tone used at home. Christ’s indignation protects the little one, and His arms define the purpose of Christian service.

5. Receive the kingdom instead of presenting credentials for it. Bring God the need you cannot master: a hard heart, a wounded marriage, a failure in service, fear for a child, or the inability to repair the past. Childlike reception means coming truthfully, accepting mercy as gift, and obeying the next word Christ gives. Begin one prayer this week without listing your achievements or explaining your worthiness: “Lord Jesus Christ, I have nothing to seize. Receive me, teach me, and bless what I place in Your hands.”

Teaching Notes

Teaching Mark 10:1-9

• Begin with the contrast in verses 1-2: crowds gather to be taught; the Pharisees come to test. Ask how posture toward Christ changes the way a difficult teaching is heard.
• Trace the exact verbal turn from what Moses “commanded” to what Moses “permitted.” Then follow Jesus from concession, to hardness of heart, to creation, one flesh, and God’s joining.
• Explain “hardness of heart” as obstinate resistance that can make another person disposable, not as a label for every marital difficulty.
• State the pastoral guardrail in the lesson body. Permanence cannot be weaponized to conceal abuse, prevent protection, or turn private histories into public debate.
• Keep the question personal before it becomes theoretical: Where does a technically defensible position protect the heart from repentance?

Teaching Mark 10:10-12

• Draw attention to the setting “in the house.” The public controversy becomes instruction for disciples who must live under Christ’s word.
• Place “commits adultery” beside “against her.” The second phrase keeps the wounded spouse morally visible.
• Explain the reciprocal case in verse 12 without pretending that power and danger are identical in every concrete marriage.
• Ask how legal appearance can conceal unfaithfulness while Christ’s “against her” restores the wounded person to view.
• Do not ask participants to disclose marital histories. Direct personal crises toward private priestly care, safety planning where needed, and appropriate professional help.

Teaching Mark 10:13-16

• Follow the verbs: they brought, the disciples rebuked, Jesus became indignant, He commanded, the kingdom is received, He embraced, He blessed.
• Ask why protecting Christ’s “dignity” can become worldly pride when it excludes the people He welcomes.
• Define childlike reception from the scene: dependence, teachability, trust, and openness to blessing. Reject childishness and unquestioning submission to human control.
• Let verse 16 carry the section. Jesus does more than permit the children to remain; He takes them into His arms and blesses them.
• Invite servants and parents to name one practice by which children are actually brought near to Christ in prayer, worship, instruction, mercy, or protection.

Sources

Scripture is from NKJV.

• Augustine, Against Faustus, XIX.26.

• St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 62.

• Mishnah Gittin 9:10.

• Coptic lectionary and Synaxarium, readings and commemorations cited below.

Footnotes

1. Mishnah Gittin 9:10, sefaria.org. ↩

2. Mark 10:5, biblehub.com; Thayer, Greek Lexicon, σκληροκαρδία, biblehub.com. ↩

3. Augustine, Against Faustus, XIX.26, newadvent.org. ↩

4. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 62, on Matthew 19:1-9, newadvent.org. ↩

5. Mark 10:9, biblehub.com. ↩

6. Mark 10:11-12, biblehub.com. ↩

7. Mark 10:14-16, biblehub.com and biblehub.com. ↩ ↩²

8. Mark 9:38-39 and Mark 10:14, biblegateway.com. ↩

9. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 62, on Matthew 19:13-15, newadvent.org. ↩

10. Coptic lectionary, Wednesday of the fifth week of Great Lent, copticchurch.net. ↩

11. Coptic lectionary, Toba 13, Feast of the Wedding at Cana, copticchurch.net. ↩

12. Coptic lectionary, Babah 6, the righteous Hannah, copticchurch.net. ↩

13. Coptic lectionary, Mesra 8, copticchurch.net. Coptic Synaxarium, Mesra 8. ↩