Mark 7:14-23 March 31, 2009

Interpretation:

True defilement comes from our nature not from external factors. It is important to consider this passage with the whole of Mark Chapter 7.

In the first half of chapter 7 Jesus concludes that the law of man is not the God’s true law. The Pharisees could not justify that His disciples were ‘defiled’ because their law held no true moral authority. That authority belongs to God’s commandments alone. Verses 14-23 become Christ’s response to the Pharisees about what true moral defilement looks like. In the first half of Mark Jesus refuses their false moral assessment of His disciples and in verses 14-23 Jesus instructs how to truly assess moral defilement.

Jesus makes the claim in verse 15 that evil doesn’t come from the world but from the hearts of men.  The heart is the focus of Jesus. His Kingdom is in men’s hearts not in the world (yet…).  It is from the corrupt heart corruption enters the world. Nature verse nurture? Nature. True cleanliness and defilement is decided by a man’s heart and not his external relious appearance.

Application:

This parable is unendingly valuable to the believer. It makes it possible for us to believe. If we don’t understand that the problem of sin emerges from ourselves and not from the world, or from God as many argue He is indirectly responsible for our behavior, then we don’t understand the neccesity of a savior. Christ is concerned with our hearts because they are the source of our action.

It is common understanding that bad company spoils the lot but the blame does not rest on the company but on our desire to join in. The reason why an evil group convinces us to do evil is because we are evil too. That’s why its dangerous to spend time around them, they convince of what we already want to do. When Jesus becomes our Lord, which is often summarized as ‘in our hearts’ He becomes the focus and new desire of our hearts. Then when we are presented with evil from an outside source we see it for what it is and we reject it (or we do it and we regret it).

You can use a passage like this to prove you need to be ‘in the world but not of it.’ But it would be better to recognize the power truth of its simplicity: you want (or wanted) to do evil things. God is not concerned with your apparenace of cleanliness because He sees your desires. And if you don’t desire Christ – you’re probably desiring evil.

Mark 7: 1-13 March 30, 2009

Interpretation:

In this passage Jesus again deal’s with tradition and religion verses truth and belief. The Pharisees again ask an accusatory question of Jesus and His disciples. ‘Why don’t they follow the traditions of the elders?’ And Jesus’ response is basically ‘because they don’t worship the elders.’ By Jesus’ example the disciples ignore the additional ceremonial laws imposed by the elders. The customs they violate in this passage are not customs God ordained for the people of Israel to carry out. Instead they are additional traditions derived from the later interpretations of Jewish elders.

Jesus uses the opportunity in verses 6-9 to point out that it was tradition imposed by men and not an issue of true morality.

Then Jesus points out in verses 10-13 that the real defilement wasn’t the cleanliness of His disciples hands but that the God’s law was abandoned  for the laws of men. He further exposes the hypocrisy by focusing in on their failure to honor their family. The example had to do with the tradition of the elders being used as a loop hole to escape doing God’s law which was ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ Last Jesus points out in verse 13 that there were many other traditions that were used like loop-holes like His example.

Application:

This story asks a heavy question: Do we teach Church tradition as commandments from God?

For some very large Church denominations this is very true. Anytime we equate tradition with God’s law there is trouble. Because in this passage, Jesus makes it very clear to us that human tradition can be used for escape from God’s laws. In all we do we must make sure that the commandments of God are absolutely supreme. If John Piper hasn’t already written it, I can suggest a title for his next book: The Supremacy of Christ in the Church . You are welcome John. The first one is free.

This is as true for the Protestant Church as it is for the Roman Catholic Church. I find it fascinating that if  I say God is triune, I am ‘Trinitarian.’ Or if I believe God chooses us to be saved I am a ‘Calvinist.’ Here I thought  I was just reading the bible.  But if we can name and enumerate God’s doctrines  we can do so in a way that is advantageous to us. We can make the Word say what we want it to. So all believers must be seeking God’s truth, and be seeking and loving His law, or our traditions will swallow God’s word whole. And when the day comes for testing what is true God’s word will reign true and everlasting and our perverted doctrine will wither with us like the grass.

Always look at tradition and judge it against the principle truth of God’s Word.