159 - Traditions That Deceive

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Wow, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus' ministry is really exploding and news is getting everywhere about what's going on. And so the religious leaders send somebody up north to check it out. Right. And when they get there, what do they want to talk about? Unbelievably, tradition.

Tradition. And today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning and welcome. This is Dorothy.

And I'm Jim. And we are here talking about More Than Ink. More Than Ink. The Word of God is more than just ink on the page. And we're working our way through the Gospel of Matthew.

And where we are in the story, we have come through the feeding of the 5,000. We have come through crowds pressing in on Jesus to be healing. We have come through two accounts of Jesus calming the storm. The first time the disciples respond, who is this man who can control the weather? But the second time after Peter walks on the water toward Jesus, their response is, you surely are the Son of God.

Something seems to have changed. Clearly got a bead on this isn't just a man we're dealing with. And I comment, well, finally, after you still the storm and then they walk on water, maybe he won't. Maybe he is the Messiah.

He maybe is the Son of God. But the crowds have grown to such a point that you're following him from one side of the lake to the other. And that, of course, attracts the attention of the Jewish leadership.

The Pharisees and the scribes now are paying very close attention to this guy who's acting like Messiah. That's right. That's right.

That's kind of where the story picks up now in chapter 15. Yeah. So we're still in the far north of the country. We're still in Galilee.

Right. We're up in Galilee. But the religious establishment is down in the south in Jerusalem. And they've been hearing. They've been hearing huge rumors, which makes sense.

It's been rocking the boat. There's been so much going on. So they elect to send some guys up to check out what's going on. And that, by the way, that's a two day trip.

That's a long trip just to check out what Jesus is doing on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. So that's where we're at today. Lots of buzz, lots of people. And now he's getting checked out by the big guys. And they've been watching him.

They've been watching him. That's right. So if you're following with us, we're starting into chapter 15. And Jesus is going to get checked out by the religious dudes. Do you want me to read?

Yeah, go ahead. Oh, here we go. Well, then the Pharisees and the scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. Let's just stop there for a second.

It's kind of an amazing thing. They're going to come all the way from Jerusalem. And that's what they're worried about? They're going to pick on the hand washing. Well, hand washing was a fairly elaborate ritual established by the Jewish leadership. So you know, they're looking for signs of anything that's not Orthodox.

Right. And it's important to point out here that when you look back on the laws, the Mosaic laws, you don't see this hand washing stuff. So this is clearly something, well, this is the tradition of the elders. So this is the collective traditions that have been carried forward historically from the rabbis. But it may not have a strong connection or even a connection to the Old Testament Commandments. It may be something they just made up.

Because we, you know, we look at ourselves and say, Well, I'm not gonna eat dinner until I wash my hands. So what's so wrong with that? And that's not the point.

It's not that. It's a ceremonial thing. It's a ceremonial thing.

Yeah. And let me read for you because over in Mark's Gospel, he gives us a little more insight on this in chapter seven of Mark's Gospel, because he has this little parenthetical thought that he helps us out in case you sort of forgot what this is all about. So in Mark 7-3, he says, The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to, there it is, the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

So Mark's telling us this was involved. We're not just swishing them in the dishwasher. We're doing something ceremonially in a particular way. The movements were choreographed. You had to do it the way you were taught. You actually had to aim your fingers up in the air so water went down your throat.

And let the water drip freely off. Yeah. So this was a big deal. And so the Pharisees hear about the fact that his apostles are not doing this. I mean, it's like an affront to the ongoing historical tradition of the very revered rabbis.

Why aren't you revering the rabbis by doing this stuff? Well, and if you remember, all the way through Matthew's gospel, the issue is authority. Yes.

Always will be. Way back in the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5, 6, 7, the issue was Jesus said, you know, the law says this or you've heard it said that this, but I say to you. Very authoritative. So Jesus was kind of bucking the religious authorities in their traditions from the very beginning.

Yeah. It's a battle of authority is what it is. And in the end, that's what they would not accept because if indeed Jesus is the Son of God, if he is the Messiah, then they must submit to him. So there's really, you know, there's a voluntary submission to authority.

Well, because as the Son, when he speaks, he is the full and accurate representation of the Father. Yes. I mean, that's true socially, humanly. So you have to.

At the time of Jesus. You have to. Right. So that's, yeah. That's a big deal.

There's the issue. But I'll add a little more color on the traditions thing because Paul, when he's looking back on his own life, you know, after he comes to Christ, he talks about his previous life as these guys, as a Pharisee. And in Galatians 1.14, he says, I was extremely zealous.

So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. And he even points out that this is separate from the commandments of the Old Testament. And then in another place, he warns us in Colossians, the letter of the Colossians church, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy or empty deceit according to human tradition.

Right. So he's saying this is a problem. This is where suddenly traditions of men start to creep in and start to take on equal value and weight to the commandments of God. And that's a problem. And that actually was the case here in the first century that the Pharisees and the scribes gave equal weight to their hundreds of years of rabbinic discussions and writings, as they did to the actual law of Moses.

And you know, we're still subject to this kind of stuff today. We need to press on in the passage because Jesus actually sets it up exactly that way. It's a beautiful response. He poses the tradition of the elders against the commandment of God. You want to read on? Yeah, I'll read on because what he does not say is, well, who says we have to wash your hands? Right. He doesn't say that.

The issue isn't an wash. That's right. So verse three, so he answered them. He said this, and why do you, why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

Did you hear that? Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? And I'm sure they're all scratching their head and they're getting mad, they're like, what are you talking about? So he explains himself. Verse four, for God commanded, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. What you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, well, what, what you would have gained from me is it's given to God. He need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites. And then he quotes from Isaiah, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine to the commandments of men. Oh my goodness. Whoa, what a response.

I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. So you know, this is pretty bold for anybody who said Jesus was never in an argument or never spoke. In your face. Offensively, because that's going to come up later, Peter's going to say, oh Lord, don't you know you offended him when you said that? So what's he getting at here about the fact to honor your father and mother, what are they doing wrong?

Well, they're taking all of their resources and saying, well, I don't have to take care of you in your old age. I can declare that as given to God. I've already given it as a gift to God. It's reserved. It's reserved for God. So take care of yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that was a way for them to actually withhold their resources, their money and not take care of their parents, you know, particularly in old age, they could say, well, I'm sorry, but I've set this aside for God. I promised this to God, so I can't give it to you. Not only is that morally wrong, but Jesus says, by doing that, you have made void the word of God. You've emptied the word of God from its meaning, from its power, from its application in your life. Yeah. It's really pretty disgusting, because what they're saying is an excuse is that we are obeying God, because we promised this to him, but then we cannot fulfill that commandment of honoring you.

Okay. So he looks them right in the eyeball and says, you hypocrites. Hypocrites. Hypocrites. Right? Yikes. This is actually not the first time, because he called them hypocrites way back in Sermon on the Mount.

It will be a theme. Right. Just take your concordance and look up hypocrites, you'll be astonished at how many times Jesus calls them hypocrites. Well, what's a hypocrite? It is an actor. Yeah. It is an imposter.

It's somebody who wears a mask, who says one thing, but is something else behind the mask. Right, because here they're claiming to be righteous by preserving these resources for God. They honor themselves as the model of righteousness.

Yet they're not honoring their father and mother. That's the least of it. Yeah.

Yeah. And so when he quotes Isaiah 29, bam, what a great quote he brings out. This people honors me with their lips.

I mean, they say one thing, but they do another. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And we'll continue talking about the heart issue, because this is important, because what God is saying through Isaiah right here is the fact that he doesn't really care what you say. Right. What he cares about is the state of your heart. Right. And we've talked about this already in the Sermon on the Mount as well.

They say you shouldn't do this, but I say, and it was a heart issue that he's talking about. Well, and if you think back to the Shema, Deuteronomy 6, 4, it says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God as one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. The heart is the first thing on the list.

So where are your affections? Because it was very clear by the way they lived at the Pharisees and the scribes as a class, not every single one of them unanimously, but as a class, they did not live in a manner that is loving toward God. They lived in a manner that loved themselves. And their appearances. And they loved their appearance. They loved the approval of men and wanted to be counted as righteous. And can you imagine, as I play this out in my mind, think of a Pharisee's aged parents who are struggling to get by.

They can't make money for themselves anymore. Their kids need to take care of them. And then someone in the village comes past these aged parents and say, well, why are you struggling so bad? You've got a very well-placed Pharisee son.

I don't understand it. Well, he won't support us because he's promised all of his resources to God instead. Can you imagine what a horrible statement that makes to the religious people in the community? Well, here's these guys who actually play act at being righteous, but they're not doing the most simple thing, which is just taking care of their parents. It's a horrible hypocrisy. It undercuts the entire righteousness standard of the law tremendously. So I can see why God and Jesus would be so mad about this. Because the whole heart of the gospel, of who God is, is gone here.

Their heart is far from me, and in vain do they worship me, which means I don't care how many sacrifices you bring. That's right. That's not going to change anything, because you're teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Oh my gosh, that's horrible. This is still common today.

It's very common. When we elevate our traditions or our traditional interpretations to the same height as the actual word of God. So it's very, very important that we look at the scriptures of what did God actually say? It's a good habit to get into, even in the church context, to say, why do we do what we do? And some of them are traditions that have been handed down in that church or denomination for years, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with a tradition per se.

But just don't equate it with what God is commanding you to do. That's just the important thing right here. Yeah. Okay, we need to press on. We need to press on. Because Jesus' commentary is still coming. This is still ongoing. This is just the beginning of the problem, yeah.

So take it from 10. He takes a conversation and turns it from a conversation with the Pharisees and scribes. He calls the crowd together. This is great. This is important enough.

I want everybody to hear it. Verse 10, and he called the people to him and said, hear and understand. It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles the person.

Yes. Then the disciples came to him and said, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? And he answered, every plant that my Heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone, their blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. But Peter said to him, hey, explain the parable to us. Well, it wasn't actually really a parable, but it's a picture that Peter doesn't get. So verse 16, and Jesus said, are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled, but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles the person.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. Right. Because that's where we started from.

You're eating with unwashed hands. Right. We're still talking about this. And that will defile you. And Jesus says, no, it won't.

It won't defile you. It defiles man is what's already in his heart. Yeah. Yeah. And the heart issue stays central in all of this. It's your heart. It's not, it's not, so this actually applies as well to foods. I mean, right. Right. Well, this is what Jesus says. You know, don't you get it? Nothing that goes in your mouth is what defiles you.

And whether you do it with clean hands or not. And even though they were subject to the Old Testament food laws, those were never an issue of proving your righteousness. No. No, no, no.

Never were. And in fact, in Mark's Gospel, this topic comes up. Right. And it's a very clear kind of conflict. And so Mark, again, like he did in the other case, he quotes, well, he puts in an explanatory note. And the explanatory note he puts in, in very few words, says, thus, he declared all foods clean. Okay. You got that straight.

And in another case, you know, later on in Acts 10, when we see Peter on the rooftop and stuff like that. Right. God says, you know, what God has made clean. Don't call common.

Don't call it. Yeah. So, so the tides are changing here when it comes to food. Because Jesus is saying right here, again, it's not what goes into you that defiles you. So it comes out of you. Well, where does it come out of you?

And I think that's what confused Peter. Like what are you talking about? Like if I, like I throw something up, I mean, what are you talking about? Food goes in. It just goes through.

Yeah, right. It goes through. So what are you talking about? What comes out? What comes out of what inside of me?

That's such a nice clarification. What comes out of your heart, man? What comes out of your heart? We're still on the heart issue. Again, you know, hearkening back to that quote from Isaiah 29. Their heart is far from me. So what's in your heart? It's what comes out of your heart.

Do you know, do you remember back in chapter 12, Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and the scribes and he said, you brood of vipers, this is in 1234. How can you being evil speak what is good for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. Right. So this is a recurring theme. You know, what is in your heart will eventually come flying out your mouth.

You might be able to cover it up for a little while. But how often do we speak without thinking and then we find ourselves backpedaling? Right? Yeah. And it's our own words that indict us. Right.

Because it came out without a filter. Well, and you know, we are biblically speaking somewhat clueless about how dark our hearts are. Yes. Right. And when we come out of our mouth, if you ever caught yourself saying, what am I saying?

Right. Where did that come from? You know, because you think of yourself as actually much better than your heart really is. Where did that come from? It came from your heart. So Jesus is saying that even what you say is not only a tip off, well, it's a tip off to you and including other people about what's in the state of your heart. And that's what's important.

That's what God sees. Well, when God called David to be king. Right.

Remember? He comes off to Jesse's house and checks out the sons, goes through the seven sons, got another son. And when the first son shows up, the oldest, then Samuel says, well, here's the guy, right?

Right. And God says, no, no, no, no. Tall and handsome. Don't judge by that. We judge by the heart. We look at the heart. God looks not in the appearance of the heart. So the heart always has been, always will be the issue because that's the true you.

That's the real you, regardless of how you prevent it from showing on the outside. So it's interesting that God, this is 1 Samuel 13, 14, that God called David a man after his own heart. Right. And we know that David was a murderer. He was an adulterer.

There was a lot of darkness. There was a lot of sin in David's life. But he also wrote a couple of Psalms that are just epitomized for us what it means to yearn after the heart of God. Yes. Right?

Psalm 51, 10, he says, create in me a clean heart, oh God. Yeah. Right? Psalm 51, 14, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable before you, oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Right? Those are prayers of David. This was a guy who was aware of the darkness in his heart. Aware of his sin and turned from it and presented his whole heart to God for cleansing.

So I would encourage you, if you are, you Bible study students who are wanting to learn to do better, better with your study, not make yourself better, sorry. Take your concordance and look up the word heart because you will find like 800 references to the heart in the scriptures and you will be edified if you just start reading through those. Even if you just limit it to the New Testament, what did Jesus say about the heart? Probably one of the most famous passages is in Jeremiah 17 where Jeremiah says, oh the heart is deceitful and wicked beyond measure, right? Who can know it?

Who can know it? God sees the heart. God knows the heart. We don't even know our own hearts. And this was such a central issue when we were shocked and surprised on the Sermon on the Mount where it says, you've heard it said you shouldn't kill other people, right?

No murdering, but if you just even hate them in your heart, you're guilty of it. So there is a way in which we try and disconnect our actions from the darkest parts of our hearts, right? And we can kind of moderate that to a certain degree. We want people to see the best side of us, so we don't want that bad stuff to show.

And so we try and disconnect, we try and make an outside look different than our inside. And that may fool people, but that doesn't fool God because... But that's the heart of hypocrisy.

That's the heart of hypocrisy. And I think there's sort of a walking embarrassment all the time about how capable we are of evil and sin. And we recognize it in our own hearts. And from time to time, it manifests in a slip because we do something that's just grotesque or in a word. Well, I think sometimes we don't even recognize it. That's the point of Jeremiah 17.

That's right. We don't know how deceitful our own hearts are. And yet Jesus is saying here, what's your mouth saying? What proceeds out of your mouth?

That's the telltale sign. Because it proceeds from your heart. Stuff like what? Evil thoughts, murder, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. And he had already commented on most of those things back in the Sermon on the Mount saying you might be able to not do it, but if you've thought it in your heart, you are just as guilty.

So these are big deals. They're not totally new thoughts. But it takes the whole context of the beginning of this conversation. Why don't you wash your hands? Why don't you wash your hands the proper way? It just seems so trivial in comparison when Jesus says that's not your problem.

Because what goes in, including dirty hands or food, that's not your problem. Your problem is what's in your heart already that manifests and comes out through your words. So this suddenly comes to mind. Back in 1970, 71, when the Jesus revolution, that wave of revival rolled across the land, and suddenly all of we barefoot, jeans-wearing, long-haired young people had hearts transformed and we came flocking into the church. Many years later, I had a conversation with a woman who was maybe 15, 20 years older than me. And she confessed to me, she said, we were horrified. Horrified. We didn't know what to do with all of you who came to church in your raggedy jeans barefoot. You didn't look right. But, yeah, and so what that did was it provoked in her an evaluation of her own heart, right? Why am I so judgmental? Why am I so judgmental?

And is that important? Is that I'm gauging my self-righteousness on the fact that I wear skirts and white gloves to church, right? Yeah, it really called the church on the carpet. It did. Is faith in God something about how we dress and how we talk?

How we moderate our outsides? Or is it truly about transformed hearts? And at that time, during that revolution time, boy, hearts were transformed. But the outside weren't.

They were just who they were. Not for a while. Yeah. So that's why I just love this passage because Jesus says, your real problem is what's coming out of your heart. Listen to your word. Look at your actions. But you want to come up here, you came up here two days from Jerusalem to talk about washing hands.

Are you kidding me? And that's important in the respecting the historical carry through traditions of the elders. That's important to you? You got a bigger problem. That's why when Jesus first started his ministry, as well as John the Baptist, they went around saying, the prominent word was repent. You got to repent. You got to realize there's bigger problems going on because of your own sin.

That's resident. That's inherent in your heart. And you may start to see it evidence in your words or your actions. But that's what we got to do.

That's your biggest issue. It's not washing your hands, guys, you know, God had said that to them from the very beginning. Just while you were talking, I turned back to Deuteronomy 10, where in verse 12, Moses says, and now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and a few verses down, he says, then, circumcise then your heart stiffen your neck no more. Yes.

Yeah. When we are exalting our own pride in our own behavior and our own appearance, instead of humbling our hearts before the Lord. And thinking that appearance sums up to righteousness, that's just really, really wrong.

I want to add one quick thing before we get out. You know, he talked about the blind guides, it sort of implies to me that we have to be careful about our leaders about who we follow, because it's possible for blind people to lead blind people. So for us, I mean, it's very simple, because he's talking about traditions versus the commandments of God. What does God ask of us? And the only way you'll know that is by reading the Bible. That's why we do this is you got to know that that's going to be your anchor, that's going to be your ruler against leaders who are kind of pushing more traditions in the commandments of God and what's really important in life.

So I just want to point that out before we lost the moment. Well, okay, so let me read from Psalm 15, because this is so good. David says, Oh, Lord, who may abide in your tent and who may dwell on your holy hill? He who walks with integrity, integrity, works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. Yeah. And who is the source of truth? Yeah, Jesus says, I am the way the truth and the life and the life, then the life, right. So the opposite of hypocrisy is integrity, where your actions and your words match your heart. Yeah.

And your intentions. Well, we are totally out of time. We are. Next time as we move on in Matthew, we're going to take a gigantic geographical detour to Lebanon. Outside the country.

Outside the country. It's a two day trip. And we're going to find someone who is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite people in the entire Bible. So you're not going to miss that. It's going to be a great time. So join us again next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. These things happen. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.