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Things that Make a Person 'Unclean'

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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.'"

[Mark 7:15~16]

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Around Jesus, there were two kinds of people.

The first group of people followed Jesus because they really wanted to listen to him speak.
So they received grace after they listened to the words of Jesus.

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But the other group of people were the Pharisees.

They followed Jesus to accuse him of doing anything wrong.
They were always looking for something to quarrel about.

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So today, they found something which they could accuse Jesus of.

They saw some disciples of Jesus eating bread with unclean and unwashed hands. According to their traditions, that act was considered to be breaking one of their laws.

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There were several laws, which came down from their ancestral religious leaders who were called the Pharisees, to be very important and to be kept well.

The special way of washing their hands before eating was one of those laws.

The Pharisees strictly refrained people from eating without washing their hands.

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The Pharisees also instructed them that when they came back from the marketplace, they should wash their bodies before eating food. Not only that but they even instructed the people on how they should clean pots, dishes, and make their beds. They thought if things were unclean then it would also make the peoples' hearts unclean.

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Today some disciples of Jesus ate bread without washing their hands first, so to the eyes of the Pharisees what the disciples did was unlawful.

Therefore, the Pharisees went to Jesus and tried to argue with Jesus about that problem.

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"Why do your disciples violate our traditional laws?

Why are they eating food with unwashed dirty hands?"

They spoke to Jesus thinking that they could trick him.

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Upon hearing that, Jesus instead said the wrong doing which the Pharisees were committing.

"You do keep well those traditions which you think is important.
But on the contrary, you often violate orders of God. "

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During that time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees made up the traditions. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law taught the people that they didn’t need to offer anything to their parents because they should offer to God who is higher so parents experienced many hardships. Through teaching the people like that, the Pharisees and the Sadducees made the people violate God’s commandment which says to honor their parents. Jesus pointed out the wrong doings which were done in the name of tradition.

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Jesus gathered the people again and told them a parable.

"You think that the food eaten with unwashed hands will go inside you and make you unclean. But more importantly the things which come out of the people make them unclean."

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The disciples did not really understand what Jesus meant.

So when they came home, they asked Jesus what he meant.

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Jesus explained to the disciples that evil thoughts, theft, greed, lies, bad words, and immoral thoughts come out from a person and make that person "unclean."

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We are usually more concerned about eating "clean" food but we should consider more that bad and unclean things come out from our inward man, which can cause other people to become unclean, too. We should know that those things make us unclean and that also makes others unclean too.

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From today’s sermon, we should learn two things.

The first one is that there is no law which we should keep prior to God's Word.

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For example, if you attend a worship service just to please your friends,
not caring what God thinks, then you are acting like a Pharisee.
In everything, we should consider and determine that God’s Word is the most important thing.

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The second is that we should know that the conduct of our inner man is more important than the washing of our physical bodies. So we should strive to become someone who lives to please God.