GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 10:7
Like Glue
One of our sons, Paul, owns and manages a printing company, Labelteq, whose principal product is adhesive labels, commonly found on many products. Three separate components are necessary for the process: the substrate (the paper printed on), the adhesive, and the object to which the label is affixed. A customer placed an order with Labelteq, giving specific requirements, and the labels worked fine—until they stopped adhering to his product. Research showed that the customer had changed his product, and the chemical in his product reacted with the adhesive in the labels, causing the labels to fail; in other words, the glue no longer adhered.
Mark records Jesus’ dialogue with some critical Pharisees, who tested him with a question about divorce. Jesus answered by quoting their own ancient writings, which they unquestionably knew, concerning YAHWEH’s creation of male and female. Referring to Genesis 2:24, Jesus said, “Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.” (10:7)
The word translated “hold fast to” is a compound of “toward” and “to glue”; hence, “to glue together”—an interesting way of looking at marriage. One way of viewing this multifaceted relationship, called marriage, is as one human + glue + another human being. A critical feature of this relationship is that humans are constantly changing. More than one spouse has said to the other, “You’re not the same person I married.” Right. Humans change. The glue that holds them together must therefore be of a quality that continues to adhere under many changing circumstances; otherwise, the bond breaks.
Without placing undue emphasis on one word, it is notable that Mark’s (and Matthew 19:5) term for “join” (προσκολληθήσεται, proskollēthēsetai) is in the passive voice. In other words, the joining is something done by someone else. In Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees, the joining of a man and a woman in marriage is accomplished by God; it is not only a physical union but also a spiritual one.
Father, may the “spiritual glue” that binds this marriage remain strong.
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