Mark 7:1-23

7:1-5 | For the Pharisees, the issue was not whether the disciples’ hands (or even their hearts) were clean but whether they had conformed to their rituals – rituals that, ironically, God had not even written into the OT law.

7:6-7 | Hypocrites originally meant “play actors.” Jesus rebuked the Pharisees’ outward show of religious devotion as a sham because their hearts did not yearn for God (Isa. 29:13).

7:8-13 | Human tradition can quickly supplant the commands of God whenever people become more concerned about what people will think than about how God sees them. Outward conformity is no substitute for inward transformation. These traditions often cause their adherents to dishonor those whom God has designated for honor, such as parents and the poor (Ex. 20:12).

7:14-16 | Jesus invited the crowd closer and declared that outward acts of piety have no value apart from a transformed heart in love with God. A person could eat with unwashed hands and yet be in full communion with God, or eat with hands washed clean by ritual and yet be far from a right relationship with God. The inside is what counts.

7:17-19 | Mark uses the term parable here in the general sense of a teaching or illustration. Food cannot defile a person because it does not reflect what lies in his or her heart. With this teaching, Jesus laid the groundwork for Peter’s radical change of perspective (Acts 10).

7:20-23 | The unredeemed human heart is full of vile, vicious, self-centered, and destructive attitudes that produce equally ugly behaviors and actions (Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 1:28-29; Gal. 5:19-21). Jesus covered the range of evil that finds a home in human beings who live apart from God.