Matthew 15:15-20

Matthew 15:15-20
In this text, Jesus exposes the fallacy of human reasoning. We would all have to admit that the reasoning of the Pharisees seemed sound. The Law specified that touching certain things like a dead body, a person with leprosy, or a person with an issue of blood, made them unclean. To remedy that condition, God prescribed that they wash their bodies and in the evening they would be clean and thus allowed to go before the Lord in worship. The Pharisees simply took that a step further. Who knows, they thought, when you might have touched something or someone unclean? Further, they believed that this would especially be true when one had been to the marketplace. Unclean people would surely abound in such an atmosphere. Therefore, in order to avoid the danger of eating with unclean hands and thus getting that uncleanness inside them, they invented a special washing to cleanse the uncleanness. There was only one problem with their reasoning; the Lord never said any of that. If the Lord had been concerned with uncleanness getting inside a person’s body, He would have prescribed a way to avoid it.Therefore, Jesus challenges them with the true concern of uncleanness and that is an unclean heart. The sins of this world come out of the mind. The mind is not affected by eating. This point strongly deals with those religious people who think restricting themselves from certain foods and denying themselves comforts of this world will somehow make them more spiritual. Paul challenged the Colossian Christians in this regard when he said, “Why do you submit to regulations, “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”? All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence. (Col. 2:21-23).

God has clearly laid out in His word how we need to live and how we need to worship Him. Adding the traditions and commandments of men are not pleasing to God nor are they of any value in bringing a person to maturity in Christ.
Berry Kercheville