The Walking Purchase

(View Daily Bread)

Mark 7:5-13 (NIV)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

6 He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.

7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'

8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 11 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

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Initially, I did not understand exactly what these verses are trying to say.

But in the daily bread, it explained in a way layman like me can understand. The scribes and Pharisees were declaring a portion of their income as "a gift to God" to keep for themselves, in the name that they are using it to care for their aged parents, which was a hypocritical practice.

Indeed, we have to keep asking God to help us understand the Bible's intended purpose, and not as a tool to get what we want.

It makes me realise too, that I need to do what the Holy Spirit prompts, and not what men prompts. I do not wish to join in to traditions that were passed down for generations, that were just simply rules of men, not of God.