Day 292 (Matthew 15, Mark 7) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble (0:01)

Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

Today we open with Jesus dealing again with the complaints of the Pharisees. They're upset that his disciples don't wash their hands before meals. If this sounds familiar, it should. Jesus dealt with this himself back in Luke 11, when he went to dinner at the Pharisees' house. But this time, the scribes and Pharisees apparently traveled from Jerusalem to Galilee, which is almost 80 miles, to address this situation. Per usual, Jesus points out that this isn't breaking God's law, it's breaking man's traditions. Just because their religion set this up as their law doesn't make it God's law. According to God's law, only the priests had to wash their hands before meals. Jesus points out the hypocrisy in their accusation because he says they break the actual law in order to keep their man-made traditions, which are sometimes in conflict with God's law. Then he quotes the words of Isaiah in reference to the people of Jerusalem. The passage talks about people who do acts of worship and have the appearance of godliness, doing and saying all the right things, but who don't actually love God. They love their religious acts. They love being right, but they don't know anything about righteousness because that only comes through a relationship with God, not through their good deeds.

This whole thing is probably a little unsettling to the disciples. Imagine being a teenager who didn't wash up before dinner and suddenly a bunch of religious leaders make an eight-day round trip just to rebuke you for it.

Jesus addresses the disciples and all the people who had seen this go down, and he sets the record straight for them. He's like, look, my disciples aren't in trouble here. They didn't do anything wrong. These Pharisees want you all to believe that you can become unclean because of dirty hands, but they're just making stuff up. It's not only untrue, it's irrational. Later, when he's just talking to his disciples, Jesus circles back around and says, wash your hands or don't, it doesn't matter. What does matter though, is what comes out of your mouth, because that testifies to what's in your heart. And your heart is the point. The heart is where evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, witness, and slander originate.

In biblical language, the heart is the origin of our thoughts. The heart was regarded as the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and will. And that has always been God's focus.

Mark's account of this story also makes note that what Jesus says here has some far reaching implications. All those Old Testament foods that were unclean, verse 19 says Jesus just declared that they're okay to eat. We'll see more of this unfold throughout the New Testament, but it started here with Jesus. Thanks for bacon, finally. Then Jesus wraps up his conversation with the disciples by giving a brief commentary on the Pharisees. He says, By the way, don't worry about those guys. Right now, they have the appearance of being God's kids, but everyone who isn't in God's family will eventually be rooted up. They won't last. They're trying to be the leaders of other people, but they can't even see where they're going. If you follow a blind leader, you'll both end up in a pit. So we're not following them.

After this, they head north for a bit, into a Gentile region on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Based on what we've seen and learned so far, the fact that they're intentionally going into a Gentile region should send up some flares for us to catch our attention. First, they're going into territory they'd normally seek to avoid. Second, they're going to a place where Jesus can speak freely about what he has to offer the Gentiles because he doesn't have to worry about them trying to make him their king like with the Jews. The Gentiles aren't expecting a Messiah, but they still need a Messiah, and he knows it. They still need a Savior they don't know they need, so the Savior goes to seek them out.

As soon as Jesus arrives, a Gentile woman comes to him begging him to help her demonized daughter. There are two noteworthy things in the way she addresses him. First, calling him Lord doesn't mean she recognizes him as God. This is just a way of showing honor.

However, the second thing to note is that she calls him son of David. This seems to show us that she knows something. She's on to him.

I always had a hard time with this passage until I studied it deeper, because on the surface, it certainly seems like he's being cruel to her. But here are a few things I discovered that helped me. First, based on the fact that she approaches him right away and seems to know who he is and what he's capable of and that he's hiding from everyone else in town, I have a feeling that she's the whole reason he came to this area to begin with. The whole road trip for this woman. The second thing I noticed is that the disciples try to send her away, but Jesus talks to her. He engages in conversation with her. It feels dismissive at first. He tells her he's not there for her. He's there for the people of Israel. And yes, that is his first mission. But this seems more like he's testing her faith than anything else because of how it all ends. It reminds me of when he's walking on water and he starts to walk past the boat first. And it reminds me of how he was reluctant to do the whole water into wine thing initially, but then he does it. Why does he seem to reverse his decisions like this? Here's a guess. Being the sovereign God of the universe, the heart reader and mind reader we've seen him to be, the one who knows the future already, he knows what's going on with this woman, and he knows exactly what he's going to do. So I think this is an opportunity for her faith to be tested in front of anyone who might be watching.