NOTE: I will have limited access to internet for the next two weeks. Be assured, however, that even if I don’t post here I am keeping up the 49 Week Bible Challenge. I encourage you to join me in this discipline. I am using the YouVersion 49 Week Bible Challenge for these devotions. Today’s readings are Matthew 15; Exodus 21; Lamentations 2; 4.
Matthew 15:1-11, 19-20
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 “‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”10 And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
One of the key elements of Bible interpretation is placing the passage in it’s full and proper context. We look at the book as a whole, when it was written, by whom, and under what circumstances. Then we consider the outline of the book as a whole. What is the progression of the thoughts being laid out, of the arc of the story unfolding. Is this wisdom literature, narrative, history, or letters to the Early Church? Context matters.
The greatest abuse of context is when people rip things out of context. So now, “Judge not lest you be judged,” becomes a free pass to do anything you want without censure. Or someone rides his eschatological hobby horse off the cliff of absurd claims about the end times. Some may also wish to make Jesus’ lack of speaking to a specific issue a free pass to redefine marriage or sexuality.
Even more dangerous, however, was the Pharisees’ misuse of Old Testament laws and requirements. These false emphasis on rituals, considerations of clean and unclean based solely on outward appearances set aside God’s true intent and purpose.
So Jesus sets things straight. It’s not outward piety that recommends us to God. Our faith recommends us to God; for faith sees the goodness of God, his pure grace and truth in Jesus, and his command that we love him first and our neighbor as ourselves.
We may want to highlight one sin over another, find an excuse for one behavior and not another, or dismiss something because it is inconvenient or difficult. But God’s call is always a call to repentance and faith. So we continually must say, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
David Bahn - Reflections 
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