NOTES for Mat 19:1-15

Indeed, not everyone can accept this teaching. If this is a man’s “obligation to his wife,” if now you can no longer exist on your own but have become one flesh (that is, one body, one person) with someone else, and if you are utterly unprepared for such a step, then it is better not to marry. For the Pharisees, as always expressing a generally human point of view, ask Jesus: is there not some way to combine pleasure with advantage? Could one not be one flesh for a while, until things become altogether difficult and painful, and then withdraw? It seems that practically every moral dilemma of modern humanity falls into this category of questions: how can we arrange for things to be good without their being difficult? In response, Christ rebukes them not for cowardice, irresponsibility, or selfishness, but for hardness of heart: for their inability to see the beauty of God’s design for the unity of man and woman, and their incapacity to love truly and deeply. It seems that all our problems connected with marriage and family arise precisely from hardness of heart, from the death of the organ of love.