Mark 7
Jesus to a healed mute:
Don’t tell anyone
Jesus Gives Pharisees What-For
1A group of Pharisees and some Jewish scholars known as scribes came up from Jerusalem. They confronted Jesus one day. 2They had noticed that some of his disciples were eating bread but hadn’t bothered to perform the ritual handwashing. 3Many Jews, [1] including the Pharisees, follow an ancient Jewish tradition before they eat: they systematically wash their hands in a choreographed ritual. 4When they buy food from the market, they won’t eat it until the food has been thoroughly washed. They have lots of similar traditions they follow as well. That includes the rituals of washing cups, pitchers, and copper pots.5Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples follow the tradition of our ancestors and wash their hands before they eat bread?”
6Jesus said, “Isaiah has a prophecy about you hypocrites. He got it right.
“‘When they open their mouth,
they show me respect.
But when they open their heart,
I’m not there.
But there’s no point to it.
All they do is teach
the rules they wrote themselves.’ [2] 8“You teach your own ideas and ignore the laws of God. 9I’ll give this to you,” Jesus said. “You’re clever, all right. You’re clever at arguing it’s okay to ignore the laws God wrote, while insisting that everyone obey the laws you wrote. 10Here’s what Moses said: ‘Respect your father and mother.’ [3] He also said, ‘Whoever says something wicked about their father or mother should die.’ [4]
11“Here’s what you say: ‘Whatever I have that could have helped you out is no longer available. I’ve dedicated it to God.’ [5] 12You had the nerve to create a law that makes it okay for people to do absolutely nothing to help their father or mother. 13You stamped ‘CANCEL’ on the word of God. You replaced God’s word with your own words, which you pass along from one generation to the next. You do this kind of thing all the time.”
Impurity Comes from Inside of Us
14Jesus called together the crowd that had been watching. He said, “All of you, listen to me. I want you to understand what I’m about to say. 15No food or anything else you put into your body will ever make you impure and unfit to worship God. [6] What can make you impure is what comes out of you. 16If you’ve got ears, you need to be hearing what I’m saying.” [7]Jesus Tutors His Disciples on Impurity
17When Jesus and his disciples returned home, away from the crowd, they asked him what he meant by the parable. 18Jesus said, “You still don’t get it? Okay, you do know this, right? Whatever goes into a body isn’t able to make that person impure. 19The reason it can’t make a person impure is because it doesn’t go into the heart. It goes into the stomach and out to the toilet. You know that, don’t you?”20Jesus said, “It’s what comes out of people that can make them impure. 21Inside of us, in the heart of a person, there can be all kinds of impurity: hurtful schemes, sex sins, stealing, murder, 22adultery, greed, downright evil behavior, lying, lust, selfishness, bad-mouthing others, pride, and no sense of morality whatsoever. 23All of this vile behavior can exist inside of a person. When it comes out, that’s what makes them spiritually filthy.”
Jesus Performs Exorcism at a Distance
24After that, Jesus traveled over to the area of Tyre. [8] He went into a house there, hoping to get away from the crowds for a bit. 25But a woman whose daughter was demon-possessed got word that he arrived. She didn’t hesitate. She went to the house and dropped to the floor in front of his feet. 26The woman was a Gentile, not a Jew. By race, she was a Phoenician [9] from Syria. She begged Jesus to perform an exorcism on her daughter, to get rid of the demon inside her.27Jesus told the woman, “We feed the children first. It’s not right to take the children’s food and toss it to the dogs.” [10]
28The woman had an answer for Jesus: “Lord, even dogs under the table get scraps from the children.”
29Jesus told the woman, “Because of what you just said, go. Your daughter is now demon-free.” 30When the woman got home, she found her child lying in bed, demon-free.
Jesus Heals a Deaf Man with a Touch and Some Spit
31Jesus left the area of Tyre, traveled up to Sidon, [11] and then headed back to the Sea of Galilee and to the region of the Ten Cities. [12] 32Some people brought to Jesus a deaf man who could barely speak. The people pleaded with Jesus to put his hand on the man and heal him. 33Jesus met with the man privately. Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then Jesus spit [13] on his own fingers and placed those fingers onto the man’s tongue. 34Jesus looked up toward the sky. With a heavy sigh he said, “Ephphatha!” [14] which means, “Open!”35Instantly, the man’s ears opened; he could hear. And his tongue started moving; he could speak clearly. 36Jesus told the man who had just learned to speak not to tell anyone. But the more Jesus told people to stay quiet, the more they didn’t. News about Jesus spread everywhere. 37Absolutely astonished, the people said, “Whatever he does, he does it well. He’s the healer who gives sound to folks who can’t hear and words to folks who can’t talk.”
Footnotes
It’s literally “all the Jews.” But some Bible experts caution that Mark is focused on the Pharisees. The cleansing rituals Mark is talking about go back to rituals intended for Jewish priests (Exodus 30:17-21). There were two groups of Jews who tried to impose those cleansing rituals on everyone: Pharisees and the monk-like Essenes, who were famous for preserving the Dead Sea Scrolls. After the time of Moses, Jewish teachers added cleansing rituals that are now preserved in the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish tradition that was initially passed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next, until it was preserved in writing and included in the Talmud. The Talmud is a collection of Jewish laws and traditions that date from at least the AD 400s, and possibly earlier. Many Bible experts say the cleansing rituals in the Mishnah likely date to at least the time of Jesus.
Isaiah 29:13
Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16
Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9
This loophole around the God-given obligation to help our parents was known as corban, a word that can mean “an offering” or “gift.” Bible experts say it’s unclear how this loophole was used in the time of Jesus. Some say that when a man declared his liquid assets as corban, he was saying it was dedicated to God or the Jerusalem Temple. Others say corban may have meant that the assets were simply not available for anyone else to use because they were on reserve, as if they were an offering to God. Whatever it meant, it wasn’t good for the parents.
Literally, defiled or made ritually unclean.
This verse is missing from some of the oldest copies of Mark.
Tyre is a port town on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Lebanon. It’s about a two-day walk northwest of Capernaum, roughly 40 miles (64 km).
Phoenicians lived along the coast of what is now Lebanon and northern Syria.
Most Bible experts agree that Jesus was using some sarcasm to set this lady up for the clever response she gave. If that wasn’t what Jesus had in mind, he may have been having a bad day.
Sidon is a coastal town in what is now Lebanon, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Tyre.
Decapolis. See the footnote for Mark 5:20.
Saliva was an ingredient that shows up in many remedies preserved from Roman writings in the first Christian century. One example from a collection of science books written by a man named Pliny (AD 23-79): “To cure inflammation of the eyes, wash the eyes each morning with spit from your overnight fast.” Source: Natural History, Remedies from Living Creatures, book 28, chapter 10.
This is in Aramaic, a language spoken by many Jews in the region. Jews apparently adopted this language over their native Hebrew while living in exile in what is now Iraq, during the 500s BC. Babylonians invaded what was then the Jewish homeland, leveled the cities, including Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple, and then exiled most of the Jewish survivors so they wouldn’t rebuild their nation. Persians from what is now Iran defeated the Babylonians a generation later and freed the Jews to go home. Those who did took the local Aramaic language with them.
Discussion Questions
- 1
Pharisees complained that the disciples of Jesus were eating bread, “but hadn’t bothered to perform the ritual handwashing” (Mark 7:2). They weren’t talking about washing to get the dirt off of the hands. They were talking about a religious ritual of purification. There’s nothing in the laws that Moses gave the Jews requiring people to do this. But over the years, a tradition developed out of purification rituals intended for Jewish priests (see the footnote for Mark 7:3). Why do you think a tradition like this developed?
- 2
Jesus accuses the Pharisees of creating a bypass around one of the Ten Commandments. When elderly parents need some “Honor your father and mother” help from their grown kids, the kids can say the magic word: corban (see the footnote for Mark 7:11). Translation, “Whatever I have that could have helped you out is no longer available. I’ve dedicated it to God” (Mark 7:11). Just like that, the kids exit onto the bypass around God’s law. How do you think people reacted to this law?
- 3
Jesus blasted the laws that the Pharisees imposed around ritual purity and the need to wash hands, food bought at the market, and kitchenware so that we don’t put something mystically contaminated into our body, as though that would “make you impure and unfit to worship God” (Mark 7:15). Jesus said that nothing we put into our body would do that. Instead, he said, “It’s what comes out of people that can make them impure” (Mark 7:20). What do you think comes out of us that makes us spiritually unfit?
- 4
Jesus took a road trip over to Lebanon “hoping to get away from the crowds” (Mark 7:24). Mark often reports Jesus doing that (1:35; 6:31-32; 6:46; 14:32). Does it bother you that Jesus took time off like that? And do you think it bothers people in the church when ministers take time off?
- 5
If ever Jesus sounded like a sorry excuse for a human being, it was when he spoke to a non-Jewish woman in what is now Lebanon. She came to him asking him to perform an exorcism on her daughter. Jesus, seemingly bluntly, told her, “We feed the children first. It’s not right to take the children’s food and toss it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). Jesus was calling the Jews “children.” He was calling the Gentiles, and this woman in particular, “the dogs.” Would you care to build a defense for Jesus, because he certainly needs one, many would say?
- 6
To heal a man who was deaf and unable to speak clearly, “Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then Jesus spit on his own fingers and placed those fingers onto the man’s tongue” (Mark 7:33). That’s odd. Why do you think Jesus did something like this? Normally, all he had to do was provide a touch or a word.
- 7
Once again, Jesus tells someone he healed to keep the healing a secret. But with this particular healing, it seems incredibly inappropriate to make that request. “Jesus told the man who had just learned to speak not to tell anyone” (Mark 7:36). That’s like telling someone who wakes up one morning singing like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music and dancing like Ginger Rogers in any of those routines with Fred Astaire, to put a cork in it, stretch out on the couch, and watch the Hallmark Channel. Did Jesus really think the man was going to keep quiet?
- 8
LIFE APPLICATION. Let’s not identify anyone by name. But could you describe a churchgoing person you know who fits the following quotation from the prophet Isaiah? What kinds of things did the person do to make you associate them with this quotation?
“When they open their mouth,
they show me respect.
But when they open their heart,
I’m not there.They worship me.
But there’s no point to it.
All they do is teach
the rules they wrote themselves.” (Mark 7:6-7) - 9
LIFE APPLICATION. Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being more interested in teaching people about their rules and laws than they are about the laws of God: “You teach your own ideas and ignore the laws of God” (Mark 7:8). Not calling anyone out by name, where have you seen this kind of thing happen in religious circles?
- 10
LIFE APPLICATION. What would you say are some examples of human-made laws that sometimes get emphasized in churches? And what are some of God’s laws that get ignored?
- 11
LIFE APPLICATION. Jesus got really tough on the religious leaders of his day (Luke 11:37-54). In what ways might some religious leaders today deserve similar criticism? Again, categories, not names.
Maps/Guides
