From Lip to Heart
Google Images “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” never seemed to apply to the religious leaders of the Lord’s day. When they pushed Him, He pushed back. In Matthew 15, some Pharisees and teachers of the law criticized Jesus for allowing his disciples to eat without washing their hands. It wasn’t that the Public Health Department would be after their hides if they didn’t (unless they were serving the food they were handling to other people). The religious leaders had a rule, a tradition, that hands should be washed. Good precaution but hardly a hanging offense! Jesus pushed back, reminding them that they regularly broke their own rules and taught others where to find the loopholes so that they could break those same rules when it was convenient. Then came these fateful words: “ You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules ’” (15:7-9)....