MARK 7:16-23

[R E LANGFORD JR]

Greetings in our Risen Savior Jesus!

 

This is the bible study done this Friday of
Easter Week, 13 APR 2012. My promise
is kept. Rejoice for CHRIST IS RISEN!
--

joegabe11:	*MSG* Dear Lord,
joegabe11:	*MSG* We come to you to ask you to bless this
joegabe11:	*MSG* study and inspire our teacher with words
joegabe11:	*MSG* to teach us and glorify your name. It is
joegabe11:	*MSG* of benifit for us to learn your word. We ask
joegabe11:	*MSG* that you hold up in prayer these following
joegabe11:	*MSG* people as they need your special care. Luna
joegabe11:	*MSG* who is still in the hospital, zeke and kricket
joegabe11:	*MSG* as we never heart from them and also PK father
joegabe11:	*MSG* as he is still on oxygen. You are a kind and
joegabe11:	*MSG* loving god so you will protect them all. We ask
joegabe11:	*MSG* all this in the name of your son Jesus
joegabe11:	*MSG* Amen
1revd:	*MSG* AMEN!
joegabe11:	*MSG* ame
joegabe11:	*MSG* amen
1revd:	*MSG* Joegabe11, would you please post MARK 7:16-23?
joegabe11:	*MSG* English Standard Version (ESV)
joegabe11:	*MSG*
joegabe11:	*MSG* 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, ???Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled????[a] ( Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ???What comes out of
joegabe11:	*MSG* a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.???
1revd:	*MSG* We continue to note that a "???" mark stands for a quotation mark, yes?
joegabe11:	*MSG* yes
1revd:	*MSG* grand
1revd:	*MSG* BTW, did anyone give some thought to why someone who claimed to adhere to the Law of Moses might stumble into the error noted by Jesus in Mark's vv.13 of chapter 7? [13 You make the word of God useless by putting your own teachings in its place. And you do many things like that." A comment by Jesus, NIRV.]
1revd:	*MSG* no one, it seems
1revd:	*MSG* The whole matter of "corban" is well documented in NUMBERS 30:1-2 "1 Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of Israel. He said, 'Here is what the Lord commands. 2 Suppose a man makes a special promise to the Lord. Or suppose he takes an oath and agrees to do something. Then he must keep his promise. He must do everything he said he would do.'" What's wrong with keeping a vow or promise or oath?
1revd:	*MSG* What had been happening is what Jesus detailed in the prior verses of Mark's tale (Ch.7, vv.9-12). The scribes (teachers of the law of Moses) rightly appeal to the text of NUMBERS 30, quoted above. What Jesus highlights and specifically rejects is their practice of using one portion of the law of Moses to abrogate or set aside another portion of the same law of Moses. IMO, Jesus is making it clear that the whole law stands AS A UNIT. When Jesus attacks those who interpret the law of Moses in this way, he is confronting some key figures in the temple government as well as the party of the Pharisees.
1revd:	*MSG* I put it to you that when our LORD God gave Moses the law, he never gave it with the intent that obedience to one command would set aside the expectation of obedience to some other word from him. In essence, breaking one part of the law of Moses is the same as breaking every element in it, because it shows disrespect for the GIVER of the law to Moses.
1revd:	*MSG* [Sorry to intrude that backward glance into our conversation today. It was called to my attention that I'd not spelled it out thoroughly for those who share an interest in MARK.]
1revd:	*MSG* Any problems; any questions?
joegabe11:	*MSG* thats ok
joegabe11:	*MSG* no
joegabe11:	*MSG* lol
1revd:	*MSG* good
1revd:	*MSG* I believe I've already noted that the earliest manuscript versions of Mark's tale omit, or rather do not have, verse 16: "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear." I had asked if anyone thinks Jesus' verdict would be different if this clause were inserted, or OTOH, not there, yes?
1revd:	*MSG* :)
1revd:	*MSG* Perhaps we ought go verse by verse, as we have in the past?
joegabe11:	*MSG* yes
1revd:	*MSG* OK
1revd:	*MSG* "17 Then he left the crowd and entered the house. His disciples asked him about this teaching." [NIRV] Ah ha! Back in Capernaum, and the Twelve are exhibiting their typical dense as a door-post behavior. It implies that some in the crowd caught on to what Jesus was doing immediately. This is a typical "ploy" of story-teller Mark: the Twelve seem to lack common sense wits, and they are slow to believe what Jesus teaches.
1revd:	*MSG* [ASIDE: It makes me realize that I would feel quite at home among the Twelve as Mark portrays them! It likewise opens up a thought. Perhaps the situation was so much a "tinder-box" ready to explode, that Jesus could not be so plain spoken in public. Only in the privacy of his house could he say among putative friends what was the truth. This tends to mitigate a little bit against a view that sees the Twelve as dunderheads like myself. ASIDE ENDS]
1revd:	*MSG* Any problems; any questions?
joegabe11:	*MSG* no
1revd:	*MSG* grand
1revd:	*MSG* "18 "Don't you understand?" Jesus asked. "Don't you see? Nothing that enters people from the outside can make them 'unclean.'" [NIRV] Jesus reiterates and unfolds quite bluntly what he had said to the crowd. That's a "double whammy" of criticism for the Twelve, IMO.
1revd:	*MSG* "19 It doesn't go into the heart. It goes into the stomach. Then it goes out of the body." In saying this, Jesus was calling all foods "clean."" [NIRV] Here is the core of the intent, as I've suggested earlier, of the law of Moses. Notice that Jesus is at least as much a physician as the average priest of his day. He knew the alimentary canal, and he knows the heart is not a part of that system.
1revd:	*MSG* It's worth knowing that, in his era, folks thought the "will" resided in the kidneys, the "working" of the body was the responsibility of the head or brain, but the thinking that led to action (good or evil) arose in the core of a person, in his or her heart. Some folks will tell you that this is what we mean today by the term "emotions."
1revd:	*MSG* I don't buy that suggestion for several reasons, primary of which is that how we feel, or our emotions, are so nuanced by what we had for breakfast. Is there a surplus of sugar or alcohol in our bloodstream, and, for that matter, we know that the hormones and other chemicals in our blood are a powerful influence or even a control over our emotions or feelings. So I do not think we can reduce Jesus' teaching to some kind of spiritual emotionalism. Clearly it is not about "private religious experiences" when his teaching so bluntly attacks basic teachings.
1revd:	*MSG* Over the long Maundy Thursday to Easter Tuesday 'weekend,' we had occasion to visit with some of our grandchildren. They got chocolate rabbits and other candies in their Easter baskets, along with colored eggs. The children who got into the sugar laden treats were simply noisy, wild, and running about for about an hour. They were 'overstimulated' in their emotions; all this was because of what was in their blood streams.
1revd:	*MSG* It's worth noting that Mark, as a story-teller, performs an admirable service for folks like me. Just in case us gentile types might misunderstand the point Jesus is making, Mark says, bluntly: "In saying this, Jesus was calling all foods clean." This is another piece of evidence that Mark's audience of listeners had to have included some gentiles, maybe even some Romans.
1revd:	*MSG* Pouncycat, may the Lord keep her, wrote to me her conviction that there were Romans in Mark's audience. She bought into one interpretive thread that puts Mark as a kind of secretary or note taker for Peter. I'm not so sure of that fact, but I do think there may have been Romans in Mark's varied audiences . . . before he wrote his gospel tale.
1revd:	*MSG* In case you still miss the point, let me remind you that our Gracious God in establishing the kosher rules for the Jewish people was not inventing a spiritual supremacy code of diets. The dietary "laws" were given specifically to make the Jewish people into a single nation of those who were set aside, devoted to the Lord. Other people may have had dietary preferences, but the kosher rules aid a Jewish person in remembering their distinct, unique, special place in God's "heart" as a people he considers his own, for a special purpose: to bring God's light on daily living to the whole world.
1revd:	*MSG* Though some have proposed it, this is not a distinction between the Noahaic code, said to apply to all living humans, and the Mosaic code specifically applying to Jewish persons. In fact, I know Jewish rabbis and lay folk, who are persons who acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Messiah, who yet keep kosher. I put it to you that they rightly understand what Jesus is doing here in this statement/ verdict.
1revd:	*MSG* Remember that previous to the Great Flood it was considered wrong to eat the flesh of any animal, not just wrong to eat human flesh, but the flesh of any animal. It seems that all the humans up to the time of the Great Flood must have been strict "vegans."
1revd:	*MSG* Our son, who used to have high blood pressure and be overweight and prone to "pre-diabetes" was urged by his friends to try a strictly "vegan" diet. He has done so.
1revd:	*MSG* We are amazed!
1revd:	*MSG* No more high blood pressure. He is not overweight, and his doc doesn't consider him "pre-diabetic" any longer. OTOH, when my wife visits his family, she says that the lack of eggs, milk, cheese, fish, poultry, or animal meats is a tad wearing. She got very tired of lentils, rice, beans, cooked with fruits and veggies. He looks very healthy, however, she reports.
1revd:	*MSG* I do not know that I could give up the many different tastes I grew up with, just to become healthier. A "vegan" diet does not guarantee we could live, like Methuselah, to 969 years!
1revd:	*MSG* Any problems; questions; doubts?
joegabe11:	*MSG* no
1revd:	*MSG* OK
1revd:	*MSG* "21 Evil thoughts come from the inside, from people's hearts. So do sexual sins, stealing and murder. Adultery, 22 greed, hate and cheating come from people's hearts too. So do desires that are not pure, and wanting what belongs to others. And so do telling lies about others and being proud and being foolish. 23 All those evil things come from inside a person. They make him 'unclean.'" [NIRV]
1revd:	*MSG* Some recent scholars argue that because this sort of statement or list can be found in ROMANS and other epistles that therefore it is a composition of the earliest Christian communities. Now, get this: THEREFORE this list is not something Jesus said. So, as I read it at my local public library, because Saint Paul and other early writers have similar lists or statements, some modern scholars say that in their modern opinion Jesus did not say such things.
1revd:	*MSG* Pardon me for being simple-minded, if you will, I just don't buy it. Can you claim that your idea of what Jesus was like and typically said can over rule and supplant what Mark in his Gospel tale says Jesus is like and typically says? I am not able so to do. I just do not buy into their argument / opinion.
1revd:	*MSG* One significant feature of this list that suggests to me that whoever said it first was well acquainted with the second great commandment. Sadly, my comment is anachronistic since it comes from chapter 12, and I do apologize for taking it out of context. MARK 12:31 [Douay, etc.] "And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these." where Jesus is quoting from LEVITICUS 19:18.
1revd:	*MSG* Notice? Not a single item of Jesus' list is missing or omitted from what a Lutheran would tend to call the second table of the law.
1revd:	*MSG* That's a tad idiosyncratic, perhaps?
joegabe11:	*MSG* just a little
joegabe11:	*MSG* lol
1revd:	*MSG* Well, OK. Here's what I'm promoting. All the TEN COMMANDS are words of the Lord, and all are our duty to him. Remember, however, that he gave them to our Jewish ancestors in the faith . . . because they asked him @ Mt. Sinai what would make for more peaceful, prosperous living. Even so, Lutherans tend to lump Commandments 1 (No other Gods...) through 3 (Keeping the sabbath...) as our duty to God. We tend to lump Commandments 4 (Honoring father and mother...) through 10 (Not coveting...) as our duty to our neighbors. It's a catechetical device, a propaedeutic exercise. So the list or statement of Jesus is far, far earlier than similar lists in ROMANS. Anybody who has read the Tanakh can see implicit in it the same list, perhaps slightly rearranged.
1revd:	*MSG* That was a long comment; it surely would have "flooded" cookieart out of the room. To be frank about it, such things are all that can come out of the heart (core) of sinful humans, for that is what I read the scripture to mean when it says that the IMAGO DEI in us is corrupted and foul as a result of sin. That discussion really will take us way off-topic!
1revd:	*MSG* This was all I wrote back on 24 JNE 2011. It will have to do for today. Will you lead us in prayer to close the bible study, joegabe11? Please.
joegabe11:	*MSG* ok
joegabe11:	*MSG* Dear Lord
joegabe11:	*MSG* You have been good to us and we thank you for the wonderous gifts you have given us
joegabe11:	*MSG* we need to repay you for what you do for us
joegabe11:	*MSG* and the only way we can do that
joegabe11:	*MSG* is to proclaim your name and become a decuiple for you.
joegabe11:	*MSG* Teach us how oh lord
joegabe11:	*MSG* We ask this in your name
joegabe11:	*MSG* Amen

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Many blessings, dear readers, on you
and yours in this joyous Easter Season
as we walk together hearing MARK read
aloud into our ears. May hearing the Good
News inspire trust and confidence in your hearts as we remind one another CHRIST
IS RISEN!

 
The Rev'd R E LANGFORD JR, FAPC, ELCA pastor  ! retired !
       39.58°N by 75.98°W

My clarity of conscience and my purity of heart are undisputed

evidence that my memory is failing me.        

`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸..·´¯`·...¸ ><(((((º> `·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸><((º> `·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.· ><((º>