Beware the Moral High Ground (Mark 7:1-23)
Paul Southern, 23rd February 2025Part of the Jesus in Mark’s Gospel series, preached at a Fordham Sunday Service service
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7:2 saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed.
7:3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.
7:4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles. )
7:5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"
7:6 He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
7:7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'
7:8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
7:9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!
7:10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'
7:11 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God),
7:12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.
7:13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
7:14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.
7:15 Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "
7:16
7:17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.
7:18 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'?
7:19 For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")
7:20 He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.'
7:21 For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
7:22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
7:23 All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "
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