{"id":9586,"date":"2022-10-19T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=9586"},"modified":"2022-10-20T23:44:15","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T13:44:15","slug":"the-problem-with-humanistic-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2022\/10\/19\/the-problem-with-humanistic-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem with Humanistic Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew 15:1-9\u00a01<\/sup>Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying, 2<\/sup>\u201cWhy do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.\u201d 3<\/sup>And he answered them, \u201cAnd why do you break the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4<\/sup>For God said, \u2018Honor your father and your mother,\u2019 and, \u2018Whoever insults father or mother must be put to death.\u2019 5<\/sup>But you say, \u2018If anyone tells his father or his mother, \u201cWhatever you would have benefited from me is a gift,\u201d 6<\/sup>he is not honoring his father.\u2019 And you void the word of God for the sake of your tradition.\u00a0<\/em>7<\/sup>You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesy correctly about you, saying,\u00a08<\/sup>\u201c\u2018This people honors me with their lips,\u00a0but their heart is far from me;\u00a09<\/sup>and in vain they worship me,\u00a0teaching as doctrines the commandments of people.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

After the high points of chapter 14, Matthew’s account takes a significant downturn in chapter 15. The Pharisees and scribes have been in the background for a while but now take center stage with their revealing question. They made a special trip from Jerusalem and came to Jesus with a complaint about his disciples. \u00a0In complaining about the disciples, they were also complaining about their Master. Word about Jesus had reached the capital. The Galilean preacher was starting to make a national stir.<\/p>\n

They were more concerned about\u00a0the tradition of the elders<\/em> than the emerging kingdom of God. They could not get past their humanistic interpretations to see the power of the Messiah at work in people’s lives. Humanism can show up in many forms. Even cherished and long time church traditions can cloud our view of Jesus. These Jewish religious leaders were more concerned about how people washed their hands than washed their souls in repentance and faith.<\/p>\n

Jesus points out their fault by quoting Scripture which trumps tradition. Always go back to the Bible as our source, not tradition. He focuses in on how people treat their parents. Family was central to Jewish life. The traditions that were important to the scribes and Pharisees developed over concern for keeping the law. Their intent started off well, but they focused in on minor issues that soon clouded their vision of the most important issues of obedience to God’s word. These Jewish leaders thought they were honoring God’s laws but had become caught up in trivial matters of ceremonies. They had a selective hermeneutic that put tradition on the level of Scripture.<\/p>\n

Jesus points out how the Jewish leaders themselves had broken the law. His quotation of Scripture begins with the important reminder that God has spoken through Scripture, and thus, the commands must be obeyed. Jesus focuses in on the command to honor one’s parents (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16),\u00a0and that this is so important, a person could be put to death for dishonoring them (Exodus 21:17; Leveticus 20:9).<\/p>\n

In verse 5, Jesus compares God’s command to the words of the Pharisees and scribes. The words of God are contrasted with their humanistic teachings. The Jewish leaders taught that a person could take the money saved for their parents in old age and devote it to God. Such a child basically dishonors his parents by making a show of giving to God\u00a0whatever support their parents needed. At first, this might seem to be a sign of sincere religious piety, but deep down, it revealed a selfish and legalistic attitude. Jesus saw through their empty rituals and how they failed to love their parents. By doing this, they also voided God’s word.<\/p>\n

For older posts, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Matthew 15:1-9\u00a01Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying, 2\u201cWhy do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.\u201d 3And he answered them, \u201cAnd why do you break the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4For God said, \u2018Honor your father […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9606,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9586\/revisions\/9606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}