Tradition vs God’s Laws

Today, in 2024 do the religious Assemblies that say they are worshiping the Creator and Jesus/Yeshua the Messiah apply the authority of the Scriptures to their Churches Doctrines, Policies, Traditions, and local cultures? Is it possible we are modeling the same methods used by the Pharisees in the Temple at the time Jesus came into this world?

In the seven letters John sent to the Seven Assemblies in Asia Minor 6 out of 7 had some good things they were doing, but also needed to make some major corrections.  Are the Elders in the Assemblies asking, what can we do to improve or correct to have orderly Worship that is building up the body of those who are coming to learn and grow in righteousness?  What does God’s Word say for us to do?

We know how powerful good ‘traditions’ are, but what traditions are in the people’s minds that are harmful and destructive? Not all Pharisees were evil and wicked but the majority rule that needed power to control others felt they were threated to lose their importance.

Jesus spoke about these leaders in Matthew 23 calling them: hypocrites, fools, blind guides, evil and adulterous. He also said they were unclean; full of dead man’s bones, serpents, and a generation of vipers. Ask them How can you escape the damnation of hell?

Pause and stop and think about what Jesus said to these leaders who were assigned to lead out in worship, read Scriptures, and point to the narrow pathway that we all should be walking on. If Jesus said that to me today, how would I respond?  My flesh would start defending all the good things that I have done and are doing.  The flesh hates correction.

Now there is some hope as we see one Pharisee named Nicodemus in John 3, come to Jesus wanting to be saved in the Kingdom.  He was not full of himself, humbled himself, yet came at a time when he would not be seen.  Paul before his conversion was thinking he was doing deeds that made God happy by killing those that didn’t agree with the Temple’s leadership.  How much of that Spirit do we have today in the Churches?  How many people do we drive away because they don’t think, act, talk, and believe just like us? Who house of worship do we think we are in?  Can we find better ways to have Holy Orderly Worship without confusion and without asking people to leave the House of Worship for having a different view from the leadership.  The people in the Temple then had the same fear as people in Church today. They don’t want the leadership to kick them out of the Church. For those on the outside read Ezekiel and you will find comfort.  The Father will scatter those who belong to him away from the false shepherds to protect them. Remember Jesus was a outsider, not an insider, the majority of the leadership in the Temple hated Jesus and wanted him dead. Their authority was being questioned and they couldn’t see they needed new hearts that would bring fresh reforms.  Paul got a new heart and look how God reformed his life.

In Galatians 1:4 Paul writes that he was zealous of the traditions of his fathers. The power of traditions has not changed from the time of Jesus.  We must be very careful to make sure our traditions are tested with Scripture.  Paul was a Pharisee but was doing evil, thinking it was good under the law of God.  Paul thought he had it all together.  Today, many are thinking they too have it all together and are not seeing or understanding God’s instructions.  So shall the days be in the near future.  Many so called religious people will think they are doing God’s pleasure but are working under the Dragon’s evil spirits. 

It is a danger all mankind face. When a person has become so rigid and caught up in their own religion that they feel just a little bit above every other man. They honestly and sincerely felt deep in their heart that if anyone would be accepted by God it would surely be them. They ware clothing that made them stand out. They look and act so religious that they have almost everyone fooled. But the Almighty Father and Jesus/Yeshua know what is in our heart and others see what comes out of people’s hearts. 

Remember Jesus eating with the tax collectors and sinners? (Mat 9:11). They thought, how dare Jesus say that he came from heaven, and sent by the Almighty Father and then sit down with sinners!  A Israelite would never do that. A Israelite is so much better than to sit with sinners. Do we have Church people today that feel the same way?  As you are going about town how many people do we see on the streets taking to sinners and helping them?  Today, we all need Jesus the great Doctor that can heal our sickness (Matt 9:12).

Jesus went on to say in the next verse…I AM NOT COME TO CALL THE RIGHTEOUS, BUT SINNERS TO REPENTANCE. Who was Jesus sent to save?  Jesus answered that when he told us that He was sent here to save the scattered house of Israel. These were the first group of sinners that needed to be saved out of their sins.  Then Jesus also said he was sent to the scattered house of Judah, Later Jesus said the Gospel was to go to all the Gentiles. A Gentile is anyone who has not the DNA of Jacob in their blood.  Jacob/Israel was the promised seed handed down from Abraham, to Isaac then to Jacob, and to the 12 Sons and then the two adopted grandsons.

The most dangerous sin is pride and self-righteousness. The Pharisees filled with pride thinking they were right in their own eyes they couldn’t accept counsel.  They were above correction.  This pride was built up over hundreds of years after their return from Babylon captivity of 70 years.  They soon began to adding their own human understanding to God’s laws that were clearly written. They added hundreds of new requirements believing they needed to tell people how to keep the law by following many man made traditions.

The main reason they had become so right in their own eyes was because over the past several hundred years since the Jews had returned from Babylonian captivity, they added hundreds of religious traditions to God’s laws. In Matthew 23:4, we read these added regulation were such a heavy burden on Israel it was very hard for the people.  One tradition was a requirement to wash their hands before eating. The disciples were not washing their hands and where called out as sinning by the Temple leaders.

Even today; Religious people get upset when their traditions, rituals, ceremonies, worship, rules, schedules, and habits are not followed. Some become very angry. Jesus tells the Pharisees in (Matthew 15:3) that they were breaking God’s laws.  Jesus asked them, “why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

Key Texts:

15 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.

Matthew 23:13-30

¹³ But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. ¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

¹⁶ Woe to you, blind guides, who say, If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath. ¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸ And you say, If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. ¹⁹ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰ So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. ²¹ And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. ²² And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

²³ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

²⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

²⁷ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

²⁹  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ saying, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

Mark 7:1-22

Traditions and Commandments

7 Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, ² they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. ³ (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, ⁴ and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.  And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.  ⁵ And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? ⁶ And he said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; ⁷ in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

⁸ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

⁹ And he said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! ¹⁰ For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother; and, Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. ¹¹ But you say, If a man tells his father or his mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban  ¹² then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, ¹³ thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.

What Defiles a Person?

¹⁴ And he called the people to him again and said to them, Hear me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.  ¹⁷ And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. ¹⁸ And he said to them, Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, ¹⁹ since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?  ²⁰ And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him. ²¹ For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, ²² coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

Editor;s Notes: So many read these verses and miss the teaching Jesus was trying to get them to understand. Everything begins with the “HEART” in a man. What is in a man’s heart is the main core of man’s emotions. Not emotions don’t come from your brain. The Scriptures are very clear. There is a mystery science is just now understanding. The heart operates like a brain. It can think and process information. All the heart transplants have brought too much evidence for science to ignore. Out desires, or emotions cause our brain to triger our body to respond to what we want to do. Verse 21 is a grand slam home run, that explains this but man is slow to understand. Go back to John chapter 3 and learn what being Born Again really is. The Father wants to give a new believer a new heart transplant. By the “Fire” of the Almighty Father and the living “Water” from Jesus both the Father and Jesus are to be dwelling within our hearts. But we need refreshing every morning or out oil will run out! Jesus gave us the example to follow, we must ask for our daily bread and the fresh anointing will carry us through the day.