Do You Value Tradition More Than God’s Word? (Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

How do I know if my love of tradition has gotten in the way of my love for God?

In Matthew 15:1, the Pharisees and scribes come to Jesus and say, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat.” Keep in mind that in a society of heat, dust, and foot travel, it was necessary to wash regularly. In Exodus 30:18-21, the priests were “required to wash their hands and feet prior to offering their service.”^[1] But when the Pharisees approach Jesus, notice what they do. They “adapted the concern for hygienic cleanliness to ceremonial purity and applied it to common Israelites.”^[2]

As Michael Wilkins notes, “The Pharisees developed a complicated series of rulings regarding vows and oaths. For example, a person could make a vow of dedication, which rendered a thing forbidden in the future for common use (as in 15:5). Such a formal vow allowed a person to be exempt from one’s other responsibilities, such as the support of one’s aging parents here.”^[3] This is why Jesus responds in verses 3-9 by saying:

³ “Why do you break God’s commandment because of your tradition? ⁴ For God said: Honor your father and your mother; and, Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. ⁵ But you say, ‘Whoever tells his father or mother, “Whatever benefit you might have received from me is a gift committed to the temple,” ⁶ he does not have to honor his father.’ In this way, you have nullified the word of God because of your tradition. ⁷ Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said:

⁸ This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me.
⁹ They worship me in vain,
teaching as doctrines human commands.”

So what does Jesus mean? N.T. Wright explains, “In the Ten Commandments themselves, the Israelites were commanded to honour their parents. This meant, not least, looking after them in their old age. But in the Pharisees’ traditions it was permitted that someone might make a gift to the Temple of an equivalent amount to what they might have spent on their parents. If they did that, they were deemed to be under no further obligation.”^[4] Notice what this did. “This had an obvious benefit to the Temple, and indeed might give the appearance of great piety. But it undermined the whole point of the law.”^[5]

This is why Jesus said the people honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from him. They obeyed religious tradition, even at the expense of disobeying the fifth commandment given by God. When Jesus called them hypocrites, he was calling them play actors. “Behind their words of piety, their hearts have no intention of really discovering what God desired. They have elevated merely human customs to the status of divine commands.”^[6]