3 Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him, and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

4 He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’ 6 So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”

7 They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a bill of divorce, and divorce her?”

8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so. 9 I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”

10 His disciples said to him, “If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”

11 But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Matthew 19:3-12 - World English Bible

Jesus taught not only about divorce, but about the urgency of evangelization. The question of divorce came from the Pharisees. Normally, Jesus would address the practical and his opponents would cling to the ideal through their rulings and minutia, but here the tables were turned. The Lord quoted two verses from the Torah (Genesis 1:27 and 2:24) to trump any ruling of the Pharisees. When they asked for clarification, he gave one exception (adultery) to save a man from shame; however, he considered remarriage tantamount to adultery. Why? Simply put, a man who divorced his wife, at best, shamed her family (since they would take her back into their home as "damaged goods") or, at worst, threw her out onto the streets to beg and made her homeless (when even her own family rejected her). For Jesus, the inequity of divorce outweighed any right (or convenience) the husband had.

Jesus continued his teaching even on marriage. With the immanence of the Kingdom, why would someone marry? He likened the single life to being a eunuch, an exaggeration not unlike many others in Matthew. Obviously, he didn't really mean for a man to castrate himself; he meant for someone to live a single life for the sake of evangelization.

No matter how we apply this teaching, whether to celibacy or to the married life, every Christian has the responsibility to spread the Good News.

What priority does evangelization have in your life?