Mark: An 8-Day Devotional Reading PlanSample

The Heart of the Law

From our safe historical distance, we can be tempted to look scornfully at the hypocritical Pharisees. But the truth is that they were attempting to worship God. The traditions they guarded were originally aimed at honoring God. But in practice, they ended up anxiously carrying out not God’s law but their own. What happened?

Legalism results whenever a religious community adds to the law of God. In this case, the tradition of corban—which was intended to provide for the work of God—often practically nullified the commandment to honor one’s parents. So while adding rules to God’s law might seem like a way to safeguard it or make it clearer, the truth is that additions to the law of God end up subtracting from it. The problem is never with the law; the law of God is perfect (Ps. 19:7).

Jesus didn’t quibble with the Pharisees about their traditions but went directly to the heart of the matter: how is a person defiled? He told them, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (Mark 7:15). His words still shake pharisaical hearts to the core.

Because the Pharisees assumed that their hearts were pure, they looked anxiously for what the rabbis called a “mother of defilement”—an external source of contamination. Then they built up a fortress of laws to protect their “pure” hearts. But Jesus, knowing the heart of man, assumed something wholly different. No Pharisee, no legalist—no human—starts with a righteous heart. The assumption is so fundamental that we may miss it in ourselves. We can turn the New Testament Pharisees into a caricature of a certain group in ancient history, dismissing their wayward behavior as a peculiar brand of stubborn sinfulness. But we would be better served to look with sober eyes at their plight and humbly learn the lessons that Scripture intends to teach us.

As we attempt to worship God in our own context, we should be aware of the subtle temptations of legalism. Are we fearful of unbelieving people, places, and things? Do we withdraw from our neighborhoods and communities in order to protect our “purity?" If our self-protection inhibits our ability to carry out Jesus’s command to “go and tell,” then we may find hints of legalism in our own hearts. Take a few minutes to review the first few chapters of the Gospel of Mark. Look for the ways Jesus interacts with people considered “unclean” before the law. Then ask God to open your eyes to the spirit and not just the letter of his law.—Michele Bennett Walton