All Love

“He wrote those instructions only as a concession to your hard-hearted wickedness.” Mark 10:5

Although I’ve read these verses before, it is the first time verse 5 jumped out at me and caught my attention. The Pharisees tested Jesus, “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?” Jesus said to them in reply, “What did Moses say about divorce?” The Pharisees answered that Moses permitted it, “A man merely has to write a bill of divorce and send her away.” 

Jesus then concluded, “He wrote those instructions only as a concession to your hard-hearted wickedness. But God’s plan was seen from the beginning of creation, for ‘He made them male and female’.” 

God’s commandment begins and ends in love. All His laws and instructions center on love. It seems as if Jesus conceded that whatever there is contrary to love in the Bible is there because men’s hearts are hard and cannot reach the ideal. God’s plan from the very beginning is love, a community, a unity in love between God and man, between husband and wife, parents and children. Love in the unit of the family forms communities helping and supporting each other. How beautiful our world would be if we desired to obey God and follow His plan!