Mark 7
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CHAPTER 7
Clean and Unclean (7:1-23)
(Matthew 15:1-20)
1-4 The Jews had many religious traditions which they followed. Many of these were oral traditions; that is, they were the traditions of the elders, the traditions of men (verse 3). They were not written in the Old Testament,45 which is the word of God. One such tradition was the washing of hands before eating. The Jews didn’t wash to clean the dirt from their hands. The washing was only a sign that their hands were ritually “clean.” They believed that if they ate with unclean hands, their food would be made “unclean.” For the same reason, the Jews also ritually washed their cups, pitchers and kettles (verse 4).
Not only that, when the Jews went to the crowded bazaars they often accidentally touched non-Jews—that is, Gentiles—and thus became “unclean.” Therefore, they had to ritually bathe before they ate. There were hundreds of such rules.
5 The Pharisees and teachers of the law accused Jesus’ disciples of not obeying the traditions of the elders, because they did not ritually wash their hands before they ate.
6-8 But Jesus knew the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They cleaned the outside of their bodies, but their hearts remained unclean, that is, proud and unloving. They repeated eloquent prayers with their lips, but they did not worship and honor God from their hearts. They were indeed hypocrites (see Matthew 6:5; 23:25-28). In verses 6-7 Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29:13.
What the Jews had done was to make the traditions of the elders equal to the commands of God written in the Old Testament. The traditions of the elders were only the teachings of men, not God.46 Many of these traditions opposed the commands of God. In following these traditions, the Jews were disobeying some of God’s commands. Jesus said to them, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”
9-13 In these verses, Jesus gives an example of how the Jews broke God’s law by observing one of their traditions. One of the written commands of God given through Moses47 says: Honor your father and your mother (Exodus 20:12). According to this command, a son had to help provide for his parents in their old age. But the Jews also had an oral tradition, according to which they used to vow to give a gift to God. Perhaps they would set aside some property or money as a gift devoted to God, called a Corban.48 They wouldn’t actually have to give up the property or money during their lifetime; it could be turned over to God after their death. In this way, they got to keep their property and money for their own use, and avoided having to use it to support their aged parents. In other words, the Jews used this tradition of promising a gift to God as an excuse for not helping their parents. If someone’s elderly father or mother needed help from their son, the son would say: “No, I can’t help you. I have vowed to give my money to God.” In this way, by following their tradition, they disobeyed God’s command to honor their parents. The Jews should have remembered that breaking this command was a serious crime in God’s eyes: Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death (Exodus 21:17).
From this we can learn an important principle: We must not use one part of God’s word to avoid obeying another part. We must not use one verse of the Bible to contradict another verse. God does not contradict Himself. We must obey the whole teaching of the Bible, not just one part of it that we happen to like. To give offerings to God is good. But in giving offerings to God, we must not break God’s command to honor our father and mother.
14-16 The Jews worried about eating with “unclean” hands. They feared that eating with unclean hands would make their food unclean, and that eating unclean food would, in turn, make them unclean. But Jesus taught that it is not what goes in but what comes out of a man that makes him unclean—that is, his evil thoughts and desires, words and actions (see verses 20-23). If our thoughts, desires, and actions are unclean, our hearts will be unclean also. It is these things which make us truly unclean.
According to Matthew 15:12-14, the disciples came to Jesus and told Him that the Pharisees were offended when they heard His teaching about inward defilement. Jesus answered: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots” (Matthew 15:13). The Pharisees were like plants that God had not planted. They soon would be pulled up. Indeed, forty years later Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jews were either killed or scattered.
Like the Pharisees in Jesus’ time, there are always those in the church who are not planted by God. While Jesus is sowing good seed, the devil is busy sowing bad seed (see Matthew 13:24-26). We can distinguish the good seed from the bad seed by its fruit (Matthew 7:20). But God will pull up the weeds—the fruit of the bad seed—and destroy them at a time of His choosing (Matthew 13:27-30).
Then, according to Matthew’s account, Jesus told His disciples to leave the Pharisees alone. “Leave them,” He said; “they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14). The Jews were spiritually blind, and their leaders were also blind. As a result, they lost the road and strayed from God’s word, and disaster soon overtook them. Those who deceive others and lead them astray will not escape punishment themselves.
17-19 The disciples were slow to understand Jesus’ teaching, because Jesus was overturning everything they had been taught as Jews from their youth up. Now Jesus was teaching that they did not have to ritually clean their hands and cups. But not only that, Jesus also declared all foods “clean” (see Romans 14:14). This was amazing to the disciples. The Jews were very strict about what they ate. Some things were considered clean, some unclean (see Leviticus 11:1-47; Acts 10:9-16). Now Jesus was saying that these laws were no longer necessary. Food couldn’t make a man clean or unclean. Food went into the stomach and came out in the stool. It didn’t go into the heart! No man can clean his heart by outward rules and rituals.
20-23 In these verses Jesus gives some examples of things coming out of a man’s heart that make him unclean (see Romans 1:28-31; Galatians 5:19-21). All these sins arise first as evil desires in man’s heart (James 1:14-15).
The Faith of a Syrophoenician Woman (7:24-30)
(Matthew 15:21-28)
24 Jesus needed a day of rest. He went to the area of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 3:8) and entered a certain house hoping to rest.
25-27 However, a woman whose daughter was demon-possessed immediately found out Jesus was there and came to ask Him to heal her daughter. The woman was a Greek,49 born in Syrian Pheonicia, that is, modern Syria.50 The people from that place were first called “Canaanites” (Matthew 15:22). These people were Gentiles, that is, non-Jews.
According to Matthew 15:23-24, Jesus at first did not answer her. God does not always answer our petitions at once. Then He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”—that is, to the Jews.
Jesus was sent by His Father to bring salvation to the Jews. In the beginning, God had chosen ABRAHAM to become the father of a special nation, Israel—the Jewish people (Genesis 12:2; 17:3-7). Later, in Moses’ time, God told the Jews: “… if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession … you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). Many times through the Old Testament prophets, God promised that a Savior would come who would save His people, Israel (Matthew 1:21; Luke 1:68-70). That Savior was Jesus, who Himself was a Jew, descended from Abraham and David (Matthew 1:1; 15:22). Christ, therefore, was sent first to the Jewish people. His work in the beginning was only among the Jews.
But in this important story, we see a non-Jewish woman ask Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus at first told her that God had sent Him only to the Jews, not to the Gentiles. He said this to test her faith. He said to her, “First let the children (the Jews) eat all they want … for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs (the Gentiles).”51 Jesus’ meaning was this: In any house, the children are fed first, and afterward the animals. That is, first the Jews should have a chance to hear the Gospel of salvation. Only afterward would the Gospel be preached to the Gentiles.
God never said that He would bless only the Jews. In the beginning, God had said to Abraham, “… all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). And this has indeed come to pass: through Abraham’s descendant, Christ, all nations of the earth have been blessed (see Ephesians 2:11-13,17-19 and comment). Christ is not only a light for glory to. … Israel; He is also a light for revelation to the Gentiles (Luke 2:32).
28 The woman replied, “But we Gentile ‘dogs’ are happy to eat the children’s crumbs that fall from the table.” The woman was clever. The dogs eat the crumbs even while the children are eating; they don’t have to wait until later. If Jesus gave her only a “crumb,” that would be enough to heal her daughter. This woman had more faith in Jesus than even His own disciples had! She understood who Jesus was. Even crumbs from Jesus are the bread of life.
29-30 Jesus answered her: “Woman, you have great faith!” (Matthew 15:28). And Jesus healed her daughter immediately. He didn’t even go to the house where the daughter was, but healed her from a distance. This was Christ’s first work among the Gentiles. The Jews were rejecting Christ and opposing Him; but this Gentile woman had shown true faith. And without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).
The Healing of a Deaf and Dumb Man
(7:31-37)
31-37 Jesus then returned to the region of the Decapolis—the ten cities—where he had first healed the man possessed by many demons (Mark 5:20). There he healed a man who was deaf and could hardly talk. In addition to using His word to heal the man, Jesus also used His own saliva (see Mark 8:23; John 9:6). Jesus then ordered the man not to tell anyone (see Mark 5:43 and comment), but he did not obey.
People learn to speak mainly by hearing themselves and others speak. Therefore, those who are born deaf usually cannot speak properly. But if their ears are opened, they can then learn to speak. It is the same with spiritual things. When our ears are opened to hear God’s voice, then our tongue shall be loosened to praise Him and to witness to Him.
According to Matthew 15:29-31, on this same occasion Jesus healed many others who were lame, blind, crippled, and dumb. The people were amazed when they saw the dumb speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing (Matthew 15:31). Truly the prophecy of Isaiah had been fulfilled by Jesus: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb shout for joy (Isaiah 35:5-6).