Mark - Chapter 7

7:1-23

Controversy About Tradition:

This passage, in which Jesus dismisses all Jewish dietary regulations is a major controversy with the Jewish leaders of His time. His adversaries did not agree with His teaching about what is clean and unclean in the sight of God. Strict portions of the Jewish faith still do not agree even to this day. Even His own disciples did not understand His teaching (verse 17).

These verses are the final encounter with His Jewish adversaries in Galilee. Their opposition and the lack of understanding of even His chosen followers stand in sharp contrast to the first glimmers of faith in a Gentile woman we will meet in verses 24-30. The good news begins to spread in the Gentile area of Decapolis  in verses 31-37.

The issue was that the Jewish leaders had wrapped their own tradition around the true meaning of the Torah (first five books)  and this tradition teaching had become a heavy burden which Jesus described in Matthew 23:4 and Peter so clearly describes in Acts 15:10 later. Jesus opposes this “tradition of the elders”. He does not abolish the concept of defilement but redefines its meaning. He Himself fulfilled the law while teaching against the fence placed around it by the Pharisees in their secondary regulations. We see this teaching clearly later in Acts 10 & 11 where Cornelius is converted after Peter received his vision from heaven concerning what is clean.

Jesus says there is nothing outside us that can defile us by entering into us because we are defiled by what comes out of us as opposed to what goes into us. This interpretation in verses 14-23 focuses on what comes from within. The word “tradition” is used in certain places to speak of basic teaching of the gospel message (1st Cor 11:2 7 15:3 & 2nd Thes 2:15). Here Jesus makes a pointed reference to “your” tradition which are considered rules, as not in line with God's intent. This teaching calls us to look beyond what is old and what is new to understand what is vital.

We see in this passage that these with whom Jesus took exception had “come from Jerusalem”. That was the center of opposition to Jesus. In every religious community since there are those who “come from Jerusalem” and these verses challenge us to consider if we ourselves may have “come from Jerusalem” at times and if so perhaps we should reconsider as we study the Lord's teaching here.

7:24-30

The Gentile Woman:

Jesus continues to teach against taboos of tradition in His time with a gentile woman in a pagan city. The woman was Greek and the structure of the story is an exorcism and includes a conversation about whether it is proper for Jesus to use His powers to work among those who are not of the Jewish people.

In verse 27 Jesus initially rebuffs the woman but her response  is to persistently ask for His attention to the non Jewish needs as well. Jesus approves her response in verse 29 and allows the first consideration of the message moving out to the Gentile world. 

7:31-37

The Deaf Mute:

This story seems expanded while the one just before it was brief and more concise. The circumstances here of the healing gestures of Jesus (thrusting fingers into ears, touching tongue with saliva, casting eyes upward, and sighing) and the mysterious word “ephpatha” in Aramaic all seem to heighten the sense of the miracle shown. 

The word given in the original language (mogilalon) to describe the man's affliction  (verse 32) is used only twice in the entire Bible, here and Isaiah 35:6. The word means literally that the man did not speak distinctly, not that he was actually mute, which is a convenient description of him but is incomplete. This healing is not supposed to become public knowledge (verse 36) which has come to be common in Mark where Jesus seems intent on working quietly before His hour has come (known in this writing of Mark as the Messianic Secret).

Both these last stories lean upon the issue of clean and unclean. We are to understand all the miracles of Jesus as witness to the extraordinary power at work in Him and as evidence that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Both stories are about Him and they tell of the reign and power of God in Him. We see full proof of that fact in the conversation Jesus held with Nicodemus in John 3 when Nicodemus admits he knows Jesus is a teacher come from God.