Mark 7:1-23 (Day Five)
“Unclean.” Not an accusation of bad hygiene, the Pharisees used ritual washing as a defining mark of who was a “true Jew” against the backdrop of cultural and religious pluralism. It was their boundary marker of who was “truly devoted.” Every religious community does this. The Muslim will pray 5 times a day. The Mormon will serve a missionary term. At one point in the American south, it was said that a Baptist “doesn’t drink, smoke or go with girls who do!” Jesus’ answer is not to reject boundary markers and make everything acceptable (or sacred for that matter). Rather, Jesus affirms the target to which the law has always pointed. “Happy are those who keep His decrees and seek Him with all their heart,” Ps. 119:2. The heart has always been the aim of God’s commands, and it is a changed (and changing!) heart that Jesus says marks out who is “truly devoted” in His community. Is your heart changing?
Skip to content
Daily Reflections from our Re:Verse Scripture
I think the target to which the law always pointed was Jesus. Obviously, blessed indeed are those who keep His decrees and seek Him with all their heart, but Jesus and His righteousness received by FAITH is the only way to salvation. Romans 9 says, “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.
My testimony is that truly devoted is one who allows Him to flow through them to be a boundary breaker…. to SEEK and SAVE “the lost” and to Love whom He loves.