“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” The religious experts pressed Jesus for an answer (Matt. 19:3), and his response has fueled hot debate ever since. While his teaching seems to clearly prohibit almost all divorce and cast post-divorce remarriage as an act of adultery, there is good reason to look deeper into the larger biblical narrative.

The command “Do not murder” seems achievable on the surface—just don’t murder people. But Jesus suggests this is not the law’s ultimate goal. Yes, the point was to end human violence, but even more it was to guide people into the attitudes and ways of loving one another. When we avoid murder, we partly fill the law. When we love, we fill it full.

The message is at once simple and revolutionary. Jesus invites us to trust God with the substance of our daily existence, while simultaneously becoming consumed with a hunger for the right relationships of his Kingdom.