Bible Discussion Thread

Matt.15:10-21 What defiles a man?

"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition."(v.6)

Traditions are what man makes of God's commandment. It is to which Jesus alluded in vv.3-6. Pharisees as separated ones were creating their narrative, which drew Jesus to call them hypocritical. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess./Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also."(23:25-26)

In these chapters while the Evangelist delineate the doctrine of God as doable he is also creating a subtext on the detractors of Jesus whose opposition stemmed from their avowed position as the moral custodians of the nation of Israel.

"For they wash not their hands when they eat bread" ThePharisees were offended at the table manners of his disciples and that was leveled as a veiled criticism to their master. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin."( John 15:22) As in the case of Herod his presence filled his uneasy conscience to connect him with John whom he had murdered the very presence as sent from his Father pricked their conscience. St Matthew develops it and brings to its climax where we have his 'Woe unto you' discourse. in Ch.23, It is as pivotal as his Sermon on the Mount to the development of his gospel.

vv.18-21

"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man./ For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:/These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man." At the most man by flouting the norms of hygeine may suffer bouts of indigestion but culture wars from a defiled heart splits a nation beyond remedy.