Matthew 15:10-20 Blind Guides
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: April 17 & 18, 2019, Matthew 15:10-20
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” And he 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 a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
(Understanding the Text) This is a continuation of the conversation about unwashed hands from the previous verses. Some people take this out of context and overgeneralize it saying that it means that we can eat anything because Jesus said that food just went through the body and is expelled without defiling the body. They also base this on the similar story in Mark. “And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)” (Mark 7:18-19). The SDA commentary says about Mark’s comment that the context for these verses is food defiling a person based on the manner of eating, i.e. washing of hands, rather than speaking of physical differences between clean and unclean meats. We know that in Acts, Peter states “But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” (Acts 10:14). Thus, Peter did not believe that Jesus had declared the unclean meats to be clean. Peter never interprets his vision about unclean animals in a literal sense either, so that later vision did not start the eating of unclean foods. In addition, Matthew makes it very clear that Jesus was speaking of ceremonial hand washing in this parable.
Jesus is speaking of outward actions making us unclean versus inward motivations poisoning us. The Pharisees knew what He was speaking of because they were offended. They understood that Jesus was saying that their preoccupation with ceremonial washing of hands before eating was wrong. They understood that Jesus was saying that they were defiled because of the words which they spoke. They understood that Jesus was telling people not to listen to them. Jesus was telling people that they needed to cleanse their hearts rather than worrying about useless ceremonies that would not affect anything.
Jesus refers to plants in the middle of this saying that every plant that the Father has not planted will be pulled out by the roots. This is an obvious reference to the idea expressed in the parable of the wheat and the tares. The obvious meaning of the tares parable is the judgment where people will be sorted, but in this present context, I wonder if it refers also to the ideas that have corrupted our brains. I just think of this because as we gain more of God’s light, we see more clearly what is false and what is true, and the devil’s lies and the world’s loves begin to fall away. Eventually, every bit of falseness will leave us and not have any hold on us.
Jesus basically said that the Pharisees, who claimed to understand religion, really were totally blind and had no understanding at all. Thus, they were leading people away from God. They caused their followers to become equally blind, so they all ended up far from God. Jesus said that we are not to follow the Pharisee’s teachings, yet many Christians today revere the old Jewish rabbis. They act like the Jewish rabbis of Jesus’ time and before and after have some special light that Christians don’t when in reality they had become corrupted and blind before Jesus was born and only had special light when compared to pagan idol worshipers.
Jesus gave a list of problems that Christians should worry about: evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. The first on the list is evil thoughts. Our thinking leads to the others. He then put murder and adultery. Sexual immorality is often frowned upon by Christians, but tolerated as a kind of necessary evil rather than exposed as something that will defile us. In participating in sexual immorality, we are first giving way to thoughts that are hurtful to ourselves and others. These actions hurt others, but they also hurt us. Theft is next. Then Jesus says false witness and slander. How are these two different? I thought they were the same. It becomes clear when I look at the other translations I have. Some translate slander as blasphemies or abusive speech. The Message paraphrases it as cussing, so False Witness is lying about others and spreading false gossip. Slanderings is speech that would be considered cussing or speaking against God. Cambridge Bible Commentary points out the relationship between this list and breaking the commandments, in which case the slanderings would be similar to the third commandment about not taking the name of God in vain, but the comparison to the commandments is not direct, so maybe not.
(Revelation of God) A lot of times, we tend to think of God as being focused on outward behavior, but Jesus made it clear that He wanted to cleanse us from the inside out. God is not satisfied with outward conformity. He wants our love. He wants to give us His love. He wants to transform us so that we are clean on the inside. God sees to the reasons behind our actions, and that is where He wants to be.
(Application) My application for myself is that there are other ceremonies that we Christians do which do nothing to cleanse either our hearts or our lives. I must never put outward forms and ceremonies above a pure heart. Kneeling or not kneeling does not make the prayer acceptable to God. It is the desire of the heart that opens a person to God. Politeness does not make me more worthy of Jesus. Honest, sincere compassion for others is want is required.
(Application / Prayer) My second application for myself is that I need to let Jesus keep cleansing me and pulling out every weed that defiles me. I need to be careful not to follow false or blind guides. I also need to be careful not to be a false guide to someone else. Please help me to not be defiled and not lead anyone else into defilement.