Mark 10 · a question people ask
Mark gives Jesus's words on divorce with no exception, and Matthew gives them with one. How do Christians read what Jesus says about divorce and remarriage?
Here are the words as each book gives them. In the house, when his disciples asked him again (10:10), Jesus said, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her" (10:11), and "If a woman herself divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (10:12). Matthew gives his words to the Pharisees as "I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9), and Matthew 5:32 also has "except for the cause of sexual immorality". Luke has "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery" (Luke 16:18). Paul writes, "For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband" (Romans 7:2), and of a believer married to an unbeliever, "Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace" (1 Corinthians 7:15). These notes set the verses side by side and don't merge them into one saying. Christians read them in two main ways, each resting on its verses. Both agree on what Jesus says from the beginning: "God made them male and female" (10:6), "the two will become one flesh" (10:8), and "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate" (10:9). Favor applies neither reading to anyone's marriage. If this question touches your own life or family, there's no need to settle it here; it may help to talk it over with someone you trust, such as a pastor or a counselor.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Not while a spouse lives
Those who read it this way take Mark's and Luke's words, which name no exception, as the rule: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her" (10:11), and "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery" (Luke 16:18). They read Paul the same way: "So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress" (Romans 7:3), and to the married, "not I, but the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:10), "let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband" (1 Corinthians 7:11). Matthew's "except for sexual immorality" (Matthew 19:9) they read in the light of these verses, so that it doesn't open a way to remarry while a spouse lives. On this reading, a marriage is ended by death (Romans 7:2), and remarriage while a spouse lives is what 10:11-12 calls adultery.
Mark 10:11-12 · Luke 16:18 · Romans 7:2-3 · 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 · Matthew 19:9
Allowed in some cases
Those who read it this way read Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18 together with Matthew's words, "whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9), and with Paul's "Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases" (1 Corinthians 7:15), a case Paul sets apart with "But to the rest I—not the Lord—say" (1 Corinthians 7:12). They take Matthew's exception and Paul's "not under bondage" to allow divorce, and remarriage, in such cases, while holding with 10:9 that it is God who joins the two. On this reading, Mark gives Jesus's word without the exception Matthew records, and Paul speaks to a case Jesus's words in Mark don't name.
Mark 10:11-12 · Luke 16:18 · Matthew 19:9 · 1 Corinthians 7:12-15 · Mark 10:9
The verses
“In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. If a woman herself divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.””
“I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.””
“but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.”
““Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”