mark chapter 7
opens with a conflict over a jewish
tradition
as a group of religious leaders came to
see jesus
they noticed that some of his followers
didn’t wash their hands before eating
the ritual was that the jews especially
the pharisees didn’t eat until they had
poured water over their cupped hands
they also didn’t need anything from the
market until they immersed their hands
in water
then in verse 4 we see the pharisees and
the teachers of religious law
asking jesus why don’t your disciples
follow our age-old traditions
they eat without first performing the
hand-washing ceremony
and this was what jesus said
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
you ignore god’s law and substitute your
own tradition
so was jesus saying that hand washing
was not good or right
i don’t think so but what he was saying
was
some of the jewish traditions were
merely lip service
things done out of obligation they made
man’s ideas equal to god’s law
diminishing the value of their worship
see
traditions can very quickly become
legalistic
and even contrary to biblical doctrine
if we’re not careful
so how do we keep traditions from going
against the word of god
we measure them by the word of god
and when there’s a conflict well the
word of god always wins
so by all means enjoy the traditions of
our faith
but only the ones that align with our
gold standard
god’s holy word