”Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.” Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ ” Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.” Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?” Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” Then Peter said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.” “Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked. “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”“
Matthew 15:1-20 NLT
There are many types of people who acknowledge God. Knowledge of God is not salvific knowledge unless it is coupled with confession, repentance, and faith. The Pharisees understood the law as well as the traditions. They used this knowledge incorrectly. Instead of using it to come to God, they expected God to come to them. They wanted his blessings to be something earned by their adherence to the law. They didn’t understand that the law only points to salvation but that it cannot save by itself. To this end, they were baffled to find the followers of Christ not worried about such things. Christ outlines the dilemma clearly. Those who are of God care about the heart and what it says. Things that don’t speak to that don’t matter in terms of righteousness. If the law is not used to speak to the heart, even if it keeps the outside clean, it doesn’t show righteousness. Essentially, he was saying that his unwashed disciples are cleaner than the washed Pharisees. This is because the physical washing was meant to represent something spiritually. But the Pharisees had removed that element, caring only about its physical evidence. Jesus points out that the body doesn’t define one’s righteousness as much as his character does. If one need conform something, let him conform the behaviors of the heart first. His actions will then follow. But a man who has transformed his actions but hides an unconformed heart is still unclean in every way that matters.
JOSH McGARY.COM 