Clean and UncleanMy Understanding: In summary of this passage, the Pharisees and some teachers of the law gathered around Jesus. They saw his disciples eating with unwashed hands. They asked Jesus why his disciples did not live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with unwashed hands. Jesus quoted Isaiah, and applied it to the teachers of the law, by saying they honored God only with their lips but their hearts were far from God; they worshipped God in vain; their teachings were but rules taught by men. He went on to describe them as those who let go of, set aside and nullify the word of God in order to hold on to and serve their own traditions; the traditions of men.
1 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and 2 saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were “unclean,” that is, unwashed. 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. 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.)
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?”
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 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”
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! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ 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), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 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.’”
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? 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.”)
20 He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ 21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”
Then, Jesus went on to explain away these empty traditions of men handed down from generation to generation, by explaining what truly makes a man clean or unclean. He said that nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him, for what goes into the stomach comes out of the body. Rather, it is what comes out of a man (from his heart) that makes him unclean, such as evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, etc.
The world we live in today, including in the church, is not all that different from what Jesus encountered when he walked this earth. We have leaders and pastors in our churches just like these Pharisees and teachers of the law, and most of them are not in traditional churches, either. The worst offenders, I believe, are those within the circle of the current trend of how to do church in America today, which is based off of books and the teachings of men. They give the impression that they are the real deal, genuine, and authentic, etc., yet as you go from church to church, they are all, pretty much, carbon copies of one another, and are mostly all following the same non-biblical patterns and philosophies based off the teachings of men. And, more often than not, they hold to the teachings of men above and over the teachings of scripture, as many of them are taught to do so in their training. I know, because my husband and I went through such training, and I know, because I have personally witnessed this taking place in churches and among church leaders.
The Pharisees were so concerned with external appearance and following men’s teachings and rules that they neglected the greater things of showing love to their fellow man and obeying God’s commands. In fact, Jesus said that they nullified the word of God by their traditions. Many of these new teachings of men also nullify the word of God and provide the worst offense to the gospel of Jesus Christ when they teach that repentance (turning from sin) and obedience to God and to his commands are not necessary for salvation. Added to that is the teaching that God is pleased with you no matter what you do. They are giving people a false hope of salvation based upon a lie, and they are leaving people in their sins, which is not love. This teaching waters down the gospel and makes the narrow path to heaven on which few travel into a broad road that many travel, because then more people will come to “faith” in Jesus Christ, but what often is being taught is not biblical faith.
These modern-day teachings of men also divide the church, as they follow the concept of grouping people according to the personality of the church, demographics, etc. They use modern-day marketing schemes and techniques for attracting the people of the world to the church, yet they are attracting them by worldly means to worldly methods and worldly programs. If they do this, they are not attracting them to Jesus Christ or to the gospel but to a cleaned-up version of what the world is offering them. And, thus, they often tell parts of the body of Christ, “we have no need of you,” please go someplace else, because they feel those people, although genuine believers in Jesus Christ, don’t fit their particular circle within the body of Christ. I find these words, on this subject, from I Corinthians 12 particularly encouraging:
But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other (vv24b-25).God’s design for his church is described in I Corinthians 12. We are all one body no matter if we are old, young, plump, skinny, tall, short, black, white, Hispanic, male, female, a factory worker or an executive at a desk in an office, or we are rich or poor, etc. We are not to exclude members of the body of Christ based upon the teachings of men. Yet, many of today’s pastors are being taught to do just that and are told who they should desire to have in their churches and who they are to watch out for and to discourage participation from. And, I have heard on more than one occasion a pastor saying he would be glad to help a person find another church that would be a “better fit.” What better fit is there than for the body of Christ to work together as one unit as God intended and to not say to parts of the body, “We don’t need you because you don’t fit our demographic or our vision for our church”? Ezekiel 34 has some strong words of exhortation for these shepherds of the flock.
These same pastors and shepherds of the flock are following the same pattern as the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus’ day when they tempt us to follow them and their teachings in pure and absolute devotion above and often in place of God’s holy word. They become idols to us when they get us to follow them above God and to follow their books above following the word of God and when they use manipulation and threats to get us to submit to them and to their human philosophies, telling us that somehow we are being disunifiers if we do not conform, yet they are the ones dividing the church and pulling away God’s people from pure devotion to Jesus Christ to follow man. The disciples had the correct response to this: “We must obey God rather than man.”
The goal of this new wind of teaching is to divide and to destroy Christ’s church. It may not be the goal of individual pastors, but it is Satan’s goal and I believe that it is the goal of those behind the scenes who initiated all of this new teaching, for it excludes people from the kingdom of God who think they are “in,” and it excludes genuine believers in Jesus Christ from the body because they “don’t fit” a particular human mold that someone decided was necessary for “growing” churches. Yet, that is counterproductive to how the church (the body of Christ) is truly to grow through genuine transformations of the human heart.
Jesus is warning against those who divide the church through stressing men’s teachings over and above the word of God and who call for devotion to men and man-made traditions over and above devotion to our Lord God and service and obedience to him only. He is warning against those who divide the church by telling those within the body “We have no need of you,” and who would forsake the teachings of scripture in order to fulfill the goals of men. He is warning against those who would give out a false gospel in order to achieve the approval of and the following of men to men’s teachings and by doing so offer religious Band-Aids to people for the serious wounds of men’s sins which are festering and are in need of God’s divine grace and transformation of the human heart. He is warning against those who care more about outward appearance than they care about what is in the human heart and in helping people to be free from their sins and free to obey God. And, he is calling out to us, his church, to forsake our man-made idols, to turn from our sins, and to turn or return to him as our One and Only Lord, God and King.
I pray we will heed his warnings and that we will cease following after men and man-made idols that divide us, including following after political parties that even divide the church, and that we will choose to follow him as our only master, doing what he asks us to do.
A People Divided / An Original Work / July 4, 2011
Flick’ring torches; hatred; violence;
Crashing windows; guns of men;
We are a people divided
By our love of pow’r and fame.
Idols marching; they’re in chorus;
Their goal to destroy the church,
Tempting us to follow them in
Pure devotion; them we search.
Leave your idols. Follow your God.
Make Him your Lord God and King.
Be a living witness for Him,
And your off’rings to Him bring.
Repent of your sins and worship
Him; a living sacrifice,
Put your all upon His altar.
Leave your old life way behind.
Flick’ring torches; hatred; violence;
Crashing windows; guns of men;
We are a people divided
By our love of pow’r and fame.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs/home/songs/a-people-divided
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