Mark 7-10
True Beliefs
How a person responds to Jesus will show what they truly believe. The Pharisees saw Jesus as a man and a sinner rather than the Son of God or even a man with God given abilities to do miracles. In Chapter 7 Jesus points out the reason. They had replaced the commandments of God with the commandments of men or traditions. This is sad for at one time the goal of the priests who later became the Pharisees was to preserve the commandments of God for a nation whose temple had been destroyed and the people carried off into exile. Over the years the traditions they added and believed invalidated the Word of God.
Traditions find their source, not in God, but in men. Peter was in danger of doing the same thing in Chapter 8 when Jesus told His disciples that he would be rejected at the hands of the elders and chief priest and be killed in 8:31. When Peter heard this he rebuked Jesus. Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interest, but on man’s” Verse 33b NASB
How do we react to what we read in God’s Word? Satan tried to use God’s Word to deceive Jesus into doing his plan by tempting Jesus with the things and ways of the world. This corrupts the true purpose of the Word and from that, traditions can develop. We need to be careful that we do not “humanize” God and try to conform God into our human understanding. This happens a lot. People tend to think that God thinks as they think. From the verses 34-38 in Chapter 8 we understand that we need to deny this because we are being tempted to follow and process our understanding with the ways of the world. . We need to nail those old corrupted beliefs on the cross otherwise we will eventually set aside the commandments and replace them with something that ultimately has its source in Satan’s teaching and deception.
Fortunately, as we read the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will convict us of beliefs and traditions that we need to surrender to God. We need to approach the Word of God with a willingness to be conformed to the Word rather than try to conform the Word of God to our own beliefs.
Is your prayer, Thy will be done?
Pastor Dave