When people don’t know the Word of God well, they fill the pages with foolishness that sounds biblical. Perhaps you’ve heard some of these before: God helps those who help themselves. God wants me to be healthy and prosperous. Don’t eat food with hands that haven’t been ceremonially cleaned.
The Pharisees were citing oral law here. Tradition taught that filthy hands were an open door for evil spirits to enter the body.
Read More Pharisees, tradition, God’s WordOn his way to Judea, Jesus crossed the Jordan seizing opportunities to heal and teach about the kingdom of God as he traveled. Large crowds followed him. Likely, people were heading for Jerusalem to observe the Passover.
Threatened by his popularity, some of the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus in hopes that they could trip him up and discredit him.
Read More divorce, Pharisees, commitmentThe Pharisees were experts in interpreting and in keeping the Jewish laws. But although they were good at keeping rules and regulations, their hearts were far from God.
It is possible to be outwardly religious while your heart is self-centred and hardened to the things that matter to God. History bore witness to their hard heartedness. They killed or persecuted the prophets who brought God’s message. And now that God’s own Son had come, they prevented people from receiving his truth, and they themselves refused to listen to the truth.
Read More Jesus, Pharisees, religious, judge