15:1-2 Scribes and Pharisees - (These vipers never came to Jesus without an insidious intent). They thought to expose the disciples for not washing their hands, but would soon find that their little game was over before it started.
15:3-6 Jesus calls them out publicly exposing them concerning their transgression following tradition rather than the commandments of God. He specifically speaks to them about how they dishonor their fathers and mothers excusing their behavior by what they believe exonerates their actions based on tradition.
15:7-9 What follows is something many passive Christians refuse to believe can be true of Jesus. He lays down the wood to them with these words; "Ye hypocrites" and then proceeds to openly expose their hypocrisy. All the passive Christians on earth shout "That's not my Jesus! He would never do that! Jesus is loving and kind." Perhaps Jesus might say the same to them that he said to the Pharisees and scribes; "This people draws nigh unto me with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." In other words, they don't want to worship the Jesus of scripture but want to worship their own version of Jesus. If Jesus doesn't live up to their standard they refuse to accept that therefore refusing God's word and clinging to a lie. The Jesus they worship is not the Jesus of scripture. A thorough reading of Matthew 23 would really offend them! Then Jesus further exposes the religious Jews saying; "But in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." That is quite a charge and it is every bit true. So our generation has produced Christians who wish to redefine Christ bringing in the meager, finite intellect of man to countermand the word of God and please themselves; vainly worshiping a Christ of their own imagination.
15:10-20 Jesus turns to the crowd including his disciples and begins to teach spiritual truth, telling them they needed to "hear and understand." The admonition needs to be repeated to all generations along with the admonition of the Apostle Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15 KJV - "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman, that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." As a side note: When a sentence begins with a verb the subject is always You! So then that scripture could rightly be read "You study to shew thyself approved, etc." This is not a suggestion, but a command for us to obey. If we don't have a correct understanding of scripture we will pervert it when we present it.
Our generation is filled with careless examination of scripture, and in many places with no study or meditation on what scripture is actually saying. The proof is found in a multitude of pulpits where the power of God's word isn't evident, and the message coming to God's people is weak and would hardly convict anyone of their need to repent and submit to God in order to live a holy and sacrificial life to honor him.
Continuing on Jesus tells his audience that it's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. He clarifies it with what some gentle disciples might consider gross when he speaks of what goes into the mouth coming out in the draught.
In our generation he basically said that what goes into the mouth (food) come out when we poop. He then to explain fully that what comes out of the mouth defiles a person. Obviously this is not everything we say, but those things which are counterproductive, insulting, silly, deliberate deception and etc I don't think anyone has ever measured how much (or what percentage) of what comes out of our mouths is profitable as opposed to what is not. There are some who would love to do that study with the right motivation and others who love to pick at things. I believe we should prefer to guard our hearts as scripture says we should in order that what comes from our mouth is worth saying, honest and rightly motivated.
Surprisingly, yet perhaps not so surprising, is that Peter misunderstood the simple teaching of Jesus causing Jesus to say; "Are you also without understanding?" We also need to understand much better what scripture is saying to us. As previously stated we need to "study" not simply read the scripture if we wish to follow Paul's admonition to be ready to give an answer to every man for the reason of the hope that lies within us. Paul further exhorted Timothy, "Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." What we speak, teach and preach can lead men to salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, drive them away from him or teach them for their own benefit so that they can teach others clearly and deliver their hearers from serious error. The importance of this cannot be stressed too much!
Finally, Jesus tells Peter to leave the scribes and Pharisees alone in a way that is offensive to delicate, would be disciples of the Lord who refuse to believe he never spoke a harsh word in scripture. He said; "Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." (vs. 14) Years ago when I was a boy we had a saying; "Call a spade a spade." In other words, we must speak truth and call things as they are without regard to how that affect others because truth is vastly more important than what we might feel about something. Of course, there are times when it is better to say nothing for the sake of others, but in presenting the scripture we cannot change it to suit others. "God said it, and that settles it, whether I want to believe it or not." - Author Unknown -
Jesus goes on to share a mini teaching about the heart (vs 16-20). The Bible speaks a lot about the heart and in this teaching Jesus speaks of what comes from the heart including evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, and false witness and blasphemies. I believe this is a short list because there are so many things proceeding from the hearts of mankind that his list could be extended into infinity if we listed all the good and bad things we can consider. He closes this teaching comparing the ultimate issue is far more about the cleansing of the heart and not the ceremonial cleansing of the hands. One has eternal significance as well as certain ramifications in this life and the life to come while the other is tradition and of little value by comparison. It's easy to get caught up in the trivial things of life as a Christian while ignoring or downplaying the weightier matters.
15:21-28 Jesus moves to a different location (vs 21) and there he encounters a woman who has a desperate need but Jesus doesn't respond to her at first but once more uses words that would upset the dainty saints of all time. Her need is definitely important so that she becomes desperate after crying out to the Lord and seemingly ignored by him she goes after the disciples for help. The disciples come to Jesus asking him to send her away. Try to picture this: Jesus says nothing to her initially, and the dainty disciples wonder what's wrong with Jesus that he ignores a woman in desperate need. They could have avoided embarrassment by reading the rest of the story before making such a rash judgment of the Lord. He had a purpose in denying her at first. He even went so far as to infer that she was a dog in the sight of some of the Jews watching the whole thing play out. I can envision the dainty ones thinking, "How can Jesus ignore her and then imply she is a dog?" Why am I going through this in the manner I write in this narrative? Because there are many among us who make a lot of judgments without seeing the whole picture. Some may even judge Jesus wrong, The woman is being challenged or tested by the Lord. He tells her he is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. The woman frantically begs for his help and he rebuffs her with the words; "It's not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." In other words, I am sent to Israelites, not Canaanite dogs. Was Jesus really calling her a dog or was he inferring that Canaanites were seen by Jews to be as low as dogs and didn't want to do any good to them? I believe he was speaking of the prevailing view of the Israelites at that moment in time. Now the test comes down to the nitty gritty. She could give up, put her head down and walk away defeated and missed the blessing the Lord had for her. Persistent prayer came forth instead and moved the heart of Jesus. She said, "What you say is true Lord, however even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master's table." What a comeback, and it comes from a woman who, in all probability, worshiped another god! She humbled herself to a man whose people scorned her people and did it in front of all who were gathered around Jesus. Oh, the value of persistent prayer! Jesus said; "Great is they faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Then the clinching proof of the love of God in Christ comes with the following words; "And her daughter was made whole from that very hour." All of us who call ourselves Christian would do well to emulate her example. Marvelous faith from an unbeliever certainly must have stunned the disciples and the other Israelites and perhaps Canaanites present there. I always think it is amazing that we can trust the Lord for our salvation which is an astounding miracle in and of itself, but have trouble believing him for our rent money, Ludicrous!
15:29-39 Once more Jesus moves on; this time near the sea of Galilee where he goes up into a mountain and sits down. It occurred to me as I was thinking of the places Christ went to that he didn't have a car, bus, train or plane and there isn't anything said about him ridig a camel or donkey so I believe he did a tremendous amount of walking. I can't imagine the stamina he must have had. All the people in that time walked everywhere for the most part and walking is good for the heart and overall health of any human being so the people of that time must have had strong hearts for the most part. Even so, it's fitting that at the end of his travels that Jesus sat down for a badly needed rest. (My personal observation and opinion) It seems his rest was to be short lived. Notice in verse 30 that a great multitude came to him. It seems that happened frequently in his life. The motivation driving the people was healing for the lame, blind, dumb, maimed and many others and he healed them. This led me to wonder how many people came who needed help, whether they were all Israelites, whether any of his enemies came, and whether or not the people had the same kind of desire to hear his words. In verse 38 it's said that there were 4000 men besides women and children. The census takers among us might want to get the percentage of men as compared to the women and children. Critical thinking would dictate that not everyone who came needed healing but all who came eventually were hungry so the immediate need expanded to another need, and Jesus sensed that need and acted on it.
Let's recap for a moment. Jesus holds a teaching sessions for the people who followed him, his disciples and the scribes and Pharisees. I am sure there was some tension there because of the words of Jesus to the religious persons who came to challenge him. His words probably offended the religious and perhaps some of the rest of the multitude who might have revered those religious men. (My observation and opinion again) He moves on to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon walking all the way and brings miraculous healing to the daughter of an unbeliever because of her faith in him. He then moves near the sea of Galilee and goes up a mountain (climbing mountains is no easy task) to sit down and performs many miraculous healings. As if that wasn't enough he then miraculously feeds 4000+ people with seven loaves and a few little fishes and there are seven baskets of leftovers when everyone's hunger is satisfied. His stamina had to be ridiculous. All that walking, standing for a long time teaching, performing a miraculous healing, walking some more, climbing a mountain, doing many miraculous healings and then turning a few loaves and fishes into enough to feed over 4000+ people had to be extremely tiring to any other person. Finally he takes a ship to the next destination. How many of us could survive a day like that?
This chapter was filled with amazing events and people being ministered to along the way by Jesus. Hopefully some of the people he taught were able to benefit from his words in their own lives. Hopefully they were challenged as well. In this chapter and in other chapters speaking of his life as a man, Jesus personified Mark 10:45 which states about him; "For even the Son of Man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many." Jesus set the example for Christians to follow as he calls us to a life of holiness, sacrifice and service to all within our sphere of life. No task was too daunting for him and because of him we can do exceeding and abundantly more than we might ask or think. We might not be tireless as he was, but we can be willing to let him take us as far as he desires us to go to do whatever he calls us to do. In John 15:5 KJV we can read these words of Jesus, "For without me ye can do nothing." Scripture also tells us that, "With God, nothing shall be impossible." My favorite wise saying regarding what we should believe in regard to our relationship with God is "With God one man is a majority." The need of all our lives is to put our lives in the hands of God and to trust him to work through us for the benefit of others and to being honor and glory to him. There is no life more rewarding now and forever than a life surrendered to God.
C R Lord © 5/3/2023
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