For instance, God says, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.' But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, 'Sorry, I can't help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.' Matthew 15:4-5
In my previous apartment, my dishwasher did not work very well. I continually took out dirty cups and bowls that on the outside looked clean, but inside were dirty. It was very, very frustrating. After all, hand washing all of my dirty dishes was not on my list of fun things to do. Months and months dealing with my faulty dishwasher taught me a valuable lesson: something can look great on the outside, but if it's inside is dirty, its outward cleanliness does not have much value to me.
In Matthew 15, different Jewish religious leaders approached Jesus. They approached Him, asking why His disciples did not wash their hands before they ate. Now, to us, this would be a hygiene issue, but to the Jewish religious leaders, it was much more than an issue of hygiene. You see, they had a tradition that they went through before every meal, where they ceremoniously washed their hands as a symbol of inward and outward purity. They looked on Jesus' disciples with judgment because they did not wash their hands ceremoniously. In response to the Jewish religious leaders' question, Jesus asked them, "And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commands of God? For instance, God says, "'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.' But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, 'Sorry, I can't help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.' In this way, you say they don't need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition" (Matthew 15:3-6).
By asking this, Jesus was challenging the religious leaders. He called them out because instead of helping their parents financially in their old age, many of them were finding a way out of helping their parents. They told them that the money set aside to assist them, their aging parents, was now set aside for God instead. Jesus was calling the religious leaders out for hypocrisy. On the outside, they looked great, but inwardly their hearts were dirty, much like the dishes I unloaded from my dishwasher.
As we talk about the call in Scripture to honor our parents, we must acknowledge that above anything else, it's a posture of the heart. If we outwardly do things to honor our parents but are bitter and frustrated inwardly, God is not pleased with our actions. He is infinitely more concerned with our hearts, the motivations behind our actions.
Take a journal or notebook and, for a few moments, evaluate your heart. When you think about God's call to honor your parents, what is the motivation behind why you honor them? Do you do it because you feel you have to, or do you honor them because you love them and want to honor God by honoring them? As you journal this evaluation of your heart, be honest with God and yourself. Then, ask God to work in your heart so that you honor Him with both your attitude and actions.
Read Matthew 15:1-20 (NLT)
Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”
Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”
Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.”
Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?”
Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”
Then Peter said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.”
“Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked. “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”
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