Trapped by Tradition

Well, if you have your Bibles turn to Mark chapter 7, I am going to make reference back to the end of chapter 6 because we did sort of end abruptly last week. But I do want to move into chapter 7. I have a plan.

And as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. But I do have a plan. And my plan is to try to finish chapter 7 before we take our break. Now our break is in the month of July. We will not be meeting on Wednesday nights.

I am encouraging everyone to consider possibly having something in your homes. We've done that in the past with some success and certainly love to see that. But chapter 7 can essentially be broken down into two parts.

The first part would be verses 1 to 23 where Jesus has an interaction with the Pharisees regarding the traditions that they had put in place of the scriptures. And he challenges the Pharisees and then he talks to his disciples about that.

And that again takes us through verse 23. And then the second part is verses 24 to 37 where Jesus performs two specific miracles. One, with the healing of a Gentile woman's child. And the second is the healing of a man born, let me see, excuse me, the deaf, the healing of a deaf man.

I was going to say blind man. I was like, that doesn't sound right to me. I've got to look at it again. But there's two miracle narratives that are there at the end of the chapter. So my plan tonight is to look at the first half and then next week, the second half.

Mark 8 as the Center of the Gospel’s Turning Point

Mark chapter 8 actually marks the centerpiece of the book, not just by chapters because we realize it's a 16 chapter book, but it also marks the point where the focal shift happens because we're going to see in that chapter where Jesus says, who do you say that.

I am?

And Peter gives the great confession. And that sort of changes the dynamic of the book and focuses towards Christ going to the.

Cross.

So that's why I think it would be great for us to finish before our break in chapter 7 and then pick up a chapter 8 when we come back in August. So that's my thinking around all of this. And as maybe doesn't always seem so, but I do have a plan.

I do have a plan for where we're going. So tonight we are going to read verses 1 to 23. And then we are going to, as we always do, give an explanation of what we read. And the title of tonight's lesson, I know it doesn't have to have a title, but I'm a just typical titler.

I just like to title things, helps me think about what I'm doing. And the title that I have applied to tonight's text is Tradition vs. Doctrine. Tradition vs. Doctrine. And hopefully that will make sense as we go.

The Pharisees’ Tradition of the Elders

Beginning in verse 1 it says, Now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? And he said to them, Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

For Moses said, Honor your father and mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. 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, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do.

And he called the people to him again and said to them, Hear me, all of you and understand 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.

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable and he asked them, Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled?

Thus, he declared all foods clean. And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word as we seek to understand it better tonight. It was a lot of text, and as I was reading it out loud, I was thinking, Boy, that's a lot of text.

I've been off quite a bit tonight because when you're sitting in the study, you're like, Oh, sure, get through that. No problem. And the whole time I'm reading, I'm like, Oh, this is going to take a little bit more.

Let's just hope because this is a lot and there's a lot happening here. But it is all one idea. There's one thought that's running through this, and it is the idea of traditions that have led to legalism.

And so that's where we're going to head tonight. But before we get there, I do want to make one thing. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to mention something from Chapter six at the end of chapter six.

We have Jesus feeding the five thousand, walking on water and then doing. Going about healing in the area of Gennesaret, which is verses 53 to 56. But there is a whole event that is not in Matthew or Mark's gospel, but it is in John's gospel that I wanted to point out, because in John's gospel, it says that when he fed the five thousand and then he crossed the sea, walking on water, getting in the boat, going with them onto the sea, it says in John's gospel, one of the things that happened was that the people were trying to make him a king.

And why were they trying to make him a king? This is John 6, 15. It says perceiving that they were about to come and take him away by force to make him king. Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Why were they trying to make him king? Because he fed them, because he took five loaves and two fish and he fed them. And so there is this desire to follow after Christ. But then an almost immediate change happens because all this is in chapter six.

It's in chapter 6, 15. It says they wanted to make him king. But in chapter 6, 66, 66, but it's chapter six, verse 66. It says. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

So if you read John 6, know that John 6 happens right after Mark 6. And what happens is Jesus is preaching and Jesus runs off the multitude. How does he run off the multitude? By preaching things they didn't want to hear.

Specifically, he preached about eating his body and his blood. That was obviously offensive to many people, not understanding what he was saying. But that whole section falls in here. And I just thought that was important for us to think about, because Jesus starts after feeding five thousand with people wanting to make him king.

And by the end of his sermon, they didn't want to be around him anymore. So all of that is happening around the same time as what we're reading here. Does that make sense? I just felt like the need to point that out.

John 6 is obviously very important, especially in reformed theology. We talk a lot about what he says in John 6, 44, about no man can come to me unless a father. A lot of people are familiar with sections of John 6, but they don't realize where it fits in the narrative.

That's where it fits in the narrative. The people have come to Jesus, they want to make him king. And Jesus says, you're following me not because you believe in me, but because you were filled with the loaves.

Remember what he said to the disciples on the boat? You, you, did you forget about the loaves? They'd forgotten about the loaves. I talked about that last week. But the people wanted Jesus to be their king if he was willing to feed them.

But Jesus said, you come to me, you don't believe in me. Again, I don't want to preach John 6 tonight. But that John 6, Jesus says, you come to me, but you don't believe in me. If you if you did believe in me.

You would be doing the works of my father, but you're not. And he said this, he said, all that the father gives me will come to me and I will in no way cast out. There's so much in John 6. There's such a plethora of important things that Jesus says in John 6 that we don't have in the other Gospels, but it all fits together in this narrative.

So at the beginning of Mark 7. The Pharisees have come to Jesus and the scribes from Jerusalem. Now, this means they took a long journey to get to where Jesus was. I don't have a map to show you where they were and where Jesus was, but they're coming to him for a purpose.

They're coming to him to find fault because he has got this crowd. He's got these people, and again, if we think about John 6, some people have mentioned making him king. So the Pharisees coming are coming to challenge him and to and to be if I if I say this right, to to to not only challenge him, not only I would say be a burden to him, not that they want to see him eliminated.

They want to see his ministry eliminated. They want to do whatever they can to cause his ministry to fail. So they're going to come and find everything they can to point out and say he's wrong. So they're coming to undermine.

Thank you. Just couldn't find the word. See, this is why you guys are here. You're awesome. That's great. So verse two, it says they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders.

Now, this is not referring to hygienic hand washing. Meaning if the if the if the disciples had been digging in the dirt or had been fishing and messing with the bait and those things, I don't think they would take those nasty, grubby hands and go start putting food in their mouth.

We have we have long understood the value of hygiene, even in the ancient world, not maybe understanding germ theory and things that we understand today. But the idea of eating with dirty hands, that's not the idea here.

The idea here is a pharisaical tradition that was a ceremonial washing. It was not simply cleaning your hands before, you know, as moms say, wash your hands before you eat your supper. It's not that. And I know you probably knew that, but it is something to consider because I think, you know, some people read it and they say, does this mean they were just being unhygienic?

It's not has nothing to do with hygiene. It has everything to do with tradition. And we see this in the text. It says in verse three, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly.

Now, I point that out because when it says wash their hands properly, that actually the word there means to wash their hands with a fist. And that sounds weird because you don't wash your hands with a fist.

But it was something to do with the ceremony of washing. And later in verse four, he's going to actually use the word for baptism. If you look at verse four, it says, and when they came out from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

The word wash there is baptizo. So the idea was there was ceremony involved in this washing and it was part of the Jewish tradition that had come down through the Jewish writings that were extra biblical.

They were not part of the scripture. The only thing the scripture gives in the Old Testament in regard to handwashing were the responsibility of the priests when they were doing sacrifices. They had certain washings that they had to do.

But there was nothing in Jewish law that commanded any form of ceremonial washing in regard to the eating of a meal and particularly this form of washing. So it says that they don't eat unless they baptize their hands.

That's the the idea. And there are many other traditions that they observe. And he lists a few here, washing of cups, pots, copper vessels. And dining couches. Interesting, if you read the the parallel passage, which is in the Gospel of Matthew, it doesn't it mentions some of what they do, but it doesn't mention the doesn't mention the dining couches.

This is an interesting part of Mark. Mark gives us if you read the parallel account between Mark and Matthew and they are parallel, Mark tends to give us more information. I've said that before. Mark has less stories, but the stories he gives us are fuller.

They have more little bits of information in them. There's 23 verses in Mark compared to 20 verses in Matthew, which I know only seems like three verses, but the verses are longer in Mark and in Matthew's gospel, they're shorter.

So there's more information in Mark's account. So we get to verse five. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Now, that's the second time we've seen that phrase.

The word tradition happens six times in this passage, in this section of passages. The word tradition is there six times. But the phrase tradition of the elders is twice in just this first five verses.

Now, what is this talking about? This, again, is referring to the writings and the teachings of the Jewish leaders down through the ages since the time of the Babylonian captivity. This is a post-captivity or what we call post-exilic writing.

That had sprung up among the Jewish people. Think about things that aren't in the Old Testament, but exist in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, there are no synagogues. You ever think about that?

Synagogue worship arose after the exile. Didn't exist prior. That was something that happened. The Pharisees and the Sadducees. You never read about them in the Old Testament, do you? Because those parties sprung up during the intertestamental period.

So did an entire series of writings and traditions that were believed. And some held that the traditions were even more important than the scriptures. Now, I want to ask for a second, can you think of any group that puts their traditions on the same level with or above the scriptures?

What are you going to say, Steve? Roman Catholic Church. That's exactly what I was thinking. Because if you were to ask the Roman Catholic Church, what is the authority in the Roman Catholic Church? They would say there is not an authority.

There are three authorities in the Roman Catholic Church. They would say that the Bible is an authority. They would say that the Magisterium is an authority. That is the leaders, the Pope and the bishops.

That constitutes the magisterial authority. But then they would say tradition. And so it becomes a three legged stool. You have scripture, leaders and tradition. And guess who gets to interpret the scripture?

The leaders. Guess what they use to interpret the scriptures? Tradition. And so this is where you get things like the veneration of Mary. There's nothing in the Bible that would lead anyone to the conclusions that Rome has come to about Mary being a perpetual virgin.

There's nothing in the Bible that would lead to the idea that Mary is the one through whom we must go through to be blessed. You know, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord's with thee. Pray for us sinners now at the time.

There's nothing about praying to Mary in the Bible. None of those. And by the way, they also believe Mary was sinless. They also believe Mary was assumed into heaven, that she did not die, but rather was just like Jesus ascended into heaven.

There are all of these beliefs about Mary that are totally unbiblical, but are believed because they're part of tradition. And so when these traditions become equal to or supersede the authority of the scripture, then you run into a major problem.

And that's what Jesus is focusing on here. The tradition of the elders is the tradition of the Jewish leaders. This is what he is referring to. Having been written down, having been passed down, and everybody did it.

That's the thing. Think about how many traditions we have that we don't know where they came from. We just do them because they were handed down to us. The word tradition is it actually is it comes from the word paradoson and the word paradoson means something that's been delivered or handed down.

That's where the idea of tradition is something that's been handed down. It's it's a it's passed from generation to generation. How many things that we do are we do because simply mama said so or daddy said so or this is the way it's always been done.

Oh, boy, haven't I heard that in church a million times? Why do you do that? Because that's the way it's always been done. Well, why is that the way it's always been done? It just is. It's the tradition.

And so Jesus is dealing with the traditions of the elders and he says or the Pharisees ask him specifically, why is it that your disciples don't do what everyone else does? Because everyone else follows this tradition.

Everyone else follows the tradition of the elders, but your disciples eat with defiled hands. Their hands are defiled, not because, again, they had leftover bait or chum from the last fishing trip, but their hands were not ceremonially clean.

One quick note to add to that, too. It was firmly understood and believed within first century Jewish culture that there were only two types of people, the Jews and everyone else. And we see this throughout Paul's writing.

He talks about the Jews and the Greeks. Right. Well, the Greeks was everybody. The Greeks was all non-Jews. Right. Not just people from Greece, not just people who were Greek by descent, but everybody who was not a Jew.

Sometimes it was Jew and Gentile was the way the phrase was used. And the defilement that was believed to be received by the Jewish people by interacting with Gentiles, by being in Gentile lands. Remember, if you go to a Gentile land, you come back.

What do you have to do? Shake the dust off your feet. Right. Because you don't want to bring that dirty, defiled Gentile dirt back into the.

Holy land of Israel.

So this idea of defilement was a big part of how the Jews understood their lives, and it was a big part of their tradition. And so. Jesus is asked by the Pharisees, why? Why don't your disciples follow the traditions?

And Jesus comes out of nowhere in one sense with his response because he doesn't answer them right away, but rather he quotes a scripture to condemn them. Notice he quotes Isaiah chapter 29, verse 13, when he says.

Yes. In verse six, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me in vain. Do they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men?

So Jesus doesn't answer, why aren't your apostles washing their hands instead, he challenges them on their error, which is the error of taking a tradition and making it.

A commandment.

And he uses the word vain. He says in vain, do they worship me teaching his doctrines, the commandments of men? And of course, again, he's quoting from Isaiah 29, 13. And what's interesting, I did I did look this up as I was studying the he's he's quoting.

And I know this sounds weird. He's actually quoting the Septuagint version of this, which is interesting because oftentimes we talk about the Septuagint and its place in history. Jesus, if the quotation, I looked at both of them.

I looked up the Septuagint, read it, looked up the the original Greek of this and read it. And it's almost exactly verbatim, the same words being used. So it's interesting now whether or not Jesus spoke this.

And this is how the how Mark is translating it into Greek, because Jesus may have been speaking Aramaic translated into Greek or Jesus spoke this in Greek. Either way, he's citing the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament at this point.

And not that that's a huge deal, but it's just interesting to recognize that that was what was used by the early apostles and even apparently Jesus. And it says that he's quoting from Isaiah and he says, in vain do they worship me?

There are two ways, probably more than two, but at least two ways that God can be worshiped in vain. Number one is if we worship the wrong God, that's worshiping in vain. So if we worship the wrong God, that's one way we worship in vain.

So if you think about that, think about everyone who's not worshiping the Trinity. They're all worshiping in vain because they're worshiping the wrong God. Whether it's the Muslims who are worshiping Allah, they're not worshiping the one true and living God.

Whether it's the Mormons who are worshiping the God of Mormonism, which is not the God of the Bible, they're worshiping the wrong God. That's vain worship. That's one way that worship can be done in vain, meaning useless.

It will not account for anything in glory other than just adding to damnation. But there's another way that one can worship in vain, and that is to worship the right God the wrong way. To worship the right God the wrong way.

You say, wow, I haven't thought about that. Think of it like this, because that's what Jesus is saying. Jesus is not saying you're worshiping the wrong God. He's saying in vain do they worship me, that's a true God, by doing this wrong thing.

This brings us really to the concept that we sometimes talk about known as the regulative principle. What's the regulative principle? It's called the regular principle of worship, which means what? God gets to determine how he is to be worshiped.

And when we worship him in a way that is not in accord with his commands, he is not pleased. We see this with Nadab and Abihu who offered up strange fire unto the Lord and were destroyed. But it's also, if you think about this, what I've just described to you, this is actually the first and second commandment just written in a different way.

Because the first commandment is have no other gods before me. Don't worship the wrong God. But the second commandment is do not make any idols, because that's worshiping the right God the wrong way. Because what is idol worship?

It's taking something and calling it Jehovah or calling it Yahweh. You remember when the people took the earrings off and the gold and they put it in the fire and they brought out the calf? What did they say?

This is the God who led you out of Egypt. This is the God who did those things. This is God. No, it's not. You're worshiping the right God the wrong way because you're using an idol. And there are other ways that you can worship God the wrong way.

And one of the ways, according to Jesus, is to teach as doctrines the commandments of men. Because that's not worshiping God the way he has prescribed or the way he has commanded. And he says, verse 8, you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

You've abandoned it. And then, verses 9 through 13 is amazing. Because verses 9 through 13, he gives a description of something that I can't even believe existed. It's hard for me to even wrap my mind around the fact that this happened.

But then again, I look at human nature and I look at my own heart and I look at my own sinful proclivities and problems and I realize, yeah, it's not that far-fetched. Because what he describes in verses 9 to 13 is something called Korban.

Some people say Corbin. It doesn't matter how you say it, I guess. But what it was, the word Korban comes from the Old Testament and it means dedicated to God. That's what the word means. It's used in several Old Testament places.

And what people would do is people who unscrupulously did not want to provide their parents with a living, because once a parent reached an age where they were unable to care for themselves, it was their children's responsibility to take care of them.

And by the way, I still believe that's a principle that we should maintain. I still believe that my parents are my responsibility when they get to the point where they can no longer care for themselves.

I do believe that's... I think Jesus affirms that in a moment. I'll show you why. But unscrupulous men who did not want to do that could dedicate their belongings to the temple, dedicate them to God through this Jewish tradition called Korban.

And by dedicating it, they were no longer able to give it to anyone else because it was dedicated to God. And when their parents had need, they could say to their parents, I have dedicated all I have to Yahweh and therefore I have nothing to give you.

Yeah, oh yes, that's the other side of it. It was such an unscrupulous thing because they could enjoy it until their death, until their demise. They could enjoy it, handle it, do with it what they wanted to, but it was not allowed to be given to someone else.

It was a vow. They had made a vow. And again, it was very much... it almost seems like mafia style. And I know maybe Andy could give us some more information because he talks about the mafia sometimes.

But the idea of doing something so underhanded, but in a way that seems like what we would call organized crime, right? It's an organized crime against your family. I don't want to help them, so I'm going to keep what I have and I'm going to use a religious exemption to not have to help them.

So with that in mind, Jesus says in verse 9, He says, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and mother and whoever reviles father and mother must surely die.

But you say, if a man tells his father and mother whatever you have gained from me as Corban, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and mother, thus making void the Word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do.

So Jesus uses this terrible example to say, look at yourselves. You come to me and you tell me that I'm wrong because my disciples didn't wash to the elbow. They didn't wash with a closed fist. They didn't baptize their hands.

I'm telling you that the Word of God says that a man is supposed to honor his father and mother and part of honoring the father and mother, according to Jesus here, is caring for them in their old age.

And you're telling them they don't have to do that because you have given them a new tradition, a new law that allows for this. And by the way, legalism is really at the heart of this. And there's three forms of legalism, three forms of legalism.

Just real quick to think about the first form of legalism is the most simplest, and that is people who believe by keeping the law, they go to heaven. There are people who believe that I'm a good person.

I'm going to heaven. That's a form of legalism because they believe they're keeping the law. The second form of legalism is when people add traditions to the law and they add things to the law that aren't there.

So somebody might not say that you have to do this to be saved, but when you're saved you got to do these things, such as the Hebrew roots people tend to add all the Jewish food laws back into the New Testament, add these things.

We read about this in Colossians, remember? All the things that were added to don't add things to the law. Don't make, don't bind on men's consciences things that aren't there. That's another type of legalism.

But there's a third form of legalism that's sometimes harder to discern, but that's when the law of God is circumvented and replaced with a different law, and that law supersedes the law of God. That's what's happened here.

The law of God says honor your father and mother, and you should do that, but they had another law that they used to circumvent the law of God, and they said we're keeping the law because we're keeping the tradition.

No, by your tradition you're nullifying the law. With your circumventing, you're destroying the law. That's the third kind, and it's what Jesus is addressing here. They have circumvented the law. Now, verse 14.

Defilement Comes From the Heart, Not From External Rituals

Verse 14, Jesus gathers the disciples and he talks to them. It says, and he called the people to him again and said to them, hear me all of you and understand there's nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of the person are what defile him.

He's now going back to the hand-washing thing. That's the reason why I think all this is connected, because the reason why he's bringing up defilement is because they said your disciples are eating with defiled hands.

Jesus didn't even address that. He went right into their problem. Their problem is they've taken the commandment. They've replaced it with a tradition. He dealt with all that, and that's what he just did.

Dealing with Corban and all that, but now he's going back to the defilement issue. He's going back to actually address their tradition. He's going to show them why their tradition is wrong. Not only have you replaced the Word of God with a tradition, but you've replaced it with a tradition that's wrong, and here's why.

He called the people to him again and said to them, hear me and all understand there's nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person that are what defile him, and when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable.

Now my first question when reading this was what parable? Because we don't have a parable that's normal like, you know, two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, another a Colossian. That's a normal thing to think of, a parable, but what Jesus just said in verse 15 is the parable.

There's nothing outside a person that by coming into him can defile him, but the things that come out of the person are what defile him. That doesn't sound like a parable, but that is the point. That's what they're asking.

What do you mean by that? You said something that I don't understand, so in that sense it's parabolic. They didn't get what he meant, so now Jesus is going to answer. By the way, just real quick, you don't have to turn there.

In Matthew's Gospel, Matthew adds a small interlude in between Jesus talking to the Pharisees and Jesus giving this answer about the parable, and it says this. It says the disciples came to him and said, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?

And Jesus said, Every plant that my Heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. So that's Jesus's last word about the Pharisees, because they came and they said, Jesus, they're offended by what you said, and Jesus said, They're blind leading the blind.

Let them alone. They're both, they're all going to fall into a pit. So that, I just wanted to include, because that's actually, Mark doesn't record that, but it's the same narrative, same thing. It's just one section that we don't have in Mark, but Jesus is saying, Let them alone.

But now he's going to answer to the disciples about this thing about the outside versus the inside. It says, And when he answered, or when he entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable, 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, since it enters his heart, but not his stomach? I'm sorry, enters not his heart, but his stomach, and is expelled. Thus he declared, All foods clean.

That may be the one most unique verse in all of Mark. Mark points out, that's not, Jesus didn't say that. Mark, through, I believe through Peter, is providing us a Holy Spirit inspired commentary on what Jesus just said.

Because when Jesus said, Nothing that enters your mouth is actually going to defile you. Remember, it was Peter in Acts chapter 10 who saw the vision of the animals coming down on the sheet, and when he saw that vision, it's rise, take and eat.

I can't eat that. It's all defiled, and God said, Don't call common what I've, what I, what I, threw me off there. Do not call common. Yes, thank you. That was, I've called clean. You're helping me out all night tonight, Mike.

You're my man. But you understand, Peter is, or Mark here, and again, I believe this, a lot of this is coming from Peter's memory, is adding a Holy Spirit inspired commentary here. This is Jesus abrogating the food laws.

Now, you say that to a Hebrew roots person, they will lose their mind. I have had it happen. I've had people freak out on me because I've said, We are no longer bound by the Old Testament food laws. How can you say that?

God established those laws. Those laws are forever, not according to this passage. This passage tells us, Jesus, by saying these words, Jesus declares that all food is clean because we are no longer in an outside in faith where externals create the internal.

No, the internal is the reality. It's not about the externals, and everything for the Jew was about the external. Everything was about what was done on the outside, and challenge them on that. You are like whitewashed sepulchres.

Your outside is clean, but you're full of dead men's bones. Beloved, it's still that way. If you look at modern Judaism, the modern expression of Judaism is not Judaism. The modern expression of Judaism is not biblical Judaism.

It is based upon the traditions that have been handed down, most of them, many of them, not biblical traditions. The same things that the Pharisees were holding to are still still being held to today in many situations among the Jews.