Back there, hey, all right. Welcome to Adult Bible Fellowship on this January 21st, 2024. Thanks for joining us. If you're watching online and you're not familiar with our church, I'm Pastor Josh, one of the pastors here at UniGirl Baptist. Everybody in the room I think knows me, so thanks for being here. and joining us we are in a series on the gospel of Mark and we took a little excursion out of it a couple of times actually in the near in the recent past but now we're back in and plunging in at the first verse of Mark chapter 7. So if you have your Bibles please turn with me to Mark 7 as we begin. This is part 32 of our series and we're excited about where we've been and looking forward to what God has in store for us as we go forward. And before we go any farther, let's pause and ask the Lord to bless this time together. Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for your word. I thank you for your love for us. I thank you for your message and the way that the wisdom with which you created and and protect your word, and you've brought it to us, and we're just thankful for it, that we can continue to return to it for the wisdom we need for life. Today, Lord, as we look at this next passage of Mark, please open our eyes and our hearts. Help us to be teachable as your Holy Spirit does his work. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, Mark chapter seven, we'll be looking at the first 13 verses, and the theme, the title I've given this is Traditions Versus Commandments. Traditions Versus Commandments. Does anyone know where this photo might be from? Think Broadway. Fiddler on the Roof, and what is the iconic song that this, I forget his name, but what is the iconic song that he sings? Traditions. Now, yes, If I Were a Rich Man is another one, but the one I was going for is Tradition. He's all about, he's a Jewish man in the story, and he's all about the traditions of his people and his family, and he pulls around his little cart, and I don't even remember all the story. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I do know that song. And, It's a fun play. If you haven't seen Fiddler on the Roof, go see it. It's playing at Fireside this season. So if you enjoy theater, it's a great, and I know it's a film as well. It was made quite a long time ago. It's a great story, but it brings us to this idea of traditions, and we think about our own lives. We all carry, whether we sing about them or not, traditions in our lives. We have holiday traditions. We have certain family event traditions, the way that you might celebrate a birthday, a trip that you might take on a regular basis to a special place where you like to vacation. Even things like your morning routine, your evening routine, the things you do throughout each day that are maybe more like habits are really traditions and they can be enjoyable. They can be something to look forward to. Well, at Christmas, we always, whatever it is. and we can get excited about that, we can look forward to it each day or each month or each year, but what were to happen if those traditions, especially the religious ones, if we can categorize certain traditions as religious or even spiritual, what were to happen if those things that are man-made, that are things that we have kind of come up with and we enjoy, became more important to us than what the Bible says? What if our traditions began to bring us in conflict with the clear commands of God in his word, as stated in the Bible? Well, that would be a problem with God. God would not be pleased. And that's what we have here in Mark 7, is where traditions have become more important than commandments. We're going to see how Jesus addresses those things and that'll help us to know how to address those when they come up. Now we find what the Bible sometimes calls traditions in the Bible, but Those, in the sense of what God has stated, are what should be really called commandments. Sometimes the word tradition is used. But we're making a distinction, an important difference between a tradition and a true commandment. Jesus gave us what some might see as traditions, but are actually commandments, like communion, like baptism. Even the Great Commission is not a tradition, it is a command. Go into all the world and make disciples. Evangelism, we just talked about that in the previous service. In this passage that we're about to get into, the word tradition is used in opposition to commandments five times in 13 verses. The word things is used in reference to tradition three times, along with phrases like commandments of men, traditions of the elders, tradition of men, and traditions which you have handed down. All of those things synonymous for things that stand in stark contrast with the clear commandments, the clear teaching of God. So for people today, when we talk about these traditions, sometimes, they are very personal. Sometimes traditions are things that we really hold close to the heart. And so as we talk about them, maybe even words like convictions that they have or standards, and sometimes the line gets blurred. Okay, where's the command of God versus how we live it out? even in our church and in our homes and the way that we carry out our lives. And so there's strong feelings usually attached to this idea of traditions. And I think this passage and other passages like this gives us an opportunity to just pause and just reevaluate ourselves and the things that we have held close to the heart and making sure that those things are not leading us away from the clear teaching of God. Is there anything wrong with having traditions? No, of course not. Are we saying all traditions should be thrown out? Absolutely not. But it's good for us sometimes to reevaluate ourselves. We can easily have blind spots, right? In our lives, we can get kind of carried away or fastened on to something that we think is just, man, this is so important. And a lot of times then we view others that don't hold that same tradition in a negative light. And so we have to be very careful that we don't allow those things to consume our thinking to the point where God's word becomes secondary to those traditions. And so we're gonna see what Jesus says today about when traditions outweigh commandments, and then take inventory of ourselves. I just put the outline up there, a little bit longer outline than normal. We have, first of all, the religious reproach, and we're gonna see the Pharisees coming to Christ with a reproach. with an accusation. And then we're going to see the rabbi's rebuttal, Jesus response to that. And there's some sub points under each of those things. So first of all, this religious reproach, this is the first five verses of Mark seven. So we're in Mark seven, if you're not there, verses one through five. And we're going to break this into kind of three pieces, if you will, and look at at how this happened and kind of put ourselves in the text. and try to picture ourselves there. I'm going to step down here and grab my water bottle, which I forgot to grab before I came up here. All right. So let's get into the text. So Mark 7, and we're going to start with the critics converge on Christ here. They're going to converge on him. And we see this in verse number one. Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to him, that is to Christ, having come from Jerusalem. So It's easy to pass over these kind of introduction verses, but there's a phrase here that I found so important to understanding what's actually happening, and that is the phrase came together to him. It's an important word, and as we look at God's word, sometimes we dig into the word meanings, and the word there in Greek is synago. What does that look like? Synagogue, it's the same root there, it's the same type of a word. It means to collect and assembly, to convene, to come together, to meet. We have to understand that when these men came together to Jesus, it was not a chance encounter. This meeting was a specific, intentional, pre-planned attack. And I'm going to use that word, even though it's a strong word. I believe that is exactly what they're doing. Notice that they came from where? Jerusalem, they traveled all the way up, had to go around Samaria, likely, to get up to Capernaum, up in the northern section near Galilee in Israel. So this wasn't that they happened to meet Jesus in the same place, or that they just kind of crossed paths inadvertently, or by mistake. This was a purposeful, intentional choice on the Pharisees' part to go up here and to try to attack Christ. to try to find fault with him. And that's exactly what they did. If we go to verse number two of Mark 7. Now when they, the Pharisees, saw some of Jesus' disciples eat bread with defiled, and Mark gives us a little commentary, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. If you have ever worked with children, you might look at this and go, what's the big deal? I tell my kids this all the time. Wash your hands. I did with soap. Oh, they go back in and I don't know how many times that conversation has happened. And they're getting it. I'm not you know, they're getting it. But as we look at this with our 2024 Western culture lenses, it's not going to really click the importance of this. We have to take off our current modern day glasses, our lenses, and put on first century Jewish lenses. What was Judaism like in the first century when Jesus was on the earth? and understand exactly what this means. And Mark, knowing that his audience was largely Gentile, specifically Romans, he takes the time to explain this. So they converge on Jesus, and they attack him about the fact that disciples were eating with defiled, that is, unwashed hands. They found fault. We have to understand, this is not about hygiene. These guys didn't go out and work with farm animals or whatever and get their hands all mucky and then just start eating with filthy, literally dirty hands with dirt on them. That was not what was going on here. It wasn't the way we think of it. It was that they had not washed in a certain way. They had not followed the ceremony of washing that these Pharisees and scribes held to. So we have to keep that in mind and take that with us through the passage because Mark in verses three and four, he describes their customs. He describes the customs there, the critics' customs. So go to verse number three of Mark 7. And here's Mark interjecting this commentary. For the Pharisees and all the Jews, really not necessarily all the Jews in like every single person, but like the Jews as a whole and those that followed these strict rules, do not eat unless they wash their hands, notice the phrase, in a special way. Holding to the law of Moses? No. Holding to the tradition of the elders. So the Pharisees were the strictest sect of the Jewish culture, and they prided themselves in that. They were the ones that followed every jot and tittle. We're gonna find out it wasn't as close as they claimed when Jesus points out their hypocrisy in a moment, but they believed that they did that. They prided themselves in their religious system that they had created. And this ceremonial hand washing, this specific type of way that they wash their hands. So what do we learn from this? It's likely that if the disciples' hands were dirty, they had already washed them. They were clean. And if their mom and dad was there, they would have been happy that they washed their hands before they But that wasn't what these Pharisees were worried about. It was the way in which they did it. It was their tradition that they felt everyone should be following. And so they had not performed this traditional washing ritual. This was a tradition, not a commandment. In verse four, he goes on and describes for us. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. upon the risk of having maybe touched a Gentile or touched a ceremonially unclean person while they were at the market, that required them to do this ceremonial washing. And then Mark goes on and explains this long list. They also do these same ceremonial washings of cups, washings of pitchers, copper vessels. Couch is probably more of where they would eat. It's not like the couch you have in your living room. That kind of furniture really wasn't likely in a Jewish home at this time. And so again, this is not about hygiene. It's not about keeping things clean so they don't get sick like what we would do. It's not antibacterial in nature. It's not about like when we put dishes in the dishwasher, why do we do that? Because they're dirty, they need to be cleaned. We hit the button, we walk away, we come back, they're clean. It's not about this. This was all done per tradition, handed down from the elders, the previous generations of Jews that had developed these things over the years. They had received and held them. You see the phrasing there? That means that they were oral traditions. They were orally passed down from one generation to the next, to the next. And eventually, about the second century A.D., they were written down, a lot of these things were written down in what's called the Mishnah, which is the Jewish literature, the writings of all these traditions of the rabbis. But until then, there was none or very little of this written down. It was passed down orally. And a lot of the culture, a lot of things were orally passed down. This was part of that. But the thing is that they believed that these oral traditions had been given to Moses at the same time the law had been given. That was the belief of the day, when Jesus was here walking on earth. So they held these things as just as important, and we're gonna see even more important than the written law, was the oral law. It was something they could control. You can kind of see their hearts being exposed to the pride that's there. Well, we know, and we're gonna tell you, and you're gonna listen to us. You don't need to read this in a scroll. You need to hear it from me. Do you see how they're usurping God's authority over his word? It's gonna become more and more evident as we go on. What did God say about this? Back in Deuteronomy four, verse two. Listen to what God said about what they're doing. You shall not add to the word which I command you. In other words, the written law that God gave Moses, it should not be added to nor take from it. You don't add to it, you don't take away from it. That you may keep the commandments, notice not the traditions, the commandments of the Lord your God which I commanded you. And so we see here God specifically, and they knew this verse. It's not like this was something that had been lost in history or whatever. They had scrolls of Deuteronomy. They read Deuteronomy weekly in the synagogues. It was well known, these passages. but over time, they began to attribute the oral traditions with the written commandments, and they began to outrank and usurp the authority of God's commandments, which, of course, God is not pleased with. Well, now that Mark has explained all of that in verses three and four, we come back to the storyline here, the narrative again, in verse number five, as they confront him. So Mark 7, verse five. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the, here's our word, tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? So now they saw the opportunity that they had been waiting for. Remember, they came to Capernaum, they convened, they synagogued, if you will, together. They gathered together in a premeditated planned choice, a planned attack on Christ to find fault. And now they see this. And it could have been that this was the thing that they had been planning to do, and I'll show you why I think that. Or it could have just been that that's the thing. Oh, oh, there it is, there it is, let's pounce on that. We've got him now, we've got him trapped. And of course, he's gonna prove that they don't. They're trying to trap God, and it doesn't work like that. Notice that what is not in their accusation here? And it's not really a trick question. What's missing here? Any reference to Scripture? They're not quoting a verse out of the Torah, the law. They're not quoting from any verse in the Old Testament, which is all that existed at this time. There's nothing from the Torah, nothing from the Pentateuch, nothing from any portion of Scripture that they are using to cast this shadow on Jesus and his disciples. It is strictly the oral tradition of the elders that they were concerned about. And so, think of this for a moment as we think about where we've been in the study of Mark and all the different people that Jesus has come in contact with. Remember, why did they wash their hands? In the ceremonial way. It's so that they could be ceremonially clean because they may have touched an unclean person. They may have touched a Gentile. When Jesus healed people, how did he generally do it? By physical touch, not always, but often, right? When Jesus connected, I'll just give you the list here. Here's the list, now this is maybe not all of the things, but many of the things that Jesus did. When the leper came to him in Mark 140, how did he heal him? Touched him, uh-oh. Yeah, he got healed. Instead of that man making Jesus unclean, he made that man clean, the power of God. In Mark 2, 13, whose house did he go to? Matthew's. Who was a what? Tax collector. You know, tax collectors were ceremonially, I can't say that today, ceremonially unclean. And so Matthew was there, but then there was a lot of other tax collectors at the table. And you remember the Pharisees, they came to him and they accused him, why are you sitting to eat? See, when you sat down to eat with someone, it was hugely symbolic. If we sit down in the gym and eat, that doesn't mean that when we have potlucks and stuff, that doesn't mean we all agree about every single little thing. It's like we just love Jesus and we're in Christ together and that's how it's supposed to be. But for these men to sit down and eat was hugely symbolic. If you sat down and ate with an unclean person, you were unclean. Well, Jesus had done that. In Mark 5.1, he had contact with Gentiles. Ooh, ooh, that's just horribly unclean in their eyes. The woman with the discharge of blood in Mark 5.25, ceremonially unclean, yet he touched her, didn't he? And she touched him, she touched his garment. In Mark 5.35, you remember the 12-year-old girl that was clinically, literally dead? She had been pronounced dead, the mourners were there. Remember, they laughed him to scorn. He sent them all out. Now, this was done behind closed doors, but you know how rumors spread. Maybe the doctor had been there, declared her dead, the mourners were there, everyone knew. This girl died, sad, 12-year-old girl died, Jairus's daughter. But now, I just saw her in the marketplace with her dad the other day, or I saw her by their home. Now she's alive, but when Jesus had been there, So all kinds of unknowns there, yet Jesus had come in contact with all of these things. Now is this part of the reason that they convened? Because they had this list or something similar to this? Possibly, the Bible doesn't tell us that. But we do know that they planned it, and this may have been part of their plan. Now, Let's bring this into our world for a moment because we really do want to understand and put ourselves in the shoes of the Pharisees for a minute. These guys are really struggling because of their predisposition to their religious system that they had created. They genuinely believed that this type of activity made one ceremonially unclean and not right with God. You couldn't go to the synagogue like this. You certainly couldn't go to the temple and offer sacrifices if you were unclean. And so Let's think of it like this. Imagine, if you will, you are employed at a certain business, and maybe you are, whether you're working or not, but let's say you work at a business that has an office, and you're sitting in a cubicle, and you go there every day, and you do your work, and you have people on either side of you, and they come in, they're your co-workers, and you know them. Well, one day you come in and everything's a buzz, because the person that is working next to you was found to be embezzling money from the company. And they got caught red-handed, they were stealing money. And they were immediately fired. And they... their desk there next to yours. And so what happens generally that you know, the security comes in and says, you know, here's your box, put all your personal things in the box, and they clean out their desk. And the security guard is standing right there making sure they're not going to steal anything else because there's the trust has been broken. Well, you kind of know this person. And you're sitting at your desk, not not wanting not knowing what to do exactly. And this person who has been caught embezzling and stealing wants to start a conversation up with you. And they want to have a chat with you. And now the whole office is watching you stand there talking to this person. Are you going to want to talk to them for very long? I sure wouldn't. Why? Guilty by association. I would want to get as far away as I could, and I don't even know them. I'm like Peter denying Christ. I don't even know this guy. Of course, we wouldn't want to lie about it. I'm being facetious, but the point is we would not want to have contact with them because we don't want to have our reputation marred because we know that they have done this. If you can picture yourself in that situation, that might be a little bit of what it was like for these Pharisees. to do this, and of course their pride kept them from seeing the truth, and so that's their attack on Jesus, their criticism of him. Now we come into the second part, and Jesus begins to rebut them, and we're gonna see the powerful way that he does that, and that allows us to have some application. So the first thing Jesus does is he starts quoting from where? Scripture, not through traditions of the elders. He goes back to the Word of God. So we have the hypocrites versus Isaiah in verses six and seven of Mark 7. Jesus answered and said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is orally passed down? What's the word there? written down. This is the absolute truth of God's word, as it is written, quote, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Jesus' rebuttal here is a lesson in biblical literacy. Instead of referencing the elders and their traditions and trying to argue this rabbi's position versus that rabbi's position, he just goes right to the source. He goes right to the word of God. And this is a quote out of Isaiah 29.13. You see, Jesus knew the Bible. He knew the word of God. Well, he is the incarnate word of God, and he knew perfectly the written word of God. And he used that to teach this important truth. I called this his rebuttal, but you know what? This is also a teaching. He's also, I believe, I believe in every time he rebuts them, and he's very harsh with them at times. But I think that's what they needed at the time. I believe this is God's grace. He doesn't just cut them off and walk away. He engages with them. I think that's the grace of God, even though it might be harsh, it might sound strong. These men needed to hear from God's word, the truth, to show them where they were. They were blind, they needed to see. They were in darkness, they needed light. So Jesus brings the light of the word to bear against it. And so as we're dealing with things and we're looking at tradition and preferences within our own lives, within lives of people around us, within our church body. We can use scripture as our guide. So first of all, we must know what the Bible says so we can use it wisely. When we talked about why should I read my Bible, we had a two week kind of mini series on that. We talked about the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture. Jesus is showing us that. He didn't need to go to some other source. He just went to what was already written. He used God's word to expose their hearts. Now, they knew that passage. As soon as he started quoting it, instantly their minds could have pictured, I believe, in their minds where that was in the scroll, in the prophet Isaiah. They knew that passage, just like the one we looked at in Deuteronomy. They had read it maybe countless times, but now Jesus is not just telling them the word, but he's applying it to them. And so as we understand that, we realize it's not enough just to read verses mindlessly, but we need to read the Bible, then we also must interpret the Bible, and then we must apply the Bible. And Jesus gives us that breakdown here. Notice that the Pharisees had laid aside, in the next verse we're going to see, God's commandments, as Jesus now uses his own words. So if you're following in your outline, part two, letter B, the hypocrites versus Jesus, there in Mark 7, verse number eight. For laying aside the commandment of God. Now verse seven, he talked about the commandment of who? Men. You see the contrast? Remember, there's no verse numbers in the original text, so this is all one flowing narrative, or even a sentence. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men. the washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do. And he said to them, all too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. Notice they laid aside God's commandment. They laid it aside. We looked at these verses actually when we did that little study, and why should I read the Bible? But let's look at some of the words that he's using here. Laying aside, that word literally means to omit. You're omitting the word of God. It's not just laid aside like, well, I'm gonna keep this over here, and I'm gonna reference it, but I'm gonna focus. It's almost like, in a sense, they erased it. Now, of course, they had the scroll still, but spiritually, they had omitted it, passed over it, let it alone, they laid it aside. So despite their religious boasting, these men had omitted the word of God. from their lives. They had passed it over when they should have been holding it tightly. You see the contrast. They should have been laying aside the traditions and holding on to the word, but they were doing the opposite. To hold fast, to observe. It's a priority. God's word, I'm clinging to it. as I use it for my guide, it's the light for my path, the lamp, if you will. It is the sword of the spirit. It is the bread of life. It is the water of life. Of course, Jesus himself also described that way. These things should have been reversed. As we continue to look at these verses down in verse number eight, all too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. The word reject, it's similar to the word lay aside. It means to set aside, to annul, to make an annulment of, to make it of no effect, to violate, to swerve from. That's what they were doing to God's law. But let's look at this word keep for a minute. It's a little bit different than the word hold up in verse seven. The word keep is interesting because it's not just a personal or private choice. Notice that paradosis, it means delivery, handing over. has the idea of tradition or traditionary law or something handed down from age to age. So Jesus' rebuke here wasn't just that these men on a personal or private level were keeping these traditions to themselves and just living this legalistic lifestyle. They were propagating this to everyone they came in contact and they're trying to do it to Jesus and his disciples right here. to usurp his authority by inserting their traditions. So they weren't just keeping, and we looked at that word keep, and it's like, well, that means they're obeying. It's so much more than that. They're drawing everyone they can in. to focus on their traditions and put aside the law of God. So it is the blind leading the blind. That's what Jesus said in Matthew 15, 14, speaking to the Pharisees, let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch. Again, in Matthew 23, 15, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, a Gentile that converts to Judaism, and when he is one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." What a powerful statement. But again, God's reaching out to these men. He's trying to get their attention, to realize that they're going in the wrong direction. Well now we come to finally the hypocrites versus Moses. So he's quoted Isaiah. He's used his own word. By the way, does Jesus have the authority to use his own word alongside the words of Isaiah and Moses? Yes. He is God. He is God in the flesh. And he is the incarnate word. So he's speaking from his own authority as well as the authority of the word of God. And so he brings them now to Moses in verses 10 through 13, let's look at verses 10 and 11 first. For Moses said, and here's his example now. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death. Strong, strong, this is part of the Ten Commandments. Verse 11, but you say, If a man says to his father or mother, whatever profit or money or support you might have received from me is Corban, that is a gift to God. So once again, Jesus uses the word of God to rebuke them. He's quoting here from two passages. One, the Ten Commandments, they're in Exodus 20 verse 12. It's repeated in Deuteronomy 5.16. And then the punishment for cursing parents found in Exodus 21 verse seven and Leviticus 20 verse nine. So quoting from specific scriptures, and notice the contrast. Moses says, but you say. Do you see that? Moses said, but you say. Jesus, then he's targeting one of their money making schemes. Do you remember when he cleansed the temple? Twice in his ministry he does that, because they were profiting grossly from the people taking advantage. And here is another example of the way that they did that. And so, this idea, a gift devoted to God, that phrase, that was a dedicated formula, formulaic phrase, if you will, that devoted all the offerings to God for the use of the temple. Now, As I was researching through this, I'm going to give you a quote out of the Bible Knowledge Commentary, and they explain exactly what this is. So here's the quote. If a son declared that the resources needed to support his aging parents were Corbin, oh, that's Corbin, well, that set a whole chain of events in place. Then, according to scribal tradition, not according to the law of Moses, but according to tradition, he was exempt from this command of God, honor your father and your mother, and his parents, listen, were legally excluded from any claim on him. They could not go to the religious rulers and say, our son is refusing to care for us. He's refusing to obey, honor your father and your mother. They couldn't do that. There was no statute, there was no regress for them. The scribes emphasized that his vow was unalterable, and there's a phrase in Numbers 30 that they kind of used out of context to make this happen, and that that held priority over his family responsibilities, so they no longer let him do anything for his parents. In other words, even if he changed his mind, he cannot go back and get that money back from the treasury and give it to his parents, his aging parents. that depended on him for caring for them. If you are caring for aging parents, it's a weight, it's a wonderful responsibility, but it is a weight, it's a responsibility, and it's needed. And it was even more needed back then. These Pharisees took that away. So we come into verses 12 and 13. Then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother. Notice, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down, and many such things you do. So there was a whole list of things like this that went against God's word. So when man's traditions outweigh God's commands, all the effect that God intended through his word is voided. It's of no effect. We talked about this verse already, that the blind leading to blind, they're falling into the ditch of error. And the elderly aging parents are abandoned. What do you think God thought about that? Lots of head shaking, yeah. Was not pleased. The elderly parents, they're to be honored. They're to be cared for. According to God's laws, they're now abandoned. Now God's law has been made void in their lives. What a horrible discrepancy. And then he says, and many such things you do. So you think this Corbin issue was a problem, that's just one example. There's many things that they did that voided God's word. Really, God's word is there, God's law is there to protect. Protect, if you read through the commandments, 613 commandments, many of them are to protect those that are weak, protect the helpless people. and those that are up in years and being cared for by their children are certainly in that category. These laws were there put in place by God as protection for those people. So as we conclude this morning, what do we do with this passage? Are we just supposed to throw out all traditions and reject them all? No. But we do need to be careful and be warned. If our traditions and our preferences begin to lead us down a path where we begin to stop loving people, or we begin to pull back from relationships because their convictions, if you will, or their preferences are different than mine. we are, in a sense, doing a similar thing that these Pharisees were doing. Second Thessalonians 2.15, notice what Paul says, therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the, what? Traditions. which you were taught, whether by our word or our epistle. And of course, Paul, we talked about him this morning, an apostle. He had an apostolic authority. And of course, he wasn't talking here about the Corban issue. He wasn't talking here about ceremonial hand washing. He's using this word traditions in a sense that we're using it as commandments. And so, as we think about this, are we to reject all traditions? Not necessarily. but let's make sure that we evaluate ourselves. Excuse me, make sure that nothing that we hold as traditional is making God's word void in our lives or the lives of the people around us. The Pharisees, they were so careful with these little minor observances to the exclusion of the weighty matters. I'm just thinking of the passage where he says, you tithe the mint and the rue and the spices and things, but you ignore the greater matters of caring for people in their most vulnerable state. So when we become hyper-focused on preference, on personal traditions, the phrase, I think my grandmother used this, she liked to have her druthers. Anybody know that phrase, druthers? Yeah, because I druther have this, I'd rather have, it was a southern slang. But often we focus on those things and we forget to allow the word of God to guide us. So what is guiding your life? Traditions are okay, but don't let them guide you the way that God's word guides your life. They can be just fine, but God's word has to become the main driving force, if you will, the main influence in our lives. Like the Pharisees, we're just often not content to keep our own traditions to ourselves. We often, as I stated earlier, expect everyone to kind of join in with that. I want to encourage you, let the Bible do its work. If something needs to change, let's trust the Lord that the word of God is sufficient to make a change that needs to happen, and we don't have to force that. And then we need to allow it to do its work on our hearts. What changes might God be stirring up in our lives, and are we willing to make those as the Holy Spirit asks us to do it? Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word. I thank you that we can enjoy different traditions, Lord. Many of them are wonderful things, and even to the point of perhaps even convictions or standards, if you will, or preferences, and we tend to hold those things close to our hearts. And sometimes we need to do that. But other times, Lord, we might be doing that to the exclusion of a command of scripture in terms of how we treat others and how we love others. So Father, I pray that you'd help us to know your word, help us to be biblically literate people so that we can stand on the commands. and allow the traditions to come and go as you see fit. So please give us wisdom, Lord. We're just begging you for it. We can't do this on our own, so we're asking you to step in and guide us and lead us, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.