Clean and Unclean
1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” 3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?
.1. Why didn’t Jesus’ disciples follow the tradition and wash their hands?
.The scribes and the Pharisees had come all the way from Jerusalem. Immediately we recognize that this was not a friendly visit. They did not accuse Him of breaking the Scriptures but of violating the traditions which they considered to be on a par with the Scriptures. They wanted to know why His disciples did not wash their hands. They were referring to a ceremonial cleansing rather than to what we would consider a physical or sanitary washing. tradition of the elders. After the Babylonian exile, the Jewish rabbis began to make meticulous rules and regulations governing the daily life of the people. These were interpretations and applications of the law of Moses, handed down from generation to generation. In Jesus’ day this “tradition of the elders” was in oral form. It was not until c. A.D. 200 that it was put into writing in the Mishnah.
They regarded external purity as of much more importance than the purity of the heart. This was just another attempt to display their self righteousness. Basically it was more of the same old, ”look at me , I do it right” nonsense. The law of Moses contained no commandment about washing one’s hands before eating—except for priests who were required to wash before eating holy offerings .
They had many foolish rules about it: as, the quantity of water that was to be used; the way in which it should be applied; the number of times it should be changed; the number of those that might wash at a time, etc.
These foolish rules Jesus did not think it proper to regard; and this was the reason why they found fault with him.
.4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6 he is not to ‘honor his father ‘ with it.
. 2. Shouldn’t God come first before parents?
.Jesus bypasses arguing over the question of hand washing and goes to the crux of the matter, the fact that the rabbis has elevated their own tradition to the status of equality with the Mosaic Law and in some cases their tradition actually violated the law.
The nature of hypocrisy and sin that Jesus is pointing out is identified as dishonoring one’s parents in a cleverly devised way. The commandments of God were clear, and they implied supporting financially your parents when in old age and unable to support themselves.
.“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Ex 20:12 (NIV)
.“Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. Ex 21:17 (NIV)
.But to circumvent them, some people claimed they could not financially assist their parents because they had dedicated a certain sum of money to God, who was greater than their parents. The rabbis had approved this exception to the commandments of Moses and thus in effect nullified God’s law
.Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ “
.3. Weren’t they doing what the law required?
.They acted as though they were observing the letter of the law while in fact violating the spirit of the law and in some cases actually manipulating ways around the law.
.Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Matt 23:23 (KJV)
.Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Matt 23:14 (KJV)
.10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.'”
.4. What about germs?
.Jesus didn’t come deal with the personal hygiene of the Jews, His greater concern was the spiritual (heart) of a person.
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Matt 12:34 (KJV)
.12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” 13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
5. I thought Jesus came to bring peace and tolerance and goodwill between men?
.Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; Luke 12:51 (NASB)
.Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. Matt 24:9
.This is not a popular message. The world is not happy being told they are sinners, hypocrites, unrighteous, evil, corrupt, prideful and on their way to hell. That offends people.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Matt 23:15 (NIV)
.“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Matt 23:33 (NIV)
.But I thought Jesus was gentle and loving
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.And Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; 16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. Mark 11:15-16 (KJV)
.15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.'”
.6. But I thought people we basically good?
.“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” Jer 17:9-10 (NLT)
.This just highlights the age old battle between liberalism and conservatism. Is mankind basically good and only needs education and some minor adjustments to achieve utopia or is mankind basically evil and needs divine help to achieve righteousness.
.This was the fight between Pelagius and Augustine in the early church.
Pelagianism views humanity as basically good and morally unaffected by the Fall. It denies the imputation of Adam’s sin, original sin, total depravity, and substitutionary atonement. It simultaneously views man as fundamentally good and in possession of libertarian free will. With regards to salvation, it teaches that man has the ability in and of himself (apart from divine aid) to obey God and earn eternal salvation. Pelagianism is overwhelmingly incompatible with the Bible and was historically opposed by Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, leading to its condemnation as a heresy at Council of Carthage in 431A.D. These condemnations were summarily ratified at the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431).
.This division in the church surfaced in the dispute between Arminius and Calvin.
.Jacobus Arminius (1560 to 1609) taught: Although human nature was seriously affected by the fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness. God graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does not interfere with man’s freedom. Each sinner possesses a free will, and his eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man’s freedom consists of his ability to choose good over evil in spiritual matters; his will is not enslaved to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power to either cooperate with God’s Spirit and be regenerated or resist God’s grace and perish. The lost sinner needs the Spirit’s assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man’s act and precedes the new birth. Faith is the sinner’s gift to God; it is man’s contribution to salvation.
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John Calvin(1509 to 1564) taught: Because of the fall, man is unable of himself to savingly believe the gospel. The sinner is dead, blind, and deaf to the things of God; his heart is deceitful and desperately corrupt. His will is not free, it is in bondage to his evil nature, therefore, he will not – indeed he cannot – choose good over evil in the spiritual realm. Consequently, it takes much more than the Spirit’s assistance to bring a sinner to Christ – it takes regeneration by which the Spirit makes the sinner alive and gives him a new nature. Faith is not something man contributes to salvation but is itself a part of God’s gift of salvation – it is God’s gift to the sinner, not the sinner’s gift to God.
.The Faith of the Canaanite Woman
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
.7. Why would Jesus send away a woman in need?
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Jesus, sensing the mounting opposition from the religious establishment, made a strategic withdrawal to the Phoenician coast cities of Tyre and Sidon, out of the jurisdiction of Herod and his “homeboys”.
A woman of Canaan—Matthew gives her this name because of the people from whom she sprung—the descendants of Canaan, but Mark calls her a Syrophenician, because of the country where she dwelt. She was not a Jew. Jesus makes it clear that His mission was to “the lost sheep of Israel”, He did not go to Asia of Greece or Rome, that would be the job of Paul and Peter and the other disciples. He came first to them. He came as their expected Messiah. He came to preach the gospel himself to the Jews only. Afterwards it was preached to the Gentiles; but the ministry of Jesus was confined almost entirely to the Jews. She had no right to ask anything of Him because she was not of the family of God. This whole thing about the dogs is a play on words. The Jews regularly referred to gentiles as dogs, because they were viewed as unclean. the children’s bread. The lost sheep of the house of Israel must be fed before the “little dogs”. Christ employed a word here that speaks of a family pet. His words with this woman are not to be understood as harsh or unfeeling. In fact, He was tenderly drawing from her an expression of her faith. He wanted to see how she was going to react to resistance.
.8. Why did Jesus give in and heal her daughter?
.Her response to his rejection was profound and genuine.”What you say is true. Let it be that the best food should he given to the children. Let the Jews have the chief benefit of thy ministry. But the dogs, beneath the table, eat the crumbs. So let me be regarded as a dog, a heathen, as unworthy of everything. Yet grant one exertion of that almighty power, displayed so signally among the Jews, and heal the despised daughter of a despised heathen mother.”
.The gentile woman exhibited “great faith”. The Jews thought that because Abraham was their biological father, they deserved God’s blessings. They misunderstood that fact that Abraham was blessed because of his faith.
.Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it: “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”
Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith. Romans 4:1-9 (NLT)
Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. 32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” 33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” 34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.” 35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.
9. Is this the same feeding as the 5000?
.He actually traveled N from Tyre to Sidon and then cut a wide path around the eastern shore of Galilee to Decapolis, a primarily Gentile region. He may have taken this route to avoid the territory ruled by Herod Antipas . The events that follow must have occurred in Decapolis. Christ ended His ministry in Galilee with the feeding of the 5,000 (14:13–21). Here, He ended His ministry in the Gentile regions by feeding the 4,000. He later would end His Jerusalem ministry with a meal in the upper room with His disciples.
.To insist that the Twelve had forgotten the previous feeding is unwarranted. They merely state their personal inability to supply, and refrain from presuming to ask Jesus for another miracle. From seven loaves and a few fishes Christ fed the multitude of four thousand men and their families in much the same way as he had fed the five thousand.
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NIV Study Bible Notes
J Vernon McGee
Adam Clarke Commentary
Mc Garvey Commentary on Matthew and Mark
ESV Study Bible Notes
Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)
NET Study Notes
Constables Notes
MacArthur NASB Study Notes
Wycliffe Commentary
Wesley Commentary
Title 17 U.S.C. section 107
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