The King meets further opposition from leaders
15
📚Then scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 📚“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread”.15:2 The traditions of the elders were interpretations of the law of Moses and rules governing daily life drawn up by Jewish teachers. They had been passed on generation after generation. These religious leaders considered that people became ceremonially defiled by the common activities of daily life and needed to wash to remove this defilement. They were not concerned with any physical dirtiness of the disciples. They made washing a religious ceremony (Mark 7:2-4).⚜
3 📚But he answered and said to them, “And why do you break the commandment of God by following your tradition?
15:3 Jesus was not concerned with the traditions of the elders. The commands of God were the important thing to Him. These religious leaders devised ways to get around God's plain commands, while insisting on their own traditions. Observe that Jesus is teaching the divine inspiration of the law. The commands which came through Moses were God's commands.⚜
4 📚For God commanded, saying, ‘Honour your father and mother’, and, ‘He who curses father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 📚But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or his mother, “Whatever of mine might have been useful to you is an offering to God”, 6 📚and does not honour his father or his mother, it is all right.’ In this way, by your tradition, you have made the commandment of God to be no longer in effect.
15:5-6 In other words, in the name of God, and pretending it was for God's sake, they broke God's commands. This is another example of man's fallen deceitful nature perverting God's ways.⚜
7 📚You hypocrites! 📖 Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying,
8 📚This people draw near me
with their mouth,
and honour me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me.
9 📚But they worship me in vain,
teaching as doctrines
the commandments of men”.
15:8-9 Isa 29:13. Most men prefer to follow men's rules rather than obey God's Word, but many of them would like to be considered on God's side. There is a great deal of such “vain” worship on earth.⚜
10 📚And he called the crowd and said to them, “Listen and understand. 11 📚What defiles a man is not what goes into the mouth. But what comes out of the mouth, this is what defiles a man”.
15:11 His meaning is that real “uncleanness” is not physical but moral. It is not related to foods and washings, but to the heart and mind and spirit (vs 17-20). What use is it if we try to be “ceremonially” clean by washing the outside, and leave the inner person, the heart, full of wickedness? See Matt 23:25-28. We need to be clean on the inside. See Matt 5:8; Heb 9:14; 1 Pet 1:22; 1 John 1:9.⚜
12 📚Then his disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?”
13 📚But he answered and said, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted, will be rooted up.
15:13 God both plants and uproots plants. See Matt 13:24-30; Isa 60:21; 61:3; Jer 1:9-10. Who besides God does any planting? – see Matt 13:39.⚜
14 📚Let them alone. They are blind leaders 📖 of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch”.
15 📚Then answered Peter and said to him, “Explain this parable to us”.
The King teaches what makes people unclean
16 📚And Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 📚Do you still not understand that whatever goes in the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? 18 📚But the things which come out of the mouth come from the heart. And they defile the man. 19 📚For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immorality, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
20 📚These are the things which defile a man. But eating with unwashed hands does not defile a man”.
The King heals a Canaanite woman's daughter
21 📚Then Jesus left there and went into the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 📚And, suddenly, out came a Canaanite woman from that region and cried out to him, saying, “O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is terribly demon-possessed”.
23 📚But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us”.
15:23 Jesus was not lacking in love and compassion for people other than Jews. That is not why He remained silent here. Compare His own words at Matt 28:19; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-47; John 3:16. But before He was ready to send His gospel throughout the world He had a work to do in Israel, and God sent Him specifically to do that work (v 24). Compare Matt 10:5-6. As for this woman, it appears that He was testing her faith to bring out its strength and beauty, and from the beginning He planned to help her (it is likely that He went there with that very purpose in mind). The disciples were more concerned with themselves than with the need of this woman.⚜
24 📚But he answered and said, “I was not sent to anyone except the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.
25 📚Then she came and worshipped him, saying, “Lord, help me”.
26 📚But he answered and said, “It is not right to take the children's 📖 bread, and throw it to the dogs”.
27 📚And she said, “True, Lord! Yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table”.
15:27 The woman understood in some measure that the Jews were God's chosen nation, and that she was an outsider without any covenant relationship with God or claim on His mercy (compare Eph 2:12). And wisely and humbly she used this for her advantage. And she knew that a crumb from the Lord Jesus would be greater than a whole loaf from anyone else.⚜
28 📚Then Jesus answered and said to her, “Woman, your faith is great! It will be to you just as you wish”. And from that hour her daughter was healed.
15:28 She showed the greatness of her faith by her persistence. She would not be stopped by silence (v 23), rejection by the disciples (v 23), teaching that seemed to exclude her (v 24), or any temptation to pride (v 26). She fully believed that Jesus could and would help her, and she determined to go on asking until He did. Compare Luke 11:5-10; 18:1-8. Let us observe how important faith is to Jesus, how He commends it and rewards it (Matt 8:10; 9:22, 29; 17:20; 21:21-22. See Heb 11:6).⚜
The King feeds four thousand
29 📚And Jesus left there, came near the lake of Galilee, and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. 30 📚And great crowds came to him. With them were the lame, blind, mute, crippled, and many others. And they put them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them, 31 📚so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.
15:31 See Matt 9:8. The God of Israel is the only God there is (Deut 6:4; Isa 43:10-11; 44:6, 8; 45:5, 18). And one great purpose for Christ's activity was to bring praise to Him (compare Rom 15:8-9).⚜
32 📚Then Jesus called his disciples and said, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have stayed with me now for three days, and have nothing to eat. I am not willing to send them away without eating, for they may faint on the way”.
33 📚And his disciples said to him, “Where would we get enough bread in this wilderness to satisfy such a large crowd?”
15:33 They speak as though the event of Matt 14:15-21 had never happened. Did they think that was an event never to be repeated? Sometimes the dullness and smallness of faith in the disciples seems amazing – until we become aware of our own.⚜
34 📚And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven, and a few small fish”.
35 📚And he commanded the crowd to sit on the ground. 36 📚And he took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowd. 37 📚And they all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
15:37 When we give what we have to the Lord Jesus, our seven “loaves” may feed a multitude and mean seven times more coming back to us than we gave. See Luke 6:38.⚜
38 And those eating were four thousand men, besides women and children.
15:38 Magadan was a town on the west shore of the lake of Galilee.⚜
39 📚And he sent the crowd away, and got into the boat, and came to the region of Magdala.