Sabbath: Inside Out
Daily Lesson for Sabbath 3rd of August 2024
Image © Pacific Press
Read for This Week’s Study
Mark 7:1-37, Isaiah 29:13, Exodus 20:12, Mark 8:11-21.
Memory Text:
“ ‘There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man’ ” (Mark 7:15, NKJV).
This week’s study is Mark 7:1-37 and the first half of Mark 8:1-38. At the beginning of Mark 7:1-37, Jesus stirs up controversy by His rejection of religious tradition. However, He does it in a way that is strikingly supportive of something deeply relevant to Christian life today.
Jesus then presents a riddle that opens the door to a true understanding of what faith is really about.
After this He goes to Tyre and Sidon and has an encounter with a woman who was the only person in the Gospels to win an argument with Jesus. His encounter with her is unusual, and underneath it there are a few secret communications the woman picked up on. And because of her faith, Jesus granted her request.
Mark 7:1-37, with another healing, reveals the important truth that, however impressive miracles can be, they alone are often not enough to open hearts to truth. After all, what good did the miracles do for the religious leaders who were bent on rejecting Jesus?
In Mark 8:1-38 the study looks at the significance of bread as a symbol of teachings and traditions. These stories contain great lessons about the meaning and practice of religious life.
*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, August 10.
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When I was studying Sociology at Monash University in the 1970s our lecturer was Brian Bullivant who had written a book (actually his PhD thesis) on his experiences teaching in a Jewish Hassidim school in Melbourne. The Hassidim are ultraconservative Jews who wear quite distinctive dress and haircuts and observe all the rituals of the Torah. The students in the school were eager to take part in inter-school competitions, particularly debating. However, going to another school presented serious problems because usually after the debate refreshments were served and the students were particularly concerned that they could perform their ritual washing. You and I would probably be happy with a simple splash under a running tap, but they insisted on having special basins and jugs to pour the water. The water had to run from the fingers down the arms and drip off the elbows. If any water ran back up the arms, the hands became impure and the procedure had to be restarted.
Clearly, the original intent of the instructions to wash hands was to ensure cleanliness after handling impure things, but the washing had become a ritual more important than the intent.
This focus on ritual to the extent that big-picture evil was either ignored or condoned was the basis of Jesus' condemnation of hypocrisy among his accusers in his day.
And just in case we proudly boast about how much better we are than the Jews in Jesus' time or even the modern-day Hassidim, we need to ask ourselves how much of our religious activity is ritual and what big-picture issues are we ignoring.
This is a great evil under the sun, that our good intentions can be a means whereby we are led into bondage.
The ceremonial washing and the traditions of the elders were initially meant for good. They were aimed at encouraging spiritual holiness. This ritualistic cleanliness symbolized holiness before God. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law believed that adherence to these traditions was an honour to God and a commitment to keeping God’s instructions (Exodus 30:17-21). Sadly, overtime the Pharisees added a spin to these priestly practices to the general population in pursuit of holiness in day-to-day life. The Pharisees reasoned out that ritual purity was fundamental not in the temple worship but also in everyday aspects of life such eating.
The devil always uses human agents to counterfeit God’s laws and instructions to bring distraction, confusion and frustration. God’s laws and instructions are always meant to bring rest and salvations to human souls and not become a hinderance and burdensome. The devil wants us to be distracted by minor issues of outward show and miss the real matters of spiritual purity.
The Bible is very clear that at the end time the devil will cause many to be distracted by external practices without genuine heart change.
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man."(Matthew 24:37-39 - NIV).
I would encourage you to look a little closer at the tradition of washing that was practiced. There were commands to wash in the Torah, but they were not in the context of food or marketplaces. You washed when defiled by discharges or a dead body.
When we look at washing in connection with the marketplace, I suspect that it related to being defiled - perhaps by "common" folk, but more likely Gentiles (Gentiles were common in Galilee). I think Jesus pointed out through His lesson that we are not defiled by contact with non-believers. It's what's inside us that contaminates us. And that has a lot to say to us today.
Hi Brother Omwenga,
I agree with you, not all traditions are bad. Those that draw our hearts away from a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus, are the traditions that we should be cast aside.
Going to church on the Sabbath is a tradition (it is not a requirement for salvation). But attending in-person church services has its benefits, fellowship, encouragement, and great music: "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord." But if church become too entertaining, and/or decreases your relationship with Jesus, then that is not good either.
God's blessing to you all.
I appreciate that this week’s lesson puts its finger on the weakest point when forming a relationship with our heavenly Father. Mark 7:9-13 records Jesus as saying: ”All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition; and "teaching as doctrines the commandments of man."”
Organized religion can easily slip into a trap by placing the commandments of man above those of God. Jesus points this out to the Pharisees and Scribes, using the example of how they distorted the commandment to ‘honore your father and mother’ by explaining that God’s Will is not to count the 'cost', but rather to continue loving them unconditionally - Eph.6:2-3.
“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!” is what we are told again and again. Is it not true that the ultimate aim of Jesus’ teachings was to help His people understand that it is given to the Holy Spirit to fight this spiritual battle within us; for us to overcome by faith the influences the spirit of this world has on hearts and minds, on anyone who seeks after righteousness? – Eph.6:12.
In my experience, ‘seeking after righteousness’ cannot be an on- and off-again aspect of our new nature; it might have been so before we met Jesus Christ personally and declared our faith in Him to be the Son of our God who is showing us the Father!
This hunger after righteousness - the desire to do contrary to that which the flesh entices us to do -, is either present or it is not, as it requires the by God's Grace given godly/spiritual faith to maintain it – Mark 6:20-23.
I consider 'inner peace' to be the victory Jesus Christ won for all who seek after righteousness - John 16:33. His invitation is for anyone who ‘can hear’ to follow His ‘New Way’ when living in God's kingcom - to believe that our ‘justification is by His Grace through Faith in the Word of God’ - Eph. 2:8-9; Mark 6:28-29
Our God, in Whom we trust and place our faith, is a benevolent God! A true believer cannot turn his faith on and off, he cannot be hot and cold at the same time, nor ought his ‘faith’ to be lukewarm. The Spirit calls us to make a choice – Rev.3:16.
As I watched and listened to the Lesson today, the question I understood was how do we reach the unchurched, or the non-believers. I have a belief that we cannot do much if we are not willing to step out of our comfort zones. If you (as several stated) have been a lifelong Adventist, going to Adventist schools, working in Adventist organizations, socializing with like believers, then where is the opportunity to witness?
Perhaps we need to pray to have courage and look for opportunities to get involved with "the world" outside of our own small, safe world. I know it sounds crazy, but how about setting up a group Bible study in a park where anyone could join and ask questions, not a "safe" environment for certain, but maybe a for filling opportunity.
Just a thought.
We are now more program oriented than the focus on mission work. Fulfilling activities in the church planner and ticking them off, without achieving the purpose of the activities. As a result we are not grounded and backsliding is increasing.
We have become more deceitful than ever. Like the lesson says "Inside Out" What is inside us is what is brought out to the fore. What is it that is inside us? Clearly it is the focus on how to keep the traditions and how to follow these traditions and not focusing on God himself. So what is inside us is the traditions and outward show and not the inner purity connection with God.
The Lesson shows our deep concentration on (human activities) organised religious ways above God. The focus is on ways of worshiping and not on who is being worshiped. In today's world it's like a competition of various religious congregations. A competition of wanting to be seen as doing the right way of worshiping God(outward appearance) yet there's no inner connection with God.
Dear Aubrey - take heart - continue to compassionately love His people and pray for the Holy Spirit to enlighten their heart and mind.
Is mark 7:30 contradicting Dan 1:8?
Amos I think you meant Mark 7:19? Monday's lesson will answer that question for you. https://ssnet.org/blog/24c-06-clean-hands-or-clean-heart/