Mark 7:1-13 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Mark 7:1-13

• Mark 7:1-4
• The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. 2 They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean—that is, unwashed—hands. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.)
  • The difference and the argument between Jesus and the Pharisees here are of tremendous importance, because they sho the very essence and core of the difference between Jesus and the orthodox Jews of His time
  • Why do Jesus and His disciples not observe the tradition of the elders?
    • The law originally meant two things
      • The Ten Commandments
      • The first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch
        • It contains a certain number of detailed regulations and instructions, but in the mater of moral questions, what is laid down is a series of great moral principles which individuals must interpret and apply for themselves
        • For a long time, the Jews were content with that
        • In the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ, there came into being a class of legal experts whom we know as the scribes
          • They were not content with great moral principles; they had what can only be called a passion for definition
          • They wanted these great principles amplified, expanded, and broken down until they issued in thousands and thousands of little rules and regulations governing every possible action and every possible situation in life
          • They are what is called the oral law; these rules make up the tradition of the elders
        • This is not the elders as in officials of the synagogue; It means the ancients, the great legal experts of the old days, like Hillel and Shammai
        • 300 years or so after Christ, a summary of all these rules and regulations was made and written down; The Mishnah
          • One of these rules and regulations is about hand washing
          • It describes something which is ceremonially unclean and unfit for the service and worship of God
            • There were definite and rigid rules for this
            • It was not in the interests of hygienic purity
            • It was for ceremonial cleanness which was at stake
            • Before every mean, and between each of the courses, the hands had to be washed, and they had to be washed in a certain way.
              • They had to first be free of any coating of sand or mortar or gravel or any such substance
              • The water for washing had to be kept in special large stone jars, so that it was clean in the ceremonial sense and so that it might be certain that it had been used for no other purpose, and that nothing had fallen into it or had been mixed with it
              • First, the hands were held with fingertips pointing up; water was poured over them and had to run at least down to the wrist
                • The minimum amount of water was 1/4 of a log, which is equal to 1 1/2 eggshells full of water
                • While the hands were still wet, each hand had to be cleansed with the fist of the other
                • Tis meant that at this stage the hands were wet with water; but that water was now unclean because it had touched unclean hands
              • Next, the hands had to be held with fingertips pointing down and water had to be poured over them in such a way that it began at the wrists and ran off at the fingertips
              • After all this was done, the hands were clean
              • To fail to do this was in Jewish eyes not to be guilty of bad manners, not to be dirty in the health sense, but to be unclean in the sight of God
              • Anyone who at with unclean hands was subject to the attacks of a demon called Shibta
              • To omit so to destruction
              • Bread eaten with unclean hands was not better than excrement
              • A Rabbi who once omitted the ceremony was buried in excommunication
              • Another Rabbi, imprisoned by the Romans, used his drinking water to ceremonially wash his hands instead of quenching his thirst, and almost died of dehydration
        • That, to the Pharisaic Jew was religion
        • It was ritual, ceremonial, and regulations like that which they considered to be the essence of the service of God
        • Ethical religion was buried under a mass of taboos and rules
          • A large number of animals was unclean
          • A woman after childbirth was unclean; a leper; anyone who touched a dead body was unclean
          • And those who had become unclean in this way made unclean anything they in turn touched
          • A Gentile was unclean; food touched by a Gentile; Any vessel touched by a Gentile was unclean
          • So, then, when a strict Jew returned from the market place he immersed his whole body in clean water to take away the taint he might have acquired
          • Vessels could easily become unclean; they might be touched by an unclean person or food
            • In the Mishnah there are no fewer than 12 treatises on this kind of uncleanness
              • A hollow vessel made of pottery could become unclean on the inside, but not the outside; It did not matter what/who touched the outside, but it did matter what touched it inside
                • If it became unclean it must be broken; and no unbroken piece must remain which was big enough hold enough oil to anoint the little toe
              • A flat plate without a rim could not become unclean at all; but a plate with a rim could
              • Flat vessels made of leather, bone, or glass could not become unclean; if they were hollow they could become unclean outside and inside
                • If they were unclean they musth be broken; and the break must be a hole at least big enough for a medium-sized pomegranate to pass through
              • To cure uncleanness; earthen vessels must be broken
                • Other vessels must be immersed, boiled, purged with fire—in the case of metal vessels—and polished
              • A three-legged table could become unclean
                • If it lost one or two legs it could not
                • If it lost three legs it could, for then it could be used as a board, and a board could become unclean
              • Things made of metal could become unclean
                • Except a door, a bot, a lock, a hinge, a knocker, and a gutter
              • Wood used in metal utensils could become unclean
                • But metal used in wood utensils could not
                • Thus a wooden key with metal teeth could become unclean; but a metal key with wooden teeth could not
  • We have taken some time over this scribal laws because that is what Jesus was up against
    • To the scribes and Pharisees, these rules and regulations were the essence of religion
    • To observe them was to please God; to break them was to sin
    • It was precisely because Jesus had no use for all these regulations that they considered Him a bad man
    • There is a fundamental split here==that between those who see religion as ritual, ceremonial, rules and regulations, and those who see in religion loving God and loving their fellow man
• Mark 7:5-8
• 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?” 6 He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands. 8 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.”
  • The scribes and the Pharisees saw that the disciples of Jesus did not observe the tradition and the code of the oral law in regard to the washing of hands before and during meals, and they asked why
  • Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29:13
    • Isaiah accused the people of his day of honoring God with their lips while their hearts were really far away
    • In principle, Jesus accused the scribes and Pharisees of two things
      • He accused them of hypocrisy
        • One whose whole life is a piece of acting without any sincerity behind it at all
        • Anyone to whom religion means carrying out certain external rules and regulations, anyone to whom religion is entirely connected with the observation of a certain ritual and the keeping of a certain number of taboos is in the end bound to be a hypocrite
        • Such people believe that they are good if they carry out the correct acts and practices, no mater what their hearts and their thoughts are like
        • He might hate those around him with all his heart, he might be full of envy and jealousy and concealed bitterness and pride
          • That did not matter as long as he carried out the correct hand washings and observed the correct laws about cleanness and uncleanness
        • Legalism takes account of outward actions; but it takes no account at all of people’s inward feelings
          • They may well be meticulously serving God in outward things, and bluntly disobeying God in inward things
          • There is no greater religious peril than that of identifying religion with outward observance
            • Church attendance, Bible reading, tithing, and even prayer do not make us good
            • How are our hearts towards God and towards others?
              • And if in our hearts there are enmity, bitterness, grudges, and pride, no all the outward religious observances in the world will make us anything other than hypocrites
      • He accused them of substituting the efforts fo human ingenuity fo the laws of God
        • For their guidance for life they did not depend on listening to God; they depended on listening to the clever arguments and debates, the ingenious interpretations of the legal experts
        • True religion can never only be the basis of human thought
        • It must always come, not from their ingenious discoveries, but from the simply listening to and accepting the voice of God.
• Mark 7:9-13
• 9 He also said to them, “You have a fine way of invalidating God’s command in order to set up your tradition! 10 For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. 11 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban’” (that is, an offering devoted to God), 12 “you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things.”
  • The exact meaning of this passage is very difficult to discover
  • It hinges on the word Corban, which seems to have undergone two stages of meaning in the Jewish usage
    • The word meant gift
      • It was used to describe something which was specially dedicated to God
      • A thing was Corban was as if it had already ben laid upon the altar
        • It was completely set apart from all ordinary purposes and usages and became the property of God
        • If a man wished to dedicate some of his money or his property to God, he declared it Corban, and thereafter it might never again be used for any ordinary or secular purpose
        • A creditor might say, “the debt you owe me is Corban”
          • The debt you owe me is dedicated to God
          • From then the debtor ceased to be in debt to another person and began rather to be in debt to God, which was far more serious
          • The creditor could discharge his part of the matter by making a quite small symbolic payment to the Temple, and then keep the rest for himself
      • To introduce the idea of Corban into this kind of debt was a kind of religious blackmail transforming a debt owed to another person into a debt owed to God
      • A man declaring his property Corban, sacred to God, and then when his father are mother in dire need comes to him for help, “I am sorry that I cannot give you any help because nothing that I have is available for you because it is dedicated to God”
        • The vow was made an excuse to avoid helping a parent in need
        • The vow which the scribal legalist insisted upon involved breaking one of the Ten Commandments which are the very law of God
    • Corban became a much more generalized oath
      • At some time perhaps in a fit of anger or rebellion, a man had said to his parents, “Corban anything by which you may ever be helped by me”
        • Afterwards, even if he repented from his rash vow, the scribal legalists declared that it was unbreakable and that he might never again render his parents any assistance
  • There were cases in which the strict performance of the scribal law made it impossible to carry out the law of the Ten Commandments
    • Jesus was attacking a system which put rules and regulations before the claim of human need
    • The commandment of God was that the claim of human love should come first
    • The commandment of the scribes was that the claim of legal rules and regulations should come first
    • We must take care that we never allow rules to paralyze the claims of love