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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Mark 7:7:
Mark 7:6-9
Excerpted from: Looking Back to the FutureSometimes we are misled by an honest translation. The interpreters who came out with the King James version, and also the New King James version and many others besides, chose to interpret a Greek word here as hypocrites. I am not saying that is wrong, but more modern translations say that there is an English word that better fits what they feel that Jesus meant. Although hypocrites is not entirely wrong, it does not give as good as a picture, they feel, of what He intended.
The word that they use is the word casuists; the scribes and the Pharisees were casuists. It is not a word that we normally use any more in the English language. A casuist is a person who has difficulty separating. Another way—to make it more clear—would be: a casuist is a person who strains at gnats and swallows camels. A casuist is a person who is rigid and inflexible. A casuist is a person who has to have a rule for everything. A casuist is a person who has very great difficulty with the spirit of the law. A casuist is a person who will argue incessantly over the etymology of a word, and he will miss the intent of what is said.
That is what Jesus was talking about here. These people were casuists—they missed the point. Were they were keeping the Feast? Yes, they were. But they rejected the commandments in the way that they did it. The Feast became to them a formalized, ritualistic system by which, if they adhered to exactly what the letter of the law said, then they could feel free and right before God.
Mark 7:6-9
Excerpted from: Love and WorksWe find in verse four they had regulations regarding the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. And in verse five: "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?" Now here comes Jesus' answer.
Now they expended a great deal of effort in their religious endeavor to be considered pure by God. But here Jesus castigates them, because He told them that all this work that they were doing, all this energy that they were expending, was being done on useless things. Things that did not make them more spiritual. Things that did not allow them or permit them to really witness for God in the right way.
Instead what they were doing was religiously going about expending all this energy doing things that were nothing more than the traditions of men, and had nothing to do with the kind of works that God was looking for.
ArticlesChristmas, Syncretism and Presumption (1994) (2)
Christmas, Syncretism, and Presumption (4)
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Ten): Paradox
Preparing for the Feast
Presumption and Divine Justice
Purge Me With Hyssop
The Nation of Israel—Biblical Israel? (Part Two)
The Second Commandment (1997)
Unity and Division: The Blessing and the Curse (Part Four)
Was Paul a False Apostle?
Who Fulfills the Azazel Goat— Satan or Christ? (Part Five) (2)
Bible StudiesClean and Unclean Meats
Pagan Holidays
The Fifth Commandment
EssaysKeeping Godly Traditions (Part One)
Pharaoh's Magicians Return
What's Wrong With Works?
SermonsEaster: Origins and Implications
Appointments
Lessons From Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim
Prove Yourself A Man!
The Epistles of II and III John (Part One)
Seeking God's Will (Part One): Holiness
Sincerity Without Truth Is Worthless
Eating Out on the Sabbath
Extremes of Idolatry
Titus (Part Three): Rebuking False Teachers
Conditioned Response
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part 28)
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part 6)
Values and Conversion
Counting to Pentecost: A Simple Approach
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