01-01-2022, 04:32 PM
Again, there is very little debate about the chronology at this point. Jesus began pushing the parabolic teachings to the point it alienated a bunch of people who refused to think on that level. The crowds following Him were noticeably smaller after that.
At about the same time, a rabbinical examination committee came to see what Jesus was doing. It was composed of ranking Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem, suggesting they were in the close orbit of the Sanhedrin. The first thing that caught their attention was how Jesus and His disciples did not observe Pharisaical traditions regarding hand washing. There's no doubt they were eating outside somewhere with no table.
Mark notes that Pharisees tried to enforce a lot of ritual nonsense about this kind of thing. Were they going to carry around a ritual washing cup while working outdoors like this? Perhaps the Pharisees never met with the common people in the first place, much less try to bless them. If you examine modern Jewish teaching, collated with the teaching of so-called Messianic Jews who defend Pharisaism, you'll get a picture of where this comes from. The only thing Moses said about it was for priests to wash their hands prior to engaging in ritual offerings. The basic principle is that the Pharisees at some point made the dinner table ritually equivalent the Temple altar. As Mark's comments indicate, the eating of bread specifically was a particular point at which the Pharisees required this ritual washing. It would have been typical of Jesus and the disciples to carry a lunch of mostly bread.
The Pharisees objected to the way Jesus and His disciples disrespected what they regarded as sacred traditions. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29 and applies it to the Pharisees. In essence, they piled up a hedge of ritual traditions to protect the Law from the people, as if peace with God was fragile. You would think that Jehovah was ill-tempered and petty, if you listened to them. They didn't even know the moral character of the God they claimed to worship because they never engaged their hearts.
Then Jesus contrasted this silly nonsense about ritual washing against a very ugly tradition that flatly violated the Ten Commandments. Pharisees who gained wealth -- through their abuse of the Law, packing the courts with their own kind -- would refuse to support their own aged parents. Moses required men to care for their own parents, a part of the meaning of "honor your father and mother." Yet the Scribes and Pharisees had concocted a legal strategy that allowed them to claim their estate was a Temple trust. As long as they lived, they could use their wealth as they saw fit for their personal comfort, but upon death it all went to the Temple (or similar religious charities). So, upon the excuse of preserving their estate, which they could legally claim belonged to God, they would refuse to take care of their own parents who were too old to work any more.
Jesus said they were full of such trickery and legal stratagems to avoid actually embracing the moral character of God as manifested in Scripture. Then He turned and gathered those left still hanging around Him for a lesson, right in front of these self-anointed inspectors. The issue was their claim that failure to wash as they required would ritually defile someone. Jesus countered the whole idea of defilement as they taught it.
Once again He made it clear that this was a parable. What you put in your body does not make you unfit to stand in God's favor. It's what comes out of you that defiles you. Then Jesus turned and walked away. Afterward Jesus went inside someone's private residence, apparently their host at that time. The disciples asked Him to explain that little epigram parable about defilement. Given the context, He was surprised they hadn't worked it out.
Ritual defilement is one thing, but they shouldn't confuse it with actual moral failure. There is a bigger issue at stake here. When you eat something, it goes through your guts and out the other end. Nothing about that darkens or brightens your soul. What makes you unacceptable to God is a matter of the heart. If your heart is not wholly committed to the Lord, then your life will be defiled by what comes out of your compromised choices. Once your heart is right with God, all that external stuff will take care of itself.
This is pretty much a repeat of what Jesus said about having a snack from heads of grain when passing through a field on the Sabbath. The Father is not cranky about silly details like that, all the more so when they were man-made rules that do not reflect the priorities of revelation. If God gives you a mission, He expects you to understand the priorities. Ritual purity wasn't a priority in the midst of healing and teaching out of doors.
Once again, Jesus is calling His nation back to the ancient Hebrew outlook. He very specifically rejects the legalistic nonsense of the Scribes and Pharisees. Most of their power and wealth came from perverting the Law of Moses and abusing the common peasants, and Jesus was threatening that.
At about the same time, a rabbinical examination committee came to see what Jesus was doing. It was composed of ranking Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem, suggesting they were in the close orbit of the Sanhedrin. The first thing that caught their attention was how Jesus and His disciples did not observe Pharisaical traditions regarding hand washing. There's no doubt they were eating outside somewhere with no table.
Mark notes that Pharisees tried to enforce a lot of ritual nonsense about this kind of thing. Were they going to carry around a ritual washing cup while working outdoors like this? Perhaps the Pharisees never met with the common people in the first place, much less try to bless them. If you examine modern Jewish teaching, collated with the teaching of so-called Messianic Jews who defend Pharisaism, you'll get a picture of where this comes from. The only thing Moses said about it was for priests to wash their hands prior to engaging in ritual offerings. The basic principle is that the Pharisees at some point made the dinner table ritually equivalent the Temple altar. As Mark's comments indicate, the eating of bread specifically was a particular point at which the Pharisees required this ritual washing. It would have been typical of Jesus and the disciples to carry a lunch of mostly bread.
The Pharisees objected to the way Jesus and His disciples disrespected what they regarded as sacred traditions. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29 and applies it to the Pharisees. In essence, they piled up a hedge of ritual traditions to protect the Law from the people, as if peace with God was fragile. You would think that Jehovah was ill-tempered and petty, if you listened to them. They didn't even know the moral character of the God they claimed to worship because they never engaged their hearts.
Then Jesus contrasted this silly nonsense about ritual washing against a very ugly tradition that flatly violated the Ten Commandments. Pharisees who gained wealth -- through their abuse of the Law, packing the courts with their own kind -- would refuse to support their own aged parents. Moses required men to care for their own parents, a part of the meaning of "honor your father and mother." Yet the Scribes and Pharisees had concocted a legal strategy that allowed them to claim their estate was a Temple trust. As long as they lived, they could use their wealth as they saw fit for their personal comfort, but upon death it all went to the Temple (or similar religious charities). So, upon the excuse of preserving their estate, which they could legally claim belonged to God, they would refuse to take care of their own parents who were too old to work any more.
Jesus said they were full of such trickery and legal stratagems to avoid actually embracing the moral character of God as manifested in Scripture. Then He turned and gathered those left still hanging around Him for a lesson, right in front of these self-anointed inspectors. The issue was their claim that failure to wash as they required would ritually defile someone. Jesus countered the whole idea of defilement as they taught it.
Once again He made it clear that this was a parable. What you put in your body does not make you unfit to stand in God's favor. It's what comes out of you that defiles you. Then Jesus turned and walked away. Afterward Jesus went inside someone's private residence, apparently their host at that time. The disciples asked Him to explain that little epigram parable about defilement. Given the context, He was surprised they hadn't worked it out.
Ritual defilement is one thing, but they shouldn't confuse it with actual moral failure. There is a bigger issue at stake here. When you eat something, it goes through your guts and out the other end. Nothing about that darkens or brightens your soul. What makes you unacceptable to God is a matter of the heart. If your heart is not wholly committed to the Lord, then your life will be defiled by what comes out of your compromised choices. Once your heart is right with God, all that external stuff will take care of itself.
This is pretty much a repeat of what Jesus said about having a snack from heads of grain when passing through a field on the Sabbath. The Father is not cranky about silly details like that, all the more so when they were man-made rules that do not reflect the priorities of revelation. If God gives you a mission, He expects you to understand the priorities. Ritual purity wasn't a priority in the midst of healing and teaching out of doors.
Once again, Jesus is calling His nation back to the ancient Hebrew outlook. He very specifically rejects the legalistic nonsense of the Scribes and Pharisees. Most of their power and wealth came from perverting the Law of Moses and abusing the common peasants, and Jesus was threatening that.