Friday, July 08, 2022

Mark 7:1-7


1 When some Pharisees and some teachers of the law came from Jerusalem, they gathered around Jesus. 2 They saw that some of Jesus’ followers ate food with hands that were not clean, that is, they hadn’t washed them. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews never eat before washing their hands in the way required by their unwritten laws. 4 And when they buy something in the market, they never eat it until they wash themselves in a special way. They also follow many other unwritten laws, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and pots.) 5 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law said to Jesus, “Why don’t your followers obey the unwritten laws which have been handed down to us? Why do your followers eat their food with hands that are not clean?” 6 Jesus answered, “Isaiah was right when he spoke about you hypocrites. He wrote, ‘These people show honor to me with words, but their hearts are far from me. 7 Their worship of me is worthless. The things they teach are nothing but human rules. ~ Mark 7:1-7

Today, we transition into Mark 7 where Mark continues to present the Lord Jesus as the Servant. You will remember that there are two overall themes in this gospel: In Mark 1:1-8:26 we are given glimpses of the Servant who Rules, and, in Mark 8:27-16:16 we see the Ruler who Serves.

In v.1-4 of today's passage we read, "1 When some Pharisees and some teachers of the law came from Jerusalem, they gathered around Jesus. 2 They saw that some of Jesus’ followers ate food with hands that were not clean, that is, they hadn’t washed them. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews never eat before washing their hands in the way required by their unwritten laws. 4 And when they buy something in the market, they never eat it until they wash themselves in a special way. They also follow many other unwritten laws, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and pots.)"

On this particular day religious leaders from Jerusalem came some 90 miles to challenge the Lord Jesus because His popularity was growing at an alarming rate. They wanted to find a way to minimize Him, because He was a threat to their religion, power and control over the people. According to them the Lord Jesus and His disciples were not religious enough.

The tradition of the religious leaders said, "In order to be properly clean, one had to hold his hands out, with palms up, hands cupped slightly, and water poured over them. Then the fist of one hand was used to scrub the other, and then the other fist would scrub the first hand. Finally the hands again were held out, with palms down, and water was poured over them a second time to cleanse away the dirty water the defiled hands had been scrubbed with. Only then would a person's hands be ceremonially clean."

The religious folks of the Lord Jesus day had made Judaism about their performance. They had lost sight of the fact that the message of salvation is the same throughout the Bible. Salvation is a free gift from God for all willing enough to believe in it and receive it. It has always been about the object of our faith which is the God of the Bible, not us. God draws attention to the importance of our faith in Him because He has always wanted us to be invested from the hearts in Him.

This delegation from Jerusalem came deliberately to try to find something with which to oppose the Lord Jesus. Their motive was antagonism. They knew that if they could find something, they could turn the crowd against Him. This tells us how strongly these traditions were held. The disciples washed their hands before they ate, but according to the threatened religious leaders, they did not do it in the right way.

Now, the traditions had begun in right ways, but as the religious leaders added on to what God had required in the Old Testament, they went array. We must always remember, God gave man the Law for man's benefit, not to so bind us that we can not operate with Him from our hearts. It was the interpretations of the religious leaders of the interpretations of other religious leaders that made things go array. By this time, there was built up a tremendous mass of tradition which demanded inflexible obedience and scrupulous observance of even the minor details, so that the purpose of the Law was lost and forgotten.

In v.5-7 of today's passage we read, "5 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law said to Jesus, “Why don’t your followers obey the unwritten laws which have been handed down to us? Why do your followers eat their food with hands that are not clean?” 6 Jesus answered, “Isaiah was right when he spoke about you hypocrites. He wrote, ‘These people show honor to me with words, but their hearts are far from me. 7 Their worship of me is worthless. The things they teach are nothing but human rules."

Here, we learn the Lord Jesus offended the religious leaders by not following their ritual. Using Isaiah 29:13, the Lord Jesus highlighted the result of tradition not rooted in the Word of God. He called it hypocrisy. Twenty-three times in the Gospels the Lord Jesus used the word hypocrite. Twenty-one of the twenty-three times He spoke it to the religious leaders. He reserved that scathing term for religious, legalistic folk.

The Lord Jesus didn't tolerate these so called leaders. "Hypocrite" was a Greek word used of actors on a stage. They wore masks and played their parts. They really weren't what they projected; they were actors. Those who preach by the yard but practice by the inch must be dealt with by the foot. In today's passage, the Lord Jesus was first in line to apply that reasoning.

The remedy to hypocrisy is worship. Prayer is when we are preoccupied with our needs. Praise is when we are preoccupied with our blessings. Worship is when we are preoccupied with our God. Worship is ascribing worth to something or someone. It is authentic and it comes from the heart. And, it has been etched upon our hearts to worship God. As a result we will find ourselves being defined by Him, because what we worship defines us.

Hypocrisy ignores the word of God. The Greek word used here for "tradition" is the word for "substitution." And the substitute is always something "good." We would never think of offering God something bad! Yet, if it is not defined by Him, which will always minimize us, it is not true worship. Much of what we call worship today would not be defined by God as worship.
Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/dallas_willard_581412?src=t_worship
Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/dallas_willard_581412?src=t_worship
Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/dallas_willard_581412?src=t_worship

Worship is the response of the heart to the knowledge of the mind when the mind is rightly understanding God and the heart is rightly valuing God. Our worship of God is conditioned by the way we understand Him. And, if our understanding isn't framed up by His Word, we will lack in our worship of Him. The more we know Him, the more varied will be the ways that we will worship Him. Thus, our worship should increase with the growth of our understanding of Him.