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 and 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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