Scripture: Mark 7 (Part Two)
Mark 7: 8-9
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
Commentary: The Pharisees added hundreds of their own petty rules and regulations to God’s holy laws. They worked to force the people to follow them.
Mark 7: 10-11
10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—
Commentary: The Pharisees used God to put money in the temple treasury rather than to help the parents or people in need. God’s law tells us to honor fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12) and to care for those in need (Leviticus 25: 35-43).
Mark 7: 14-19
And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”[e]17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”[f] (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
Commentary: Jesus points out that sin actually begins in the attitudes and intentions of the inner person. Jesus didn’t degrade the law. He paved the way for the change made clear when God removed the cultural restrictions regarding food. (See Acts 10: 9-29.)
We are pure on the inside as Christ renews our minds.
Read the Entire Chapter:
Read other commentary from the Book of Mark