Chapter # 7 Paragraph # 1 Study # 2
April 12, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: Majoring on the minors is a key element of the "leaven" principle of "the Jews".
Introduction: In our introductory study of this extended paragraph, we saw that Mark has turned his attention the second major danger to the disciples of Jesus. We saw it as a "goading" mechanism that compelled the Pharisees and some of the scribes to come from Jerusalem to Jesus. The identification of their origin in Jerusalem is, as in
3:22, a statement that the issues involved represent the "position" of "official Judaism" as it was first identified in
3:22 --- Jesus is "officially" identified as an emissary of Satan. As a "goading" mechanism, the explosion of Jesus' popularity occasioned by His extensive, and indiscriminate, healings in Gennesaret was intolerable for those who derived the very essence of the way they looked at "life" from "popularity". Any competitor for the esteem of the people was to be attacked and destroyed in the eyes of the people.
In our study this evening we are going to look into Mark's choice of the way to expose the "point of attack" decided upon by these detractors of Jesus.
- I. The Underlying Principles Of The Attack By Jerusalem.
- A. The authority of "God-given" Scripture.
- 1. Exodus 30:19-21 requires "washing of hands and feet" prior to priestly service.
- 2. Leviticus 15:11 requires "washing of the hands" whenever a person touches an unclean object, and if he/she fails to do this, they must go further and wash both their clothes and their bodies and be unclean until evening.
- B. The authority of God-given leadership in the "interpretation" of Scripture.
- 1. Matthew 23:1-3 requires submission to those who have seated themselves in the chair of Moses.
- 2. The "traditions of the elders" are supposed to be the derived from the wisdom God gives to those who are to lead the people of God (Paul even called for this in 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15) and 3:6, 14 where excommunication is enjoined on the basis of unfaithfulness to the "traditions".
- C. The principle of "responsibility".
- 1. Jesus, Himself, taught that "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much" (Luke 16:10 and 19:17).
- 2. Even the criticism of Jesus in this paragraph is rooted in the fact that "disciples" are responsible for following the instructions of their teacher, and that means the teacher is liable to be criticized on the basis of the behavior of the disciples.
- II. Mark's Choice To Focus Upon Washing One's Hands.
- A. It is a deliberate focus upon external cleanliness.
- B. It is a deliberate shift away from Jesus' "Sabbath violations"; a shift from the large "critical" issue to a far lesser, yet still "critical", issue.
- 1. The issue of "moral fault" when it is tied to an "amoral" reality.
- a. According to the New Testament, observance of "a day" is, at root, an "amoral" matter (Romans 14:5-6), and our present text makes "physical cleanliness" an "amoral" matter.
- b. Nothing that is essentially "moral" can be declared "amoral".
- c. The creation of a "moral" imperative in regard to an "amoral" issue is what turns the "amoral" issue into a "moral" one: it is the command/obedience/disobedience reality that makes the difference: once God has commanded, "morality" is involved.
- 2. Both of the commands ("observe the Sabbath" and "wash away the impurity") are the creation of "moral realities" out of "amoral realities".
- C. It is a revelation of a serious breakdown of understanding regarding the significant link between "motive" and "action".
- D. This breakdown is a violation of a principle that can result in eternal Life or eternal condemnation: it is that important.
- III. Mark's Actual Focus In Words.
- A. He creates a "focus" by the brief "explanation" of "impure".
- 1. The word translated "impure" is a word that is used with both a negative connotation (as in this text/context) and a positive connotation (as in Acts 2:44 where "having all things in common" is an exceedingly good thing): the word's essential meaning is "common" in the sense of "no special assignment of identity or ownership".
- 2. "Common hands" could, then, mean "hands that have no special identity in respect to what they are used to accomplish" so that in this text, they are "hands" that are not "set apart unto God for the performance of His will".
- a. This is the essence of the "criticism" made by the Pharisees and some of the scribes: "some of Jesus' disciples are showing a lack of commitment to God by their carelessness in eating their food without first washing their hands".
- b. This is the actual point Mark wished to make so that he inserted his "explanation" of what he meant: "unwashed".
- B. He reinforces his "focus" by inserting the word translated "carefully".
- 1. Mark is the only New Testament writer to use this word, and commentators claim that his use is "problematical" because of the way it is used.
- 2. The word is actually a noun in one of the LID cases that is turned by the translators into an adverb.
- a. The noun means "a fist".
- b. The LID cases are cases of words that are all spelled exactly the same way but can be used in three different ways: "L" is "locational" as "in a place"; "I" is "instrumental" as "by means of an instrument" such as "he hit the man 'with a bat'"; and "D" is "dative" as indicating "a less precise relationship" because there are several ideas associated with a "dative".
- c. In this case, the translators assign an "instrumental" meaning and turn the word into an adverb ("carefully") when it literally means something related to a fist.
- d. The "problem" is that some think that Mark meant "the fist" as opposed to "the wrist" or "the part of the arm from fingers to elbow".
- e. That Mark was creating a "focus" indicates that he meant that the disciples had not used their fists to scrub their hands.
- 3. Mark's point is that he wanted his readers to think of the disciples as being careless of the cleanliness of their hands and of the Pharisees as being "hyper-critical" about "making sure one's hands were clean enough to be used by God for the process of eating food".
- C. He further emphasizes his focus by using the word translated "observing" in respect to the traditions of the elders.
- 1. The word translated "observing" is used 46 times in the New Testament and is translated "observe" once.
- a. The singular choice of "observe" out of 46 uses is a dead give-away that the translators probably do not recognize the significance of the word in its context.
- b. This word typically means "to organize what is available to seek the accomplishment of a task": it means "to do the best you can to do what is set before you to do".
- 2. Mark's use means that the disciples were being criticized because they were not "trying hard enough to follow the traditions of the elders".
- a. It means that the disciples either had not even applied any water to their hands before they ate, or they didn't scrub their hands under flowing water.
- b. Mark's point is that the disciples didn't have much respect for the traditions the elders had imposed upon the nation, and that meant to the Pharisees that they were "an ungodly sort" of persons.
- IV. Mark's Characterization Of The Pharisees And The Scribes.
- A. He intends his readers to get the impression that these "official representatives" are simply obsessed with finding fault because they wish to make Jesus out to be a man who is insufficiently interested in making "disciples" who act in "godly" ways.
- B. If we come away thinking that these "officials" are nothing more than jealous "nit-pickers", Mark will have accomplished his goal.
