Jewish Tradition vs. Inner Purity

Meditations based on readings from

The Story of My Life As Told by Jesus Christ

October 3, 2019

Jewish Tradition vs. Inner Purity

Page 133-135

Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23

An essential part of being a Christian is spiritual discernment. Anyone who desires to become a fully-devoted follower of Jesus will come to appreciate that while spiritual discernment is a skill that can be learned, it is also an art. Part of the art is learning to understand scripture, and then testing human traditions against the teachings of the Bible.

The Jews had laws relating to purity, such as ceremonial washing of hands and a strict menu of what foods could be eaten. Jesus is showing that these laws do not deal with the core issue of purity. The purity of a person is not based on what is on the outside. A person’s purity does not come from what is taken into the body. Purity is revealed by what comes out of the heart. Jesus shows that the issue with purity is that the human heart has been corrupted by sin. Although Jesus points to the problem of sin here, he does not tell us the cure for this brokenness; not yet, but this is only Friday (metaphorically), and Sunday is coming. Easter Sunday, the cure for sin’s corruption of the heart, is coming.

In today’s reading, Jesus laid the foundation for our responsibility to take down the barriers that keep people away from intimate fellowship with God. Jesus tells the Pharisees that God values substance over form. God is looking to our heart, our inner life, for evidence of our transformation. It is not so much a matter of how we worship; but why we worship. This understanding helped the first century church take the Good News to the Gentiles; and will help the church today reach those who are marginalized.

My Takeaway: The more my focus is on Who I worship and why I worship, the more God can use me to invite all people to come and receive healing and wholeness from His throne of grace.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.