The Pharisees and teachers of the law must have had a very important meeting.
The #1 topic: Find something Jesus' disciples are doing wrong! My guess is after hours of debate and discussion, they settled on a topic with which they would confront Jesus and His disciples. My gosh they must have been empowered with the knowledge that Jesus' disciples were not washing their hands before they ate!
When I read the first couple of versus of this chapter I think "Are you kidding me?" Not washing their hands before they eat? That's the best the Pharisees and teachers of the law can come up with to incriminate them? Perhaps I do not realize the culture of the day and how serious that charge might have been.
However Jesus knew their hearts and their motives. While the hand washing issue seems somewhat frivolous, Jesus launches into a more serious matter in His response. Jesus responds to them asking "...and why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?"
Jesus reminds them that they practiced a tradition called "Corban." (Mark 7:11) This tradition was basically a vow of dedicating money to God (In lieu of helping parents financially) However the vow was in word only and had become an excuse to keep the money for themselves. Therefore their tradition broke the command of honoring the father and mother. While the Pharisees were attempting to accuse the disciples of being unclean physically, Jesus points out the Pharisees hearts is what was unclean.
Later in the this chapter the faith of the Canaanite woman is clearly evident. Her persistance is rewarded as she knew her daughter would benefit from the "crumbs" of the Lord. Following that, Jesus feeds thousands with a few crumbs of food.
In a few words:
The "crumbs" of the Lord are superior to the traditions of men.
The #1 topic: Find something Jesus' disciples are doing wrong! My guess is after hours of debate and discussion, they settled on a topic with which they would confront Jesus and His disciples. My gosh they must have been empowered with the knowledge that Jesus' disciples were not washing their hands before they ate!
When I read the first couple of versus of this chapter I think "Are you kidding me?" Not washing their hands before they eat? That's the best the Pharisees and teachers of the law can come up with to incriminate them? Perhaps I do not realize the culture of the day and how serious that charge might have been.
However Jesus knew their hearts and their motives. While the hand washing issue seems somewhat frivolous, Jesus launches into a more serious matter in His response. Jesus responds to them asking "...and why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?"
Jesus reminds them that they practiced a tradition called "Corban." (Mark 7:11) This tradition was basically a vow of dedicating money to God (In lieu of helping parents financially) However the vow was in word only and had become an excuse to keep the money for themselves. Therefore their tradition broke the command of honoring the father and mother. While the Pharisees were attempting to accuse the disciples of being unclean physically, Jesus points out the Pharisees hearts is what was unclean.
Later in the this chapter the faith of the Canaanite woman is clearly evident. Her persistance is rewarded as she knew her daughter would benefit from the "crumbs" of the Lord. Following that, Jesus feeds thousands with a few crumbs of food.
In a few words:
The "crumbs" of the Lord are superior to the traditions of men.
No comments:
Post a Comment