Sermon Tone Analysis

*Mark 7:1-5…* And the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered together around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, 2 and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.

3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; 4 and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots).

5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”

 

*Commentary*

In Mark 6:53-56, following the feeding of the 5,000 and the stilling of the storm on the sea, Jesus and his disciples arrived in the land of Gennesaret – a highly populated district known for its beauty and lush plains.

And as always a large crowd awaited Jesus when he got there.

There were sick people waiting to be healed and others who, after hearing about the woman who simply touched Jesus and was healed (5:25-34), were waiting to touch Jesus for healing.

Two other groups that awaited Jesus this time, having come all the way from Jerusalem, were the Pharisees and some scribes (lawyers).

These two groups of men were the religious conservatives of the day among the Jews.

They were pious, adhered to the Mosaic Law, and had many traditions that they modeled to the Jews.

Their traditions, however, were man-made rules that they taught everyone to obey in order to be godly.

They were legalists enslaved by tradition.

These men got word of Jesus’ miracle concerning the feeding of the 5,000, but they were wholly unimpressed because they were too concerned with the fact that Jesus’ disciples had not washed their hands before eating!

John 6:22-59 records a sharp and bitter argument between Jesus and these men over this issue.

Verses 3-4 are parenthetical and explain this man-made tradition, for these legalists simply never ate unless they had carefully washed their hands, cleansed themselves, and washed (literally “baptized”) the pots they ate from.

Now though these practices may be indicative of good hygiene, the Pharisees viewed them as essential for holiness.

Anyone who didn’t do so was scorned.

Now the purpose of these “traditions of the elders” was not to keep the hands clean but to ceremonially wash away ritual defilement on the hands before eating.

Defilement came from touching a dead body to simply touching a Gentile.

There was even the widespread belief that a demon named Shibtah attached itself to people’s hands while they slept, and the only way to detach it was to ceremonially wash.

If not, the demon was believed to enter the body through the unwashed hands.

One Jewish rabbi of that day is quoted as saying, “Whoever lives in the land of Israel and eats common food with rinsed hands assures himself of eternal life.”

Another rabbi of the day promised that he would walk four miles to rinse with water if need be than to eat with un-rinsed hands.

Clearly, this tradition was important to the Jews, but amazingly it had no Scriptural backing.

It was a simple tradition gone haywire.

*Food for Thought*

            Traditions taught by mere mortals for the purpose of being godly, unless they have a biblical leg to stand on, are legalistic and often satanic.

From teaching people to abstain from alcohol to avoiding eating meat on Fridays, these are man-made.

If traditions like these, given that they are not taught in the Bible, are promoted in order to attain an exalted form of godliness, then those that teach such are accursed!

(cf.

Gal.

1:6-9).

These are not a part of our salvation.

So beware of the traditions of humans.

We can’t add to or subtract from the simple gospel message given as a free gift to those who call upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

*Mark 7:6-13…* And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. 7 In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’” 8 “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”  9 He was also saying to them, “You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death’;  11 but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, anything of mine you might have been helped by is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ 12 you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; 13 thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”

*Commentary*

            After confronting Jesus as to why he would allow his disciples to shun the tradition of the elders and eat bread with unwashed hands, Jesus simply deferred to Scripture.

While they were concerned with why Jesus would break their man-made traditions, Jesus was concerned as to why they would break the clear teaching of God in order keep the traditions of humans.

Jesus looked at the Pharisees in disgust and quoted Isaiah 29:13 (in vv.

6-7) as being fulfilled in these legalistic pagans who thought themselves to be godly.

Isaiah dealt with the same problem as Jesus in 700 BC, so this is why Jesus quoted him.

He called them “hypocrites” – literally actors~/pretenders.

In other words, their traditions (like hand-washings) were hollow and hypocritical forms of holiness.

Their outward piety looked good, but inwardly they were charlatans.

Jesus condemned them as people who honored God with religiosity but who had hearts that were “far away from Me.” Their motives for being pious had nothing to do with honoring God, and in v. 7 Jesus also condemned them as men who worshipped God “in vain” – with emptiness and without result.

Their crime?

/They were teaching man-made doctrines as precepts for godliness./

No wonder they hated Jesus.

He was the real deal; they were frauds.

Jesus, in v. 10, quotes from the OT Scriptures (held in high regard by the Pharisees) concerning the fifth commandment, namely to honor one’s father and mother.

He did this because the Pharisees had actually “nullified” the fifth commandment by their tradition.

Though dishonoring one’s parents by not taking care of them was punishable by death, the Pharisees worked their way around this by forming a tradition out of their own selfish motives.

And Jesus threw it in their face by exposing their hypocrisy.

The term “Corban” in v. 11 is a Hebrew term that refers to an item (such as land) put aside as gift for God.

Those who dedicated anything to God were expected to keep their vow (cf.

Num.

30:2).

So, if a man’s parents asked for financial aid in their latter years their son could tell them, “Anything of mine you might have been helped by is a gift devoted to the Lord.”

Then the man was excused from his responsibility to support his parents and uphold the commandment.

Now except for what may have been vowed to the Temple or synagogue, however, the Corban items remained in the person’s hands usable to him at his discretion.

He could actually re-dedicate them back to himself if he needed!

So the tradition wasn’t designed to serve God but to serve self by avoiding the fifth commandment.

*Food for Thought*

            Traditions fill the church today.

They’re obeyed instinctively and with little to no thought or conviction.

And since they’re concocted by men obeying them is easy.

Most traditions require no faith, no trust, and no dependence on God.

They tend to appeal to our flesh by feeding our pride and breeding self-righteousness.

So be careful of traditions that have no biblical backing.

*Mark 7:14-16…* And after He called the multitude to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.

16 [“If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.”]

*Commentary*

            After lambasting the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees for their traditions which had taken precedence over the Scriptures in their own lives, Jesus passionately called the large crowd together so as to teach and redirect them, for they had been led astray by their hypocritical teachers.

The verbal structure in the Greek text (aorist imperative – “after he called”) is dubbed “attendant circumstance” in Greek.

It always signifies an urgent request.

It is used throughout Scripture, but specifically in Matthew 28:19 where Jesus commanded the disciples to “go!” into all nations and preach the Truth.

It is called the Great Commission by Christians today, but it’s the aorist imperative that’s used to show how urgent the command was (and is).

Without the aorist imperative, however, the command would have resembled more of a request than a command – the Great Suggestion rather than the Great Commission.

So Jesus actually summoned the crowd to him after the bitter exchange between he and the Pharisees in order to give them an urgent message.

The aorist participle “after he called” is one word in Greek signifying a summons of people, and the aorist imperative follows with two verbs from the lips of Jesus: listen AND understand.

Signified by the verb tense Jesus’ message was not only urgent, it was vital to correcting the false teaching the people had been subjected to under the scribes~/Pharisees.

The message? “Listen and understand”… there is absolutely /nothing/ a person can eat or drink – /nothing/ that goes into a person – that defiles him.

In other words, a person can eat with unwashed hands, drink alcohol (so long as they don’t get drunk!), eat pork (or any meat whatsoever), etc. and yet not be in an immoral state or unacceptable to the Lord.

NOTHING in and of itself that a person eats or drinks can disqualify them from being faithful children of God.

In the Greek text the term “nothing” is emphasized (sitting as the first word in v. 15), so we can picture Jesus emphasizing that word by raising his voice so that there would be no misunderstanding by those gathered.

And those gathered would have included the scribes and Pharisees who had come down from Jerusalem to harp on this one point.

They too were there, and Jesus meticulously condemned them and their hypocrisy for teaching such nonsense.

Verse 16 is in brackets because the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts (2nd-4th centuries) do not have it.

However, later Greek versions (from which the KJV is based) do contain the verse.

It was most likely inserted by a well-meaning scribe so as to reiterate the words of Jesus because in doing so Jesus actually proclaimed all foods as being neutral.

This verse, however, should not be considered as part of the original Greek text of Mark.

This in no way proves that the Bible has errors, but it does show that over time, in order to give more clarity and emphasis to the inspired text, some scribes inserted thoughts and ideas that, though uninspired, were helpful to the meaning of the text.

Comparing the oldest versions of the Greek text to the more recent ones possessed by scholars shows when and where these additions are.

*Food for Thought*

            Oftentimes a more in-depth look at the Scriptures will cause us to see the urgency of what is written and add the emphasis we sometimes miss by just reading words on a page.

The gist of 7:14-16 is this: all foods~/drinks are acceptable and don’t make us “unclean.”

What does make us immoral isn’t food, it’s the filth, gossip, and hypocrisy that comes out of our mouths and lives.

*Mark 7:17-23…* And when leaving the multitude, he had entered the house, his disciples questioned him about the parable.

18 And he said, “Are you so lacking in understanding also?

Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him; 19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus he declared all foods clean).