Dwell in the House of the Lord Volume 2, Day 37
by David Joynt on July 13, 2020
Stress Test Devotional April 27
April 27, 2024
MARK 7:1-2, 5-7 | 1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.
5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" 6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
PSALM 23:5a | 5a You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
Jesus dined with His opponents. Eating was a way of creating a bond of mutual loyalty and was the way to seal a covenant. (Compare Exodus 24:8-12 where the Israelite leaders eat and drink to seal a covenant with Yahweh). Jesus broke bread with those who accused and attacked Him, and ate with men and women who lived in ways that contradicted God’s law, like tax collectors or prostitutes.
This shows us the vulnerability of God, He makes His mercy and healing and truth available even to those who don’t hear Him. Reaching out to the broken was for Jesus a measure of God’s heart, rather than a sign of moral laxity. Leaders who issued complicated rules for eating and looked down on those who did not follow them were creating obstacles, not pathways for communion to God.
Who do you dine with?
Are you vulnerable?
