Mark 7:6–7 Hearts and Ideas
“Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’” - Mark 7:6–7 NLT
Is my heart close to God? Really? According to me or to what God says He wants?
We might love to worship God in whatever way is meaningful to us, but here Jesus says our beloved worship is a farce if we teach man made ideas. Think about that. If we don’t find that sobering then our confidence in our relationship with God has tipped over into arrogance.
Many abdicate personal responsibility by relying on “my denomination teaches this”. That in itself is a man made idea! By standing on that I make it clear that I place more emphasis on the teaching of a certain group of people than my understanding of, and growing personal, direct relationship with Jesus. Just going with whatever my denomination says is, after all, so much easier. But I wouldn’t consider for a second the possibility that I’m a ‘comfortable Christian’…
But I’m not even a teacher! I might think I can skip over this because I’m not a ’teacher’. But that is simply deceiving myself. The most powerful form of teaching is demonstrating, modelling. I say I’m a Christian, so everything I model in how I live and act is teaching every person in my world what I believe Christianity is. Is what they see anywhere close to a ‘little Jesus’ which is what the word Christian means?
Do I actively do things to ensure I’m not following man-made ideas? If not, then I almost certainly am following man-made ideas because that is what's normal. Do I place everything I hear from the pulpit on a pedestal and react defensively when anyone challenges it with the word of God? Or is my foundation always the word of God leading me to challenge everything I hear from the pulpit? Do I grow through that wrestling or stay stuck in my position like so many do?
Another man-made idea is that a disciple of Jesus can follow some aspects of Jesus’s teaching and not others yet that is modeled in the majority of churches today. Just 2 examples are Jesus’s commands (not suggestions) to go and make disciples, and to care for the needs of the least in our own community. I see very, very few ‘Christians’ following those commands of Jesus.
Are we still so sure we’re not following man-made ideas?
