SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
6/18/2012 8:04:00 PM
I want to begin to look at Mark chapter seven in my
continued effort to complete Spiritual Diaries on one chapter of the book of
Mark each month.
Dr. Wiersbe
entitles this chapter from his commentary on the book of Mark “The
Servant-Teacher” and it covers both the seventh and eight chapter of the book
of Mark. We will look at just the first
five verses of chapter seven in this Spiritual Diary.
Accusation (Mark 7:1-5): “1 ¶
The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered 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 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?’”
Notice that
the Pharisees which Mark is writing about in verse one have come from Jerusalem
along with some of the Scribes, and one may wonder what they would be doing
such a long way from Jerusalem. Jesus
had been in Galilee for a considerable length of time, perhaps as long as
eighteen months, and had dealt with many of the local Pharisees in the past
with results that had embarrassed them, and so them must had thought that it
was time to get some help from Jerusalem in order to continue to accuse Jesus. We know that at this time in the ministry of
Jesus that He had already given up on the spiritual leaders that were in Israel
at that time. This happened when the
Pharisees had accused Jesus of doing his miracles through the power of Satan,
and that was the so-called straw that broke the camel’s back.
These
Pharisees and Scribes were accusing the disciples of Jesus of eating without
washing their hands. Now this had
nothing to do with good hygiene or good cleanliness, but had everything to do
with their traditions. The spiritual
leaders of Israel at this time thought much more about their traditions than it
did the Word of God, and this was a very sad state of affairs.
In verse
three we see some of the information given as to how these leaders washed their
hands and it speaks that this was their traditions. I know that in the Church today there are
traditions that some local churches follow, some are good and some are not
good. If a tradition does not line up
with the Word of God then it is not a good tradition, but if it does not offend
the Word of God then that is different. I
have belonged to a GARBC Church which is General Association of Regular Baptist
Churches and every one that I have been in the pulpit is always in the center
of the stage and the reason that it is in the center is because the Word of God
is central in importance. This is a
tradition, but a good one for it goes along with Scripture, that is Scripture
is to be central in importance in the church.
This is just one example of a good tradition, but these Pharisees and
Scribes believed that their traditions were more important than the Word of God
as I have already stated.
Verse four
speaks of the tradition of washing their hands in their traditional way after
coming from the market place, and one though on this is perhaps they had run
into a dreaded Gentile or maybe even a Samaritan and that would mean that they
had to hurry home to wash of the uncleanness from these people.
We see in
verse five that these Pharisees and Scribes were questing Jesus on why His
disciples did not follow their traditions.
All I can tell you at this point is that they are not going to like His
answer to them. You know that the truth
hurts at times.
Dr. Wiersbe
gives the following insight on these verses when he writes, “Why should such a
seemingly trivial matter upset thee religions leaders? Why would they feel compelled to defent their
ceremonial washings? For one thing these
leaders resented it when our Lord openly flaunted their authority. After all, these practices had been handed
down from the fathers and carried with them the authority of the ages! The Jews called tradition ‘the fence of the
Las.’ It was not the Law that protected
the tradition, but the tradition that protected the Law.”
The Jews felt that they had to
protect the Law and that is why their traditions were started in the first
place for if a person would keep their traditions then they surely would not
break the Law. However the traditions
came to mean more than the Law and actually would go against the Law, and this
is what they were about to find out.
Dr. Wiersbe
goes on to say, “These washings not only indicated a wrong attitude toward
people, but they also conveyed a wrong idea of the nature of sin and personal
holiness. Jesus made it clear in the Sermon
on the Mount that true holiness is a matter of inward affection and attitude
and not just outward actions and associations.
The pious Pharisees thought they were holy because they obeyed the Law
and avoided external defilement. Jesus taught
that a person who obeys the Law externally can still break the Law in his heart, and that external ‘defilement’
has little connection with the condition of the inner person.
“So
conflict was not only between God’s truth and man’s tradition, but also between
two divergent views of sin and holiness.”
What can we
learn from this section of Scripture? I
suppose that there are many things we can take away from it, but when it comes
to traditions we must realize that they have to be checked by the Word of God
to make sure that they go along with or at least not go against the Word. We can also learn that holiness cannot be
accomplished by something we do on the outside, but it has to come from the
inside and can only come from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, for
Isaiah states in “Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is
unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us
wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Isaiah is saying that we cannot solve the sin
problem that we are all born with by ourselves, for in God’s eyes we are like
filth garments that we are unable to clean up.
Jesus came to die in our place on the cross so that we can actually have
His righteousness by confessing that we are sinners and accepting the work that
He did for us on the cross by dying in our place, then the Lord will see us as
clean as Jesus.
6/18/2012 9:01:08 PM
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