Mark 7: 1-13

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.