"For the entire Law is fulfilled in in this one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."—Gal 5:14

Precept, principle, and action—Jesus responds to divorce.

Added on by Lucas Necessary.

Some Pharisees tried to stump Jesus on divorce in Mark 10. Check out how important this is:

-They asked him, testing him, "Is it lawful for a husband to put away his wife?" And answering, He said to them, "What did Moses command you?"

-And they said, "Moses permitted us to {both} write a document of divorcement and to put her away."

-Jesus answering, said to them, "He wrote this commandment for you because of your hardness of heart. But God made them male and female from the beginning of the creation. Because
of this, a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife; and the two will
become one flesh, so-that they are no more two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has yoked
together, let no man put asunder."

God says here that He has allowed divorce, though not mere "sending a wife away," because people have hard hearts. Instead of trapping one spouse with someone who has decided that they were useless trash, He permitted a woman to be given divorce papers so that she could start over with a clean slate.

Jesus routinely answered with a pattern of "Precept-Principle-Action." The precept is the command; the law." The Law allowed for divorce. The principle is the primary truth and driving force—in this case, don't have a hard heart! Love one another. And the action was this, "Let not man put asunder."

Divorce is not nominal. It's tragic. It's horrific. We should strive with all of our soul to avoid becoming hard-hearted, and to avoid divorce.