Don’t let your children read this passage! It’s biblical proof that you don’t have to wash your hands before you eat!
Of course, Jesus isn’t talking about hygiene here, Sorry kids….you should wash your hands before you eat.
Jesus is calling attention to something far more serious. He’s saying that the leaders have adopted traditions as commands from God. There wasn’t anything wrong with handwashing….it was a nice gesture, but they turned it into mandatory behavior by giving it status alongside God’s law. In my imagination, here’s how I think that could happen: the law and the prophets (what we call the Old Testament today) was written on scrolls, and was very scarce. You couldn’t even find one entire set in each village. Some synagogues had only portions to read from. And from what I understand, it wasn’t passed around for everyone to read. Most people in Jesus’ day heard the Law when it was spoken by a religious leader.
When your only access to God’s Word is through another person, you precondition yourself to esteem the words of that person more than others. To say it in another way; their conversation becomes more valuable. This sometimes happens today when people don’t read their Bibles for themselves, and only listen to the Pastor. After a while, whatever the Pastor says becomes “Law” to them. They have no desire to check it out for themselves using the Bible as a proof text.
The Pharisees correctly said that the command to wash hands was an “age old tradition” but it is coming from the same person who quotes God’s Word, and I’m certain that they implied that the people must obey. Asserting your will on others can become habit forming very quickly. In modern times we quote the phrase “power corrupts”. I think we identify corruption as the use of power for personal benefit.
This is what Jesus was truly upset about. The religious leaders have created a tradition that you could name the church as the benefactor of your estate. If you did so, you could continue to live off your property, but the remainder of it already the property of the church. Therefore, when your parents needed assistance, you wouldn’t be able to help them. In effect, you would be “renting” the place you stayed and the fields you worked. Any inheritance that you could have drawn from to help others was already spoken for. Jesus called attention to their hypocrisy, pointing out that taking care of your parents was more important than giving wealth to the church.
I suspect that the leaders gave special preference to those who donated in this way, maybe gave them special standing, or praise in some way. In effect they were creating a loophole to violate God’s Law. So Jesus says in verses 8-9 “their worship is fake, it is simply man-made ideas made out to be commands from God”.
The goal of every Christian should be to make sure that our worship doesn’t violate the principles of Scripture. Each denomination has “preferred behavior”, but is it always based on clear commands from God? Some practices and traditions are good, but we must be careful not to elevate them to the same status as Scripture.
Seeking to remain biblically correct and culturally relevant,
PR