Inside Out or Outside In, Pt. 1
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We’ve all driven by a house that looked absolutely perfect from the curb.––fresh paint, trimmed hedges, and a welcome mat that looks inviting. But what’s really going on inside? Pastor Nick Gatzke digs into a Bible passage that challenges us to take a closer look, not at the outside, but at the inside of our hearts
The Five-Second Rule is a rule that states if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, that dirt and germs won’t have enough time to contaminate it. Parents sometimes use a five-second rule with pacifiers, but only after the first child. And the history of the five-second rule is difficult to trace. One legend actually attributes the rule all the way back to Genghis Khan. who declared that food could be on the ground for five hours and still be safe to eat. But I have some bad news. I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but in 2016, an experiment was conducted that permanently debunked the Five-Second Rule.
I know. It’s bad news. Donald Schaffner was a food microbiologist at Rutgers University. He reported a two-year study concluded that no matter how fast you pick food up off of the ground, that you will pick up bacteria with it. He tested four surfaces, stainless steel and ceramic tile and wood and carpet. He tested four different types of food, watermelon and bread and buttered bread and strawberry gum candy. They were dropped from a height of five inches. and surfaces were treated with bacteria. They tested four different contact times to go with that. So a total of 128 possible combinations of surface food in seconds were replicated 20 times each for a total of 2,560 measurements. And so after the 2,560 measurements, they found that no fallen food had escaped contamination. Professor Schaffner concluded, bacteria can contaminate instantaneously. In other words, they debunk the five-second rule. Cleanliness and purity is a desire of people both in the physical arena and in the spiritual.
But the question of what it takes to make a person clean or make a person dirty isn’t always an easy one to answer. And in Mark chapter 7, the disciples don’t wash their hands. And more than just a mother who scolds their teenager, this kicks off a firestorm that points to some even greater truth about cleanliness before God.
So let’s read it together, Mark chapter 7. And we start with verse one. This is what it says. It says, “now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly. holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots, copper vessels, and dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? 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.”
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 mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is korban, 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, And many such things you do. And he called the people to him again, and he said to them, hear me, all of you, and understand. There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him. And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, And he said, evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person.”
The disciples weren’t following the rules, at least not the rules of the Pharisees. They didn’t wash their hands before they ate, and the Pharisees happened to notice. You see, they had taken the idea of these Pharisees of washing and cleanliness to a whole different level, and it wasn’t just for the sake of being sanitary. Their physical washing was actually to point to a ritual cleansing. The Mishnah was a book of traditions and explanations of the law as outlined by different elders and rabbis of the Jewish people. And in many ways, the practice of the Mishnah served as a fence around the law with an attempt to preserve the integrity of the law. In general, the law was considered to be policy. It declared what God commanded, but it didn’t declare always how it was to be orchestrated. The oral tradition in the Mishnah prescribed the intent of the law and its execution with elaborate detail. And so it became sort of a guidebook of how to live out the law by the Pharisees. And the traditions that had developed over the years as rabbis debated how to honor God through the law took on many different forms.
Some of them became quite absurd in their expression of detail. Restrictions on carrying things on the Sabbath, but if you wore the thing that you would otherwise carry, it would not be considered work. Debates about whether or not scuffing your foot in the dirt. would be considered cultivating the soil on the Sabbath. And among the primary concerns of the rabbis was the concern for cleanliness and ritual purity through washing. So the Old Testament had laws for priests to wash their hands. Exodus 30:19, Exodus 40:12. But by the time of Christ, the Pharisees had applied the practices, of that law filtered through the tradition of the Mishnah, not just to priests, but to anyone who desired to be considered devout. And so Mark 7:4 says, when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. There’s a lot of washing going on. A lot of extra washing that is going on. The Pharisees had added to the law and they were holding other people accountable to it.
And so when Jesus and his disciples come and are seen by the Pharisees, they’re looking to trap him again. And they ask, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? In other words, Jesus, you are claiming to be from God, but your very own disciples intentionally act in a way that is unclean and impure before God. The question was not a question of mere inquiry. You can tell by Jesus’s snappy and fiery response that the question was actually accusation. And the fact that he shot back the way that he did pointed to the fact that their piety is merely pretense. The Pharisees tried to show that they are clean before God, but in reality, under the surface, they are filthy and disgusting.
Jesus shows them this in multiple ways. The first one is to apply the quotation from Isaiah 29 right to them. He says to them, “well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it’s written, these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me.
Teaching is doctrines, the commandments of men. And then he reemphasizes, you leave the commandments of God and hold to the traditions of men.” You see, back in Isaiah’s time, the people of God, Israel, were giving lip service to God who had provided for them, preserved them, while at the very same time, they were engaging in the festivals to foreign gods. So you can imagine when God prophesied through Isaiah to them, this was a pointed and damning prophecy. And now Jesus just applied it to the Pharisees for what they are doing.
For the Pharisees, the Mishnah and the oral tradition of that Mishnah, of the rabbis, that is just as authoritative or binding as the word of God itself from the Old Testament. So for Jesus to simply diminish it to be the traditions of men would be an explosive. claim. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes further because he calls them hypocrites because they don’t even follow as strictly as they impose upon others and they don’t apply evenly. They pick and choose which parts of the law and of the Mishnah that they want to follow.
The word hypocrite, the Greek term hypokrites, means to play a part on the stage. In the Greek theater, actors would come on and they would wear different masks depending upon what scene. They wouldn’t have 100 actors for a play. They’d have two or three and they would just wear different masks. And so they would have a role. A hypocrite was one who acts a role without sincerity. A hypocrite is a pretender. And Jesus says that all of these Pharisees with all of their cleanliness are nothing but pretenders when it comes to purity. And you can’t pretend and fool God. And so to drive the stake into the ground further, he shows them just one of the ways that they pretend to be holy, but are truly anything but. He refers to a tradition of the elders called korban. This is not a biblical concept. It is from the Mishnah.
Korban comes from the Hebrew word for offering. It was a custom of the rabbis. derived from the practice of devoting specific goods to the Lord. Korban was similar to the concept of deferred giving. Today, you might find somebody that says, I am going to will my house to an organization of my choosing or to my local church. And I am going to retain possession over that property and use all of its benefit for me all the way until my death. And then upon my death, it would transfer. to who it’s willed toward. In the case of Korban, a person could dedicate goods to God, withdraw them from ordinary use, although retain control for himself. And in the example of verse 11, we see that a son is declaring his property to be Korban, which at death would pass to the temple. And in the meantime, that son retains control over the property with all of its benefits, but deprives his parents of the support that they would otherwise have from that property in their old age. And so it’s as if a man goes through the formality of vowing something to God, not that he may give it to God, but that he may prevent his parents from getting it. That is a wicked thing.
And it’s a wicked thing for two reasons. First one is that you know in God’s big 10, honor your father and mother is number five. And so by depriving their parents, as is this custom, they’re already engaging in wickedness. Wickedness that Jesus reminds them should result in their death. But it gets worse because they’re using God. as the excuse for their wickedness. So in claiming Corban, they’re saying, see mom and dad, I’m sorry, I just can’t help out because I’ve given this to the Lord. Isn’t he good? And they’re playing a game for selfish gain at the cost of their parents and under the name of God himself. They’re hypocrites.
Their piety is pretense. And Jesus looked right at them, staring into their souls and indicates, I know what you are doing. You see, there’s a problem with trying to justify yourself with the law. There’s a problem with trying to justify yourself from the outside through good works. Traditions and the boundaries that men and women put to attain status focus on outward action. They do that because it’s easy to measure outward action. However, those who try to be justified before God through the law or through works will inevitably change the law or add or subtract from the law in an attempt to escape it because it’s not possible. It’s not possible to maintain it completely nor be justified by it. More broadly, those who handle the scriptures, those who read their Bibles daily like many of you but don’t seek to obey it or align your lives with it will ultimately try to bend the scripture to fit a complacent lifestyle. There’s a problem with cleaning that comes from the outside. Nothing can choke the heart and the soul of your walk with God more than legalism.
Unbiblical rigidity not only distorts God’s word, but will ultimately distort the person as well. Consider the story of Hans the tailor. Because of his reputation, An influential entrepreneur visiting the city ordered a tailor-made suit cut by Hans. And when he came to pick up the suit, the customer found that one sleeve had twisted that way and the other sleeve had twisted this way. And one shoulder bulged out and the other caved in. And he pulled and he… and he struggled, and he finally wrenched and contorted and managed to make his body fit into the suit jacket. As he returned home on the bus, another passenger noticed his odd appearance. He asked if Hans, the tailor, had made the suit. Receiving the affirmative reply, the man remarked, that’s amazing. I mean, I knew that Hans was a good tailor. But I had no idea he could make a suit fit so perfectly for someone who has such a deformed body.
You know, that’s what we’re tempted to do in the Christian life sometimes. When we get an idea that’s over and above the Bible about what the Christian faith should look like, then we push that, shove people into some kind of grotesque configuration until they fit wonderfully. It’s more than uncomfortable. It actually becomes death. It’s a wooden legalism that destroys the soul. And so Jesus takes on the legalists with one of the more radical and transformative statements that he had said to this point in his ministry.
In verse 14 and 15, he calls the people to him again, and he said to them, hear me, all of you, and understand. There’s nothing. “Nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And with that statement, Jesus rocks the Jewish understanding of the law to its core. By implication, it says that he declares all foods to be clean, that he makes it possible for Gentiles to be clean, and he puts a dagger in the heart of the oral tradition of the Mishnah. The disciples are confused.
In verse 17, they asked for clarification of the parable, but it wasn’t a parable. It was very straightforward in its explanation. So strong, they couldn’t understand it. And so Jesus takes it a step further and he explains a little bit more graphically the mechanics of what outside in cleanliness results in versus inside out cleanliness.
And he says to them in verse 18, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled? Thus he declared all foods clean. So what you drink or eat, whether or not you wash your hands or not, they can’t defile you before God. It can nourish you or not it can make you sick or not it can make you physically healthy or not but in the end it doesn’t enter your heart.
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This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wordin
