Chapter # 7 Paragraph # 1 Study # 1
April 5, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(296)
1901 ASV
7:1 And there are gathered together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem,
7:2 and had seen that some of his disciples ate their bread with defiled, that is, unwashen, hands.
7:3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders;
7:4 and [when they come] from the market-place, except they bathe themselves, they eat not; and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels.)
7:5 And the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with defiled hands?
7:6 And he said unto them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, But their heart is far from me.
7:7 But in vain do they worship me, Teaching [as their] doctrines the precepts of men.
7:8 Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.
7:9 And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition.
7:10 For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death:
7:11 but ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me is Corban, that is to say, Given [to God];
7:12 ye no longer suffer him to do aught for his father or his mother;
7:13 making void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do.
7:14 And he called to him the multitude again, and said unto them, Hear me all of you, and understand:
7:15 there is nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man.
7:16 [If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear.]
7:17 And when he was entered into the house from the multitude, his disciples asked of him the parable.
7:18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, [it] cannot defile him;
7:19 because it goeth not into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the draught? [This he said], making all meats clean.
7:20 And he said, That which proceedeth out of the man, that defileth the man.
7:21 For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
7:22 covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness:
7:23 all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man.
- I. The Organization Of This Segment of Mark's Gospel.
- A. The coming of "official" Judaism and its witness of the disciples' behavior: 7:1-2.
- B. The explanation of "the traditions of the elders: 7:3-4.
- C. The key question: 7:5.
- D. Jesus' answer: 7:6-13.
- E. Jesus' declaration to the crowd: 7:14-16.
- F. Jesus' explanation to His disciples: 7:17-23.
- II. The Major Issue.
- A. The critical attitude of "official Judaism".
- B. Its focus upon "outer" issues at the expense of "inner" ones.
- C. Its revelation of the perversion of the Words of God.
- III. The Beginning Of The Details.
- A. kai sunagontai: the narrative continues (kai) with the present, passive, indicative of sunago.
- 1. The on-going nature of the narrative (signified by the kai) means that there is a smoothly flowing link between the previous narrative and the current one.
- 2. As a present tense, the verb is "arresting" because this is "historical narrative" which has, as its normal "tense" some form of past tense verbs.
- 3. As a passive voice, the verb presents a "gathering together" that was "imposed upon", not "initiated by".
- a. The NASB is clearly mis-translated here: they did not "gather around Him"; "they were gathered to Him".
- b. This indicates that the extensive healings in Gennesaret "forced the hand" of the leaders of Judea.
- c. There is, here, a kind of echo of Ezekiel's prophecy of how God is going to put hooks in the jaws of the leader of the vast armies of the nation of the far north to drag him down to Israel for his humiliation and destruction. In the same way, these from Jerusalem "were gathered to Him" to have their great wickedness unveiled.
- 3. Mark's use of sunago in this Gospel.
- a. He uses this verb in five texts with this current use being the last of the five.
- 1) In 2:2 he uses this verb at the beginning of his record of the opposition of "some of the scribes" (an exact replication of the phrase in our text) to His demonstration of His ability to "forgive sins"; an opposition that culminates in the scribes coming from Jerusalem to declare that Jesus is a servant of Beelzebul (Satan) in 3:22.
- 2) In 4:1 he uses this verb at the end of his record of the decisions people made about Jesus in chapter three and the beginning of His teaching "only in parables" of the "very large crowd" (same setting as our current text). In this use he again presents the gathering as a present tense, passive voice form of sunago.
- 3) In 5:21 he uses it in reference to another "gathering" (using sunago in the Aorist Tense, Passive Voice) of "a great crowd" after His confrontation of a legion of demons and preceding the coming of Jairus.
- 4) In 6:30 he uses it in another present tense, passive voice to tell of the gathering of "The Apostles" after the death of John at Herod's command and before the record of the feeding of 5000 men, to tell of what they had been doing and teaching.
- 5) And in 7:1 he uses it for the last time in his gospel (our current text). This is after the record of Jesus' indiscriminate healings of multitudes of the sick in Gennesaret and before Mark's extended treatment of the problematic doctrines/attitudes of the Pharisees and scribes.
- B. pros auton: the "being drawn together" is given this objective.
- 1. They "were gathered to Him" (last identified as "Jesus" in 6:30, after which it is "He"/"Him"). They "had" to come; He was becoming so widely popular that they could not "leave well enough alone", though, as Gamaliel counseled The Council, that would have been a wiser course (Acts 5:34-40a).
- 2. In a previous "touching" text/context He was identified by the demons as "The Son Of The God" (3:10). This is linked by terminology to the record of the baptism of "Jesus" when a voice came from heaven with the words, "You are My beloved son" (1:9-11). And, in the more focused text of "touching" (the woman with the issue of blood: 5:27-28), the focus is upon the "faith" of the one doing the "touching".
- C. oi farisaioi kai tines ton grammateon: some of the leaders of Judaism are gathered together to Jesus.
- 1. First, the Pharisees.
- a. These were a party of "conservatives" who had a more loyal commitment to "revelation" than did the other parties in the leadership of the nation.
- b. As such, they were more "hide bound" by their "biblical" theology.
- c. Mark first introduced his readers to "the Pharisees" in 2:16, 18, and 24 wherein those "leaders of the nation" were aghast at Jesus' and His disciples' overt rejection of their "hide bound externalism" (refusing to keep His distance from "the sinners and tax collectors" and their casual plucking of the heads of grain on the Sabbath). Then, in 3:6 it is Pharisees who lead in the instigation to "destroy Him" because He healed on the Sabbath. Our current text is the next text/context regarding Pharisees to which Mark brings his readers.
- d. These references build the case for our consideration of "Pharisees" as mortal enemies to Christ.
- 2. Second, some of the scribes.
- a. Mark mentions this group in 21 of his texts.
- b. The very first is 1:22 where the people describe the teaching of the scribes as having a serious, and discernible, lack of "authority".
- c. The second mention is in 2:6 where it is "some of the scribes" who mentally ascribe blasphemy to Jesus for His declaration of "forgiveness" to the paralytic, and are confronted by Jesus regarding their "thought life".
- d. In 2:16 the "scribes" involved are called "scribes of the Pharisees" making a definitive link to our current text.
- e. In 3:22 the "scribes" are some who "came down from Jerusalem".
- f. 7:1 is the next use by Mark, after which come 16 more references to "scribes".
- g. These references also build a case for the "scribes" as mortal enemies (as 8:31 openly declares).