Hypocritical Worship

Matthew 15:1-14

It was a beautiful Sunday. Weather was amazing and the day is refreshing. And what's more, the Lakers beat the Cavaliers, handing them their first loss at home court. Anyone else watch this game? All I've got to say is, how about Lamar Odom? I always knew he had potential. Now if he can produce those numbers on a daily basis, the Lakers will be able to compete again in the Finals, with or without Andrew Bynum.

Unfortunately, I barely got any work done today. I felt like so lazy. I came home after church, watched the game and fell asleep and woke up at 7pm. I don't particularly have any assignment due or any exams this week, but I still feel bad. I wanted to be able to complete a lot of work today, but it just didn't happen. Oh well, not going to cry about it now.

I liked Joe's message today. The part that I really liked was about the importance of sharing. I want to do that a lot more from now on. And I made a promise with God that I will make a better attempt to do this more regularly. Whether it be through this blog, the means is not important. When I get blessed by something, or I find something interesting and important, I want to be able to share with everyone. On that note, let me share with you guys my reading for today. It's an important one.

Tradition And Commandment

Reading: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2015:1-14;&version=49;

Going back to what had happened before, Jesus was at His peak. He fed 5000 people, walked on water, and healed the sick. He was probably recognized by everyone. When He entered Gennesaret, the scripture says, "the men of that place recognized Him, they sent word into all that surrounding district and brought to Him all who were sick." But this is where I believe His popularity starts declining. Starting here it's all downhill as people start to persecute Him and try to discredit Him. And it starts here, when the Pharisees try to test Him.

While Jesus is healing people, a group of Pharisees come to Jesus from Jerusalem. That's a big deal because Jersualem was a center of where people were educated about the law. So now we've got big guys coming to try to test Jesus. They ask Him why His disciples don't follow the traditions of the elders. Jesus answers with this, "Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?"

What is this tradition that the Pharisees and Jesus speak of? Why is it so important to these teachers of the law and so unimportant to Jesus? As I pondered about this, the first thing that came to mind were any traditions that we may follow, communion, baptism, tithing, etc. But I don't think that's what they were referring to here. Reading verse 4, Jesus explains that the commandment says to honor your father and mother. Yet, for the sake of "tradition," they cannot honor this commandment. What does this mean? I've been looking around for an interpretation to this, and this is what I think it means. Basically they had a tradition of giving thanks to God and offering a gift. When you claimed it was a gift to God, you couldn't do anything with whatever that gift was. The offering of a gift was biblical, but misinterpretted God's purpose with it and made it a tradition that they strictly followed. If you want to know more about this, the word they use is "dorban." Anyways, because of this tradition, they cannot follow the commandment God created.

Then comes the most crucial verse in this reading (verses 8-9):

"THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.
BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,
TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN."

Essentially what's going on here is that these people were worshipping with traditions and external motions and not with their hearts. Jesus was condemning their style of worship because it was missing the point. The Pharisees made worship into a type of motion of service. They were missing God and His purpose.

So that's the question that we have to ask ourselves. Are we just going through motions and praising God because of some "tradition" we may have created. Because if that's what we're doing, then we are hypocrites. We are in a way insulting Jesus. And for some reason I think this is evident in so many of us today. We really need to check our hearts and see our true motives. This passage is pretty eye-opening and was a test for me. I think we really have to see what type of worship we're giving God.

I will cover verses 10-14 tomorrow along with the next reading because they are somewhat connected. I think for today this reading on hypocritical worship is enough. Let us not mistake what's really for God and what isn't.