Read Mark 7:1-23
Jesus and his disciples were causing quite a stir with the religious leaders. Even how meals were prepared and eaten was under scrutiny. Jesus taught several things to his followers in his basic rebuttals to his critics. Here are just a couple:
· Clean hands and bowls are one thing but what really needs to be clean is one’s heart (the place where decisions are made). Notice in verse 21 and 22 what Jesus said can live in one’s heart long before they show up in behaviors we can see. It is our hearts that need cleaning, protecting, and reshaping.
· Adding human traditions to the commands of God can be twisted so that the command is missed altogether even while keeping the tradition. An example would be from recent history: don’t dance because it might lead to other things (adultery). So dancing is stopped but children are still conceived outside of marriage. It turns out lots of stuff can lead to “other things.” We could outlaw all of those too, but the commands of God are given for our benefit. They actually lead to the best possible life (and point to our need for a savior). If we ever feel justified in doing something, we may need to examine if we are holding to a tradition of culture or actually obeying the word of God. In every culture (even the better ones) this can often get mixed up and cause us to actually miss God’s best. Prohibition of “evils” simply leads to creative sinners finding ways around the prohibitions to still break the commands of God. Outlaw alcohol and other forms of escape are discovered and spread. More laws and traditions will be needed one into the future as we prohibit “evils” from entering our society…but it turns out the evil is already in our hearts. Only a heart change, cleansing, and redirecting has any hope saving us.
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