Mark 7:6-13 The Law versus Tradition
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: February 4, 2018, Mark 7:6-13
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 said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
(Understanding the Scriptures) I like the translation of the original verse in Isaiah: “Then the Lord said: “Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, worship of me has become merely like rules taught by human beings” (Isa 29:13). I have seen this before where the same version of the Bible will translate the OT differently than when the same verse is quoted in the NT. I think it is because Jesus and the other NT writers were quoting from a Greek OT while the translators are translating Hebrew OT and Greek NT. Anyway it says the same thing and yet is slightly different. “Merely like rules taught by human beings” has more meaning to me. It emphasizes how weak we have made God’s commands in our society. They are guidelines rather than truth. Some churches do this with homosexuality. Many others do this with the Sabbath. Still others do this with the love command. We think we can pick and choose what is important in the Bible depending on our human philosophies and traditions rather than reading the Bible and letting it determine our philosophy and revering the scriptures as truth. We should respect God’s word so much that we make sure that our understanding of what we read is really what God intended and not just us interpreting scriptures according to our own desires, fears, and shallow knowledge.
(Revelation of God) The other key part is the section that says “but their hearts are far from me“. God desires our hearts above all else and when He condemns, He always goes back to the heart, to our betrayal of adulterous worship, to our unfaithfulness. I had an insight in church yesterday about Jesus’ main objective in training His disciples. His main goal in spending those three years with these twelve men was to teach them to love Him above everything and everyone else, even themselves. He succeeded with eleven of them. Judas’ sin was that he never stopped loving himself more than Jesus. He never loved God. There was a chance for him to look beyond himself to love, but he rejected that love first in small ways and later with ultimate betrayal. Peter, on the other hand, loved Jesus. He betrayed his master also, but out of human weakness, not out of rejection of Jesus’ love. When Jesus forgave him, Peter’s love for Jesus grew so big that he never wanted to take credit from Jesus. It was then that he was ready to lead. Maybe Peter was chosen for his capacity to love more than any other ability. If so, that means that Judas also had that capacity at the beginning, but he closed it off until he was a dried up husk incapable of loving.
And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
(Application) This verse shows that Jesus wanted us to honor father and mother. We need to use the Bible to understand what other Biblical passages mean. Thus, earlier when Jesus had said, “He answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then looking at the people sitting around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mar 3:33-35). He was not trying to disrespect His mother. Instead, Jesus was telling His mother that she was disobeying God. These two verses together show us the limits of obedience to parents. We should honor and respect them, but we can also rebuke them if they are going against God.
(Application / Revelation of God) However, the relationship between parents and child is still sacred engraved in the ten commandments. It is astounding how disrespectful of God the Pharisees had become when they believed that they had the power to decide which of God’s laws and truths they would follow and which they would negate. God is mighty and powerful, our creator who could flick us out of existence with a thought. Jesus stopped a terrible storm with a few words. That is just a tiny example of the power of God, yet even today, we have the temerity to think that we can not only tell God what to do, but we think that it is okay for us to tell others not to pay attention to parts of God’s word. Unfortunately, it has become such a pattern of human behavior that I am afraid that I might be doing it also.
(Prayer) I pray that I will not misrepresent You to others, and I pray that I will not disregard your commands for my own preferences. I pray to please You in every way that I can. I want to see You smile at me. I pray to become more like You.