Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Daily gospel
exegesis podcast. Today, we're looking at quite an
interesting passage which is often used against Catholics and
the way the Catholic Church operates and so it's well worth
digging into. So as always, we'll start by
looking at the passage We're in Mark, chapter 7, verses 1 to 13.
The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from
Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. And they notice that some of his
disciples were eating with unclean hands that use without
washing them for the Pharisees and the Jews in general, follow
the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their
arms as far as the elbow. And I'm returning from the
marketplace, they never eat without first sprinkling
themselves. There are also many other
observances which have been handed down to them, concerning
the washing of Cups and pots and bronze dishes.
So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, why do your disciples
not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with
unclean hands. He answered it was of you
Hypocrites, that Isaiah. So rightly prophesied In this
passage of scripture. This people honors me only with
their lip service while their hearts are far from me, the
worship they offer. Me is worthless the doctrines.
They teach are only human regulations.
You put aside the Commandment of God to cling to human traditions
and he also said to them, how ingenious Lee, you get round the
Commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition.
For Moses said, do your duty to your father and your mother and
anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death.
But you say, if a man says to his father or mother, anything I
have, I might have used to help you with core ban that is
dedicated to God, then he is forbidden from that moment to do
anything for his father or mother.
In this way, you may God's word null and void for the sake of
your tradition which you have handed down and you do many
other things like this. So I think this is one of the
passages that is the most difficult often for Catholics to
to talk about because it condemns Tradition at least a
form of tradition. And so it's a passage that I
think is misunderstood even by Catholics because there's some
things going on in the cultural background here in terms of Jews
and the way their tradition operated that really needs to be
unpacked on. I think it's well worth that
Catholics doing that because they'll learn something actually
about Christian and Catholic. Option as well.
So, starting at verse 1 here of chapter 7 where introduce once
again to the Pharisees. So the Pharisees remember of
the, Jewish leaders of the Common, Man, and they taught
that the best way to get to God, in fact, the only way to get to
God was by strict observance of the Jewish law in the Old
Testament. Now, it's important to keep this
in mind because often we can make Pharisees sound like all -
but in fact I think Their motivation is good.
If they want people to come to God.
They believe it's important. That people are holy and come to
God. And they believe the best way to
do that is by following the law, and that's all very Jewish.
And so their job because they could read and write, where is
the commons you couldn't? So they saw their job as helping
the common do meet the demands of God's law and that's in fact,
a good thing. That's a noble thing.
But the problem is they, by the time of Jesus, they had
developed quite complex systems of how to follow the word of God
that eventually if followed to their conclusion would in some
way end up denying the word of God that they're supposed to
protect and that was the problem and that was the problem Jesus
had with them. Not that they made up laws as
we'll see. That's not Jesus actually says
that. That's okay, that's a good thing
but it was just the way that things are developed over time.
That by the time of Jesus, Their laws had almost become more
important than the laws of the Old Testament themself and that
was the problem. And we also have here, some of
the scribes and subscribes a expert copyists and Scholars of
the Jewish law. Remember, not many people could
read or write. So if a scribe or a Pharisee,
told you, something, you would probably believe it because you
couldn't read the Old Testament for yourself, and these guys
have come from Jerusalem so that absolute experts.
This is a party of expert use. That's been sent from Jerusalem
up to Galilee to investigate the rumors about this guy, Jesus.
And so they come and they see that some of his disciples.
Now, notice, it doesn't say the Apostle, so this could be any of
Jesus disciples and notice. It says some that would imply
that some, you know, the rest of the group are not doing this,
but some of his disciples eating with unclean hands that probably
implies some of them aren't So, what's the problem here?
Mark says that the Pharisees accused them of eating with
unclean hands without washing them.
Now, as we just said, some of them are doing this, some of
them aren't which implies that there's different views even
among Jesus disciples about whether this law has to be
followed. Now, Mark goes on to tell us
what exactly this law means. What do you mean they're eating
with unclean hands? Because a lot of marks readers
were Gentiles like us and so they don't know these Jewish So
Mark thankfully goes out of his way to explain what these
Customs are. And some Scholars, think the
fact that the Pharisees have a problem, although their bring up
this eating issue, might have a connection to something that had
happened. Just a few verses before, which
is the feeding of the 5000. If you think about what happened
in the feeding of the five thousand, probably a lot of the
people their age with unclean hands.
And so maybe the people in Jerusalem heard about that and
they've said why are Jesus followers any with unclean
hands? And they've sent a party down to
check it out. So that's possible.
There could be a connection there.
Verse 3 says, for the Pharisees and the Jews in general, this is
Mark talking. So Mark tells us the custom his
about to describe was followed by all Jews.
They follow the tradition of the elders.
Now, we need to unpack this concept of the tradition of the
elders because it's not what a lot of people think it is.
So the tradition of the elders was wasn't just a word of mouth,
kind of thing that they had made up over time.
That's not what the tradition of the elders is.
So the tradition of the elders is actually a technical term for
the Jews and it's a body of authoritative, teaching that is
handed down between the generations of Jews.
It's a legitimate teaching Authority.
So this tradition of the elders, It was a legitimate teaching
authorities that God had in effect commanded and that all
Jews were required to follow. So, whoever was in the
authoritative position, which we'll talk about in a minute,
when they commanded something, it became part of this body of
teaching and it was binding on all Jews to follow.
So, again, this isn't something Pharisees of just made up
themself, this appears to be an actual authoritative body of
teachings. So, where does this come from
the tradition of the elders? So, in the time of Moses, you
remember that some of the things that happens to Moses, you know,
it's God's word directly. And Moses just relays what God's
word is, but someone a bit later on, in Moses Ministry.
People would come to Moses with sort of everyday, questions, or
legal questions, and Moses would sort of think about it for a
while and then bring a judgment. So you'll see that like later in
the book of numbers, for example, and so Moses was
considered to be an authoritative teacher.
Whatever he said, was binding on the people, but he wasn't
necessarily infallible or inspired all the time.
It's just that he had legitimate Authority.
So, whatever he said, this is Moses, you had to listen to And
that Authority came to be known as the seat of Moses.
After Moses died, he actually passed on his authority by
laying on his hands. He actually laid his hands on to
Joshua and Joshua were then had the position of being in this
seat of Moses. Eventually this office of the
sea to Moses through the Jewish centuries was passed on to the
prophets and to the priests. And then by the time of Jesus,
the legitimate teaching Authority, had eventually been
passed on to the Pharisees. Interestingly enough, the
Pharisees had as a collective group, they had the authority of
Moses, which means that whatever they said, became binding on
Jews. Not that they couldn't be wrong,
they could be wrong. It's just that the Jews had to
accept and respect. Whatever they said, they had to
respect this. Legitimate god-given Authority.
We don't often hear this side of the Pharisees.
We think the Ferris is just kind of you were a group that varies
up and just made some things up. But in fact, it appears that in
a sense, they had inherited the genuine teaching office.
So where do we get this from a key verse which isn't talked
about enough. I think Matthew 23 verse 2 and
this is Jesus, talking. This is what Jesus says, the
scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat.
So practice and observe everything they tell you, but do
Do what they do for, they do not practice what they preach.
So that's Jesus. Talking that tells us a lot
about the Pharisees. So Jesus in this verse tells us
the Pharisees sit in Moses is seat.
So they have legitimate Authority and he also tells them
to observe everything they tell you to do.
So Jesus actually says, The Pharisees have legitimate
teaching Authority, do whatever, they tell you, but then, of
course he goes on to say, but don't copy them because they do
not practice what they preach, and that's the issue.
Jesus tends to have is that it's not that the laws they make our
Unholy is just the Pharisees themself, as individual people,
kind of end up being Unholy. So this body of teaching that
the Pharisees had, we could call this Jewish tradition.
Was authoritative. All Jews must obey the tradition
of the elders but it was not necessarily inspired or
protected from error. So, we have here, a body of
teaching the gets added to each generation, the Pharisees, at
this time, with the administrators of it, but it's
and it's binding not necessarily God's direct word not
necessarily infallible or inspired.
But needs to be respected. That tells us something about
the way God wants the world to operate.
He puts religious or Parties in authority to be respected and
followed even if they're not always right.
We need to keep that in mind. Now there's one other aspect of
this that we need to say before we continue which is what's the
relationship between this legitimate Jewish Authority and
the Old Testament probably the way we should look at it is this
the laws of the Torah of the Old Testament?
Particularly the first five books of the Old Testament, the
Torah were more authoritative than genuine Jewish tradition.
So the Jewish tradition did have an authority, and the Pharisees
did have a legitimate teaching Authority, but the laws of the
Torah were of a higher authority.
So at the time of the Pharisees, this is probably what God
intended, Health God, intended things to work.
Is that the Pharisees should guard and interpret the laws of
the Old Testament as best as they can with their god-given
Authority? But if there's a situation where
the teaching authority of the Jews, contradicts the original
teachings of the Torah, then the law of the Torah, must take
precedence. And in that case, the Jewish
tradition for that matter would not be binding, because it
contradicts the very word of God in the Torah.
Remember the word of God in Torah is inspired its inerrant.
The Jewish tradition that was handed down was not that In all
other cases though, if there's no contradiction between a
Jewish authoritative teaching and the word of God in the Old
Testament, then that law in the Jewish teaching, would be
binding. So we need to keep that in mind.
The people did need to follow the laws of the Pharisees as
long as they didn't contradict the Old Testament.
Now, if that's the kind of tradition we're talking about
then, It could, it sounds like this custom of washing hands
before a meal, which is the problem in view is legitimate
teaching Authority, which the Jews were expected to follow.
It doesn't appear to contradict any of God's word in the Old
Testament. Now, what is this tradition
about washing hands? So, Mark, mentions that there
was two laws about it that we're going on, at the time that they
expected all juice to follow. So, firstly, never eat without
washing their arms as far as the elbow.
So that's to make the hands ritually clean and to make sure
it's really clean. Before eating.
And secondly, I'm returning from the marketplace that were never
to eat without first sprinkling themselves.
So when they came back from the market place that had to wash
away, any impurities that they might have been caught acquired
from the marketplace. Interestingly, the word here for
sprinkling when you get back on the marketplace can legitimately
be translate this baptized. So the Jews did have kind of
their own version of baptism going on even before John the
Baptist So it's kind of like a ritual cleansing.
Both of those with the hand-washing, kind of things
have to do with ritual Purity, not hygiene.
So initially, these rules that appears worked for priests in
the Old Testament. If you look at Exodus and
numbers, it mentions, these hand-washing rituals for
priests. It doesn't say that it should be
extended to the general population in the Old Testament,
but by the time of Jesus, the Jewish old tradition had
developed, and by the time of Jesus, it had bound all Jews to
follow those. Hand-washing rituals.
So it's apparently these two things that Jesus disciples are
not doing which they probably should be if it is a legitimate
binding Jewish teaching. Verse 4.
And Mark, now tells us, there are also many other observances
which have been handed down to them.
Concerning the washing of Cups and pots and bronze dishes.
So we also learned there's additional laws about how to
wash dishes as well as hands. So, Mark tells the readers this
comment to give an indication of what the Jewish customers.
Like, at the time, Verse 5 so the ferris is now questioned
Jesus about it. They say why do your disciples
not respect the tradition of the elders or another translation is
walk according to the tradition but they eat their food with
unclean hands. Now, once again, you'll notice
here as Jesus often does, he doesn't actually answer their
question. He doesn't answer the question
of why their disciples don't respect the tradition?
It could well, be, we need to keep this on the table that
could well be that his disciples probably should have been
following this law because it is a binding, Jewish tradition, but
Jesus doesn't tell us one way or the other.
He doesn't address, whether it's a legitimate authoritative law.
It's probably is authoritative, even if it's theologically
mistaken, as will learn in tomorrow's podcast.
Jesus adds on some more theological information about
the washing of hands. So instead of answering their
question what he does is he directs the Pharisees back to
something much more fundamental that they have missed.
And in this case, it's that they're more concerned with
their systems and their Traditions rather than actually
fulfilling the will of God. So, let's keep moving in.
Verse 6, Jesus says to them it was all of you Hypocrites.
Now, hypocrites is a word that's really interesting.
It means stage actors so it's people who are faking it in some
way and this is the main criticism Jesus has of the
Pharisees, all through the gospels.
So, Let's be careful here. Jesus doesn't have a problem
with the Pharisees per se in terms of them being a religious
Authority. He says, they have legitimate
Authority, but here's the issue, he has with him.
It's they preach the need for external righteousness, but they
themselves don't actually have righteous Hearts.
So, the Pharisees get so caught up in the specifics that they
constantly end up missing. God's fundamental requirements.
A key passage for this is 23 verse 23.
And this is a passage, which needs to be talked about more.
If we unpacked this passage more, we would understand how
the law is supposed to work a little more.
So that passage says, and this is Jesus talking woe to you
scribes and Pharisees you Hypocrites.
You pay tithes of mint, dill and cumin, but you have disregarded,
the weightier matters of the law, Justice, mercy and
faithfulness, you should have practiced the latter without
neglecting the former. So I think that's such an
important passage. Jesus says, you should be
practicing these little external requirements, but you should not
have neglected, the more important aspects of the law,
which are Justice mercy and faithfulness, God desires, that
we fulfilled those first. There, the weightier matters of
the law and then the external requirements.
Notice Jesus doesn't say, you shouldn't have done the external
requirements. He says, you should do the
external requirements along with the internal requirements.
That Where the Pharisees went wrong, they did the external but
not the internal. We always want to keep that in
mind about the Pharisees. So I'm going on a little bit
today about tradition and Pharisees and Jewish Customs.
But that's what exegesis is all about, trying to understand how
the original hearers would have understood, what Mark was
saying. And so Jesus says it was all of
you Hypocrites. That Isaiah.
So rightly prophesied. So Jesus tells us that this
particular prophecy that he's about to quote has been
fulfilled now in their hearing in the time of the Pharisees,
which is actually pretty remarkable.
And this is what he quotes from Isaiah.
This people honors me only with lip service while their hearts
are far from me. The worship they offer, me is
worthless the doctrines. They teach are only human
regulations and that's from Isaiah 29, which in context,
it's written in about 700, BC Isaiah is talking about the
Jewish leaders at the time who are corrupt and and the Jewish
leaders at the time of Isaiah were doing externals, they were
offering sacrifices that were fulfilling all of the laws, but
they did not have hearts. That truly desire to do, God's
will. So they were righteous
externally, but not internally. And for that reason, God saw
their worship is meaningless the Pharisees, in Jesus day were
basically the same externally. They were all good, but
internally, they were far from God.
That was Jesus criticism of them.
We need to take that warning on as well.
That probably still applies today if we're externally
righteous, but not internally, we don't practice, love and
Justice and all those mercy and those internal requirements that
God wants a verse. Then he probably sees our
external worshippers meaningless, but when the two
appeared together the internal and the external, that's when
true worship happens. Verse 8, Jesus goes on, you put
aside the Commandments of God and hold fast to the traditions
of men. Now, here's the passage which is
often used against Catholics. So Jesus tells us here that at
least some of the Pharisees Traditions at the time, were
going against the laws of the Torah, which means that those
ones that were going against the law of the Torah.
We're not binding, they can't be, they contradict the Torah.
So the Pharisees overall then and not.
Not doing a good job of protecting and interpreting
God's law correctly. Not necessarily the hand-washing
law though. We don't know whether Jesus is
talking about the hand-washing law here because that could be a
legitimate Jewish tradition because that doesn't appear to
contradict anything in the Old Testament.
Verse 9. Jesus goes on, this is a pretty
scathing criticism here. He says, how ingenious Li you
get around the Commandment of God in order to preserve your
tradition. So Jesus, he tells us their
motivation. Why are they not following the
Torah? It's because they want to
preserve their Jewish Traditions.
So much that it sometimes means that they actually go against
the Torah whether they realize it or not.
And some Scholars have said that what the Pharisees are doing
here is they're actually deliberately trying to avoid
following the Torah. They don't like the Torah and
they're trying to avoid following it.
It's not clear whether that's true.
It could just be that by accident, they've ended up
nullifying the Torah, but in any case they are putting their own,
the Jewish authoritative tradition above the tour on its
supposed to be the other way around.
So, Jesus now gives us an example, a specific example of
how the Pharisees put legitimate authoritative, Jewish teachings
above the Torah, Verse 10 for Moses said, do your duty to your
father and your mother and anyone who curses father or
mother must be put to death. So what Jesus is Discord is two
passages from the Torah and one of them is the fourth
Commandment. So, highly binding, highly
authoritative teaching, which can't be contradicted by
anything. The Pharisees teach, it's a
fundamental importance. So, any later Jewish tradition,
which ends up contradicting this law in the tour, AA is not an
authentic law. It doesn't is not binding on
Jews to follow verse 11. He is going to give an example
here. So first, let's talk about the
word core, ban-seok or band was legitimate Jewish practice,
which was part of the authentic Jewish tradition where the Jews
could vow to dedicate a sum of money to the temple for God's
service, so that's what Corbin is.
So, someone who is a Jew, who is going to do, this would say
something like this. I have vowed to set aside.
This money as Corbin for God's service.
And as soon as that you said that, it was binding, they had
to set aside the money for God's service apparently, some Jews
and Jesus time were abusing. This core band thing which was
member, Corben is legitimate thing.
But some Jews would doing this with their money to avoid
looking after their aged parents.
So they were saying to their parents, sorry, Mom and Dad the
money. I would have used to look after
you even though you're old and sick.
I've actually decided to use give that away as core band to
the temple. So that was how they were sort
of going about avoiding looking after their parents.
And Jesus goes on. But you say, if a man says to
his father or mother, anything I have might, that might be used
to help. You, is Corbin dedicated to God,
then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his
father or mother. So the Pharisees as we learn
here were teaching that a person could indeed make something
Corbin which would have otherwise been used to help
their parents. And if a Jew does that then
legitimately it is bound and they're therefore forbidden for
you from using that money to help their parents.
That's what the Pharisees were teaching.
In other words, the Pharisees here were teaching that the core
ban law which was a later, Jewish tradition, although it is
authoritative and binding, they were saying that that takes
precedence over God's law in the Torah which is not right.
That's not how God set up the Jewish laws to operate.
Why would the Pharisees endorse this interpretation?
Why would they say the core band law takes precedence over the
fourth Commandment. There's two options and you
could go with either. Firstly, it could be that they
don't like the fourth Commandment.
They don't like the Mosaic requirement of respecting
parents and they're trying to fire find a way around it, or it
could be that they respected. The core band law, so highly
that they ended up placing that law above the law regarding
parents. It depends on what you think the
Pharisees motivation is. Are they trying to protect the
core band law or are they trying to avoid the fourth Commandment
law? I suspect.
It's more of the second. They're just trying to protect
this Corbin law. And in that case, then that
accidentally contradicting the fourth Commandment Without
Really realizing the gravity of what they're doing.
There verse 13. Jesus brings his point home in
this way. You may God's work null and void
for the sake of your tradition. So the Pharisees wanted to obey
God's law in the Torah but over time as we've said they ended up
placing the genuine Jewish Traditions as a higher authority
than the Torah and therefore in doing so they actually made gods
God's law in the Torah, avoid the Pharisees prided themselves
on being the Guardians, and protectors and interpreters of
the Torah. So Jesus coming along saying
that they have, in fact, emptied, the Torah of its power
would be quite a insult to them. Jesus concludes by saying, and
you do many other things like this.
So apparently there's lots of ways with the Pharisees were
placing, the Jewish Traditions above God's law, such as
probably the Sabbath interpretations.
We've looked at in chapter Two and three.
Where they saw a specific manifestation of the Sabbath as
being more important than fulfilling, God's original
intention for the Sabbath. So hopefully, all that
background about the Jewish tradition.
Actually, having binding Authority, helps us.
See this passage in a different light Jesus is not discrediting
tradition as a whole, he says, the Pharisees actually have a
legitimate tradition, legitimate teaching Authority, that the
Jews were required to obey, but he says that some of their
Traditions have actually ended up contradicting the word of God
in the Torah and therefore those Jewish Traditions are not to be
obeyed. That's Jesus problem with the
Pharisees here. Now, I just want to say
something about how tradition Works in Catholic teaching.
Obviously, this could be unpacked a lot more and books
and books have been written about it, but I think it's worth
making a comment about it in this podcast to.
So, in Catholic, teaching tradition with a capital T does
have a legitimate place and is in a sense, a continuation of
the authoritative binding tradition that the Pharisees had
at the time. So the Catholic tradition is
kind of a continuation of that sort of but this Differences.
So firstly, the Catholic tradition is now derived from
the seat of Peter rather than the seed of Moses.
Secondly, it's not man-made tradition.
In Catholic thinking it's actually Guided by the holy
spirit. So in a sense, capital T
tradition is God made not man-made thirdly, Catholic
tradition, can't logically it. Can't contradict God's
revelation in the Bible in a fundamental way because it's
Guided by the Holy Spirit. The The same holy spirit that
inspired the Bible. Whereas, in the time of the
Jews, their tradition was not Guided by the Holy Spirit, it
would appear fourthly. The Catholic tradition carries
equal authority to God's revelation in the Bible, because
both of them make clearer, the deposit of Faith, which was
given to the apostles. And all of those points are
brought out a lot better in the catechism and in other
theological writings and so tradition does have a legitimate
Place particularly Catholic tradition because we believe
that in certain conditions, the tradition of the church is, in
fact, guided and taught by the Holy Spirit himself, So it's
been a bit of a longer podcast today.
And so there are a few catechism passages which make reference to
this paragraph 581. There's a discussion about Jesus
and the law and this passage we've looked at from Mark 7 has
a bearing on that because of what he says to the Pharisees
about their interpretation of the law.
And there's also a couple of short passages about the fourth
Commandment and how Jesus affirms the requirement to
follow the fourth Commandment as he does here in Mark chapter 7.
Evan. so that's the end of the podcast today it's gone on for a
bit longer but I hope you can see that doing exegesis is
really useful particularly with passages like this where a it
can be used against Catholics and sometimes Catholics, don't
know the background enough to respond and be, there's actually
certain phrases that need to be unpacked here, which a lot of
people don't know about such as that the Jews did have a
legitimate teaching Authority, which was exhibited through the
teaching of the Pharisees that All Jews had to follow.
Hopefully you found this interesting.
I certainly do. And if you think some other
people would benefit from hearing, this may be some people
who are often challenged in their Catholic faith with verses
like this one. Then please share this podcast
with them. Thanks for listening.