It was my first summer working at summer camp. I had taken on a new role that was created after I asked the director how they ensured follow-up happened for every commitment to follow Jesus. I wondered if I could succeed and worried I might mess up. I worried what others might think.
“You’re not that big of a deal!”
The director caught my attention.
“Huh? Ok, I didn’t think I was, but what do you mean?” I asked.
How long do you beat yourself up and feel bad, humiliated, or discouraged when you say something embarrassing, make a mistake, or mess up some other way? The world moves on; everyone forgets within minutes, yet you keep ruminating over it for hours.
Remembering that “you’re not that big of a deal” adds perspective, enabling people to learn and move on. I have never forgotten this lesson, and it has helped me move on from plenty of embarrassing situations. You see, how you view yourself makes a huge difference in how you navigate life. This is true not only socially but spiritually as well.
After pastoring for years and continuing my studies, both personally and academically, I came across a related concept that has revolutionized how I see myself and the Bible even more, and it is found in the paradigm Jesus teaches in this week’s lesson. Paradigms change the way we view the world. This one shows us how people deceive themselves and how to avoid letting this happen to us.
Inside Out
In Mark 7:1–23, the Pharisees are at it again—finding fault with Jesus and His disciples (v.2). Surely they should have known better than to eat bread with unwashed hands! Any germaphobe could relate, yet this is a time before germs have been discovered. Instead, unwashed hands are regarded as defiled. This defilement seems to carry a spiritual connotation. So the Pharisees ask Jesus why His disciples are not heeding this tradition (v.5). Jesus’ response illustrates that the Pharisees are deceiving themselves. Quoting Isaiah 29:13, He points out that their distant, disconnected hearts have produced a dynamic where, while claiming to be religious leaders, they worship God in vain. How can this be? They have elevated human traditions, such as washing pitchers, cups, and hands while laying aside God’s commandments (v.6–9). They still worship God, but it is in vain because their focus on these traditions occurs in a relational void without God. Is it wrong to do good things like washing hands? Not at all, but Jesus is addressing their inconsistency. They have things inside out. Elevating their rules, they have diminished God and His law to where they have no effect (v.13).
Jesus then gathered the crowd to turn this situation into a teaching moment. What He now says shocks many. “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man” (v.15).
Consider this two-part statement. In the first part, Jesus says “nothing” entering can defile. What does He mean here? Can humans not become defiled by what they eat, see, touch, or hear? Is Jesus only talking about food here? The second part of verse 15 tells us that what defiles comes from within. What does this mean? The disciples wondered, too, so Jesus explains in verses 19–23. First, Jesus says it (food) does not enter the heart (v.19a). So immediately, we see that for Jesus, defilement concerns the heart. He then lists the many evils that come from within the heart and cause defilement.
The point is not that doing the right things can save us but that having a close relationship with God is what saves us.
Jesus effectively teaches that the heart is not naturally a sterile, healthy environment. Outside things do not defile a man because defilement originates within. In other words, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, it was not the fruit itself that was evil, causing defilement, but the internal choice to distrust and disobey God. For Eve, the forbidden fruit was attractive because of a combination of curiosity, deception, and doubting the goodness of God. Did Lucifer only become defiled when he chose to usurp God, or was it the distancing of his heart from God, doubting His goodness, that defiled him? Since the fall of Adam and Eve, the allure to do wrong does not just require curiosity and deception. It also comes naturally from within (James 1:14-15; Jer. 17:9).
So, in Mark 7, Jesus differentiates between two perceptions of reality.
- The Pharisees believe they are ok but could become defiled by what they do or let in.
- Jesus affirms that the heart is the source of evil and that “what comes out of a man” defiles.
Understanding this well makes a world of difference. The better off and more capable we think our condition is, the less we will sense a need for outside help. We might think we can do what it takes. Conversely, the more poorly we regard our condition, the more we see our need for salvation. In other words, if I think I can get 49 percent of the way to heaven on my own, do I need Jesus to help with more than 51 percent? The extent to which I think I have everything under control is inversely proportionate to how much I will allow God to help.
When Jesus points out that what comes out of the heart defiles, and when Isaiah says that distant hearts worship in vain (Isa. 29:13), the point is not that doing the right things can save us but that having a close relationship with God is what saves us. The point isn’t to make everyone depressed at how bad and imperfect they are but to recognize that the solution cannot come from within.
Ellen White put it this way:
Perfection through our own good works we can never attain. The soul who sees Jesus by faith, repudiates his own righteousness. He sees himself as incomplete, his repentance insufficient, his strongest faith but feebleness, his most costly sacrifice as meager, and he sinks in humility at the foot of the cross. But a voice speaks to him from the oracles of God’s Word. In amazement he hears the message, “Ye are complete in Him.” Now all is at rest in his soul. No longer must he strive to find some worthiness in himself, some meritorious deed by which to gain the favor of God.[1]
In this regard, the legalistic Pharisees hold something in common with the more progressive Sadducees. They think too well of themselves, and so both are opposed to Jesus. Their focus on what is outside, whether the government (Rome), unconverted (Gentiles), or the horror of breaking from tradition, had all replaced the need for a Messiah to transform and renew what was inside. So it should be no surprise that Mark records the next chapter with the Pharisees in conflict with Jesus again. This time, they come “seeking from Him a sign from heaven” (Mark 8:11).
Signs and wonders do not convert skeptical, self-reliant hearts. So Jesus declines to do anything for them and leaves with the disciples by boat (vv.12–13). What is interesting, however, is what happens on the boat. Four thousand people have just recently been fed (Mark 8:1–10), and despite seven large baskets of leftovers (v.8), the disciples ironically find themselves with no more than a single loaf of bread on board the boat (v.14). Jesus is still thinking of His encounter with the Pharisees and tells the disciples to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (v.15). This causes them to reason that Jesus said this because they forgot to bring bread (v.15)! Jesus reminds them how he fed the five thousand, and then the four thousand (v.17–20). The last thing they need to be concerned about is food! Mark leaves this story incomplete so the reader can ponder what was meant. In contrast, Matthew 16:12 tells us the disciples then understood he was talking about the doctrine of the Pharisees. Yet how was their teaching like leaven?
Infectious Approach
Leaven is yeast—something that produces fermentation. It spreads through and impacts everything you mix it with. We may regard this as good for causing bread to rise today, but fermentation and leaven, in particular, had to be removed for the feast of Unleavened Bread in Exodus 12:15–20. This feast commemorated the Exodus event. This was a story where signs and wonders had been ineffective in persuading another figure in leadership (Pharaoh). During the final plague, where the angel of death passed over each home marked with the blood of a lamb, the Israelites were instructed to eat unleavened bread (Ex. 12:8). They would require the strength of this meal to flee but had no time to wait for the dough to rise and make bread. Disobedience here could become a matter of unreadiness with ramifications. The Passover was all about trusting in the blood of the Lamb to cover those who could not save themselves while living with immediate readiness to follow where God led.
With this context in place, we return to Jesus’ statement. By warning the disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, He was warning them against their infectious approach, which was grounded in skepticism and doubt concerning Jesus’ identity, while satisfied in their self-confidence. As we have already seen, their doctrine was grounded upon placing their traditions above God’s laws, thinking too highly of themselves, and seeking external evidence in miracles and signs. By worrying about bread on the boat after Jesus had solved food shortage problems repeatedly already, the disciples were similarly at risk of making themselves the measure of security or failure. The lesson is to trust that Jesus has it under control and rely upon Him.
So, if we take this paradigm where self-trust results in deception, how do we deceive ourselves? This is how the Pharisees did it:
- By focusing on external actions as the cause of defilement instead of an internal condition.
- By placing their traditions above God’s commands.
- By thinking too highly of themselves–that they were good enough.
- By distancing their heart from God.
- By seeking more signs and miracles to counter their skepticism and doubt.
When we see ourselves as the Bible describes us, much more of Jesus’ teaching begins to make sense, and we begin to see how much we need Him. Why not pick one or more of these parables and consider how they further develop Jesus’ paradigm of the heart and our need for help outside of ourselves?
- The Sower – Mark 4:1-20
- The Lost Sheep – Luke 15:3–7
- The Prodigal Son – Luke 15:11-32
- The Vineyard Workers – Matthew 20:1–16
- The Unforgiving Servant – Matthew 18:23-35
- The Pharisee and Tax Collector – Luke 18:9–14
[1] Ellen G. White, Faith and Works (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1979), pp. 107–108.
