12th April 2010

Mark 6:1-22 – Clean and Unclean

• The Pharisees take issue with the fact that Jesus’ disciples did not wash their hands before eating. According to their rules this made the disciples hands unclean & therefore they were unclean.
• Jesus opens both canons: first He quotes from Isaiah – saying the Pharisees are the people he prophesied about who would honor God with their lips but not their hearts. It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean but what comes out of him.
• Later on in this section Jesus declares all food ‘clean’. This is odd.
• Because later, His disciples still choose to bind the new gentile believers with the food laws: why?
• Because this meant that the new gentile believers could sit down with the Jewish believers and have fellowship together. Something that would be key to demonstrate Heaven on earth.
• Because also – the bigger principle is – that we should refuse to take up our individual rights where it limits our human responsibility. The principle that the early church leaders are working to is not the traditions of men but the heart of God; they realize that although the world may take care of people through a system of human responsibilities, in God’s Kingdom we take care of people through Human responsibility.
• Before Jesus does this He accuses the Pharisees of using their religion to avoid God’s commandments.
• He tells them they have a ‘fine way’ of setting aside the command of God. Where God says honor your father and mother they have used a super-spiritual pseudo-dedication to get out of it. Rather than taking care of their parents in old age as they should with their finances; they found a different way through religion to keep it to themselves.
• The Jews were famous for making rash vows. They would dedicate their money to God and to do this they had to utter the word “Corban” – once they had dedicated this money they said they were no longer free to give it away.
• I have seen this done a lot. Men have taken issue on small things and I’ve been made to feel that in some way I am not being clean but often it is just the religion of men. Men who can sometimes then go and ignore huge chunks of God’s command. In fact sometimes these small things are in direct opposition to the big things of God – as in the case of Corban
• I need to pray that I do not create religion in order to avoid God’s commands – a trap we can all be guilty of.
• pg 1639 - NIVASB