Day 159: Traditions

Mark 7:1-13; 2 Samuel 17; Daniel 11:2-20

The Pharisees essentially ask Jesus, "why don't your followers perform all the rituals that we've been doing from hundreds of years?" Traditions are great, having special rituals can be very cool. But what is the point? Is the point to honor God with our actions, or is it to perform something because that is the way it has always been done? Jesus responds by saying that they perform or speak these traditions, but there is nothing meaningful there. That they have created or continued these practices that have no biblical reference. Why do we bow our heads and close our eyes when we pray? Did Jesus ever say that you had to do that? Or is that how our mothers taught us so that we wouldn't be distracted? It's a great way to teach children to focus, but the actual ritual of it is quite meaningless. The real danger here is this: "You disobey God's commands in order to obey what humans have taught. You are good at rejecting God's commands so that you can follow your own teachings!" The book Radical, by David Platt focuses on this. This is what he talks about: American churches and Christians have adopted practices and beliefs that are very unbiblical. We have got to investigate scripture for ourselves, not relying on our churches to teach us.

Jesus uses the example of not respecting parents or using some spiritual thing to ignore needy (not in Marie Barrone way) parents. Obviously children have always struggled to obey their parents (it is not a 21st century problem). Jesus is not saying that we are to give up our lives or our mission for our parents, but this simple command from God goes ignored in favor of personal agendas and "spiritual" phrases. We have got to stick to the Bible and to living and loving like Jesus. Simple as that. Even our parents.

This Ahithophel guy was pretty smart. David knew it, Absalom knew it, everyone knew it. David, back in chapter 15 prays that A-man's plans would be kept from working. So...just a couple of chapters later, God answers David's prayer!  And because of that, A-man's plans DON'T work, he realizes that his job is over, and so he goes and hangs himself. That's pretty brutal. But, the whole point is that David prayed and God answered.