ClearPath Scripture
Discussions about scripture as we read the Bible together, following the ClearPath Church reading plan.
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ClearPath Scripture
Are we Pharisees? (Mark 7)
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Ryan Brewer & Zane chat about Mark 7 when Jesus confronts the Pharisees.
Hello, all my ClearPath friends. Sitting here this morning with uh in my living room with the lovely Ryan Brewer. Hey, hey, what's up, guys? What's up, Zane? It's good to have you back in the States with us for a while, my friend.
SPEAKER_01It's been really good. It's been really good to be here.
SPEAKER_00You haven't really developed any kind of cool accent.
SPEAKER_01No, no. And actually, the strongest influence on my accent is the voice I use on my wise navigation, which is like a cockney British guy. In half a mile, go right here. Go right up here.
SPEAKER_00That's the biggest reason I would want to move to England, so you're kind of missing out. But yeah. It's fine. Well, I invited Ryan over to uh discuss the scriptures with me today. And uh yeah, I'm excited for that. I was just telling him he hasn't uh had as much experience with this Clear Path Scripture podcast, so I was just kind of telling him our goal of doing it here and just to really let everyone get a different perspective of what other people might see when they read the scriptures. Not so much of you know teaching people how to use 18 concordances and uh how to become a Bible scholar, but just simply, you know, what do people what do people see when they read the scriptures? Luke, we're recording a podcast, bro, so please don't shoot us with your nerf guns.
SPEAKER_01That thought wasn't in his mind until you said it. Yep. Um, yeah, I was telling Zane, like normally, well, not normally, since we've been here, I've been coming to visit him, dropping Amos off or picking him up. And and I always park in his driveway, but I thought I might be here a little longer. So, and there's a shady spot on the street, so I'll just park on the street. And like walking to his house for a second, I was like, wait, did I drive up too far? Is this the same house? And and just that idea of like getting a fresh perspective can make something seem completely new. And a lot of times that's how studying the Bible can be like, especially with like studying it with others, it gives us almost a foreign perspective and it can help us to have just like a broader or um yeah, just a unique understanding that maybe we didn't have access to on our own. So yeah, very true. And I think scripture is meant to be studied together for sure.
SPEAKER_00Of course. I think the whole Christian life is meant to be lived together and wrestled together and all those things. And I mean, easily one of the biggest mistakes that I see a lot of Christians make is just thinking they don't need other people to succeed at um, not that the Christian life is a rubric of success, but you know, like we want to keep moving toward God. Yeah. And I've never been successful at continuously moving toward God when I have been more secluded with my uh pursuit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, uh, I chose a scripture for us today. Ryan and I just uh each read through it here one time before uh before we got on the podcast. And we are in Mark chapter 7. I have to find where I decided I was gonna start reading. Um okay, I'm gonna start in in verse five. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands? He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, their teachings are merely human rules. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions. And he continued, You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions. For Moses said, Honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corbin, that is, devoted to God, then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus, you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and you do many things like that. Man, Jesus lays into these people. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he does, just right out of the gate. They're like, why? And then he's like, Isaiah was right. This is so hardcore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I always find myself reading passages like this and trying to, you know, trying to find in what ways that I maybe fall into the same category.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think our first instinct a lot of times is just to be like, yeah, Pharisees are terrible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I would never be one of those guys. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But I mean, the Pharisees, I guess, were the local pastors, you know, and I qualify as one of those. So then when I start thinking about that, I I get a little scared. I'm like, ooh, in which way am I being like them? And uh might it be hidden from me? Yeah, yeah. Because I have to assume that the Pharisees didn't know that they were a brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah. They thought what they were doing was important and right, and and to an extent it probably was, but they were sort of what's the phrase, missing the forest for the trees kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. You know, the first uh it's not my tradition on this this podcast to immediately read another scripture, but the first thing that I thought of when I read this scripture was a scripture in Matthew 25. And this is a pretty well-known one, but it says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as shepherd, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. The king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. And then, of course, they ask him, Lord, when did we do those things for you? And he says, When you did them for the least of these, the the lowest of people, then you did it for me. And then he turns to the other group and he says the exact opposite. You know, I was in all these situations and you didn't care for me. So depart from me. And those people are equ probably equally confused, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I wondered when I read this passage today, he talks about their fathers and mothers and how they get around caring for people by giving to God. And I wondered how many times that I've given my time to God or to ministry in some way that I thought was righteous. But, you know, maybe my wife needed something at that moment and I was too busy, or my kids needed something at that moment, I was too busy. Or even maybe I was so busy doing the work of the ministry, and someone standing right in front of me while I was doing it was in some sort of deep need that um that the Holy Spirit could have led me into caring for that person and operating in love. And instead, I'm I'm doing something for God, right? And I just I wonder how many times that's happened. I know there have been plenty that I could probably even remember, but also probably so many that, like the Pharisees, I wasn't even aware that I was off course.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sadly, it like often it's when you're walking away from a missed opportunity that you go, oh, I I probably could have said something or could have done something. Like, like on the way here, uh, so my neighbor, longtime neighbor at my mom's house, uh, who actually was a good friend of my dad's and and even like helped my dad when he was really sick, he just found out that he has cancer. And uh I hadn't had a chance to talk to him, and I've wanted to since I found out. And so on the way here, I looked over and I was like, oh, he Charles is outside. Maybe I should just stop and just, you know, you know, quickly tell him that I know and can I pray for him? And and I was like, ah, but Zayn's expecting me at 11. Oh gosh, I know it's terrible, right? Yeah, but well, in this situation, I can, you know, I I want to talk to him and I didn't want it to be rushed. And so I don't think I made the wrong decision, but often there are things like that where we prioritize something more important in our eyes and miss out on, you know, the image of Christ in another.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, exactly. And I do things like that all the time. And like you said, it's not, you know, Jesus is always talking about the heart of a matter. So we don't get to make legalistic rules of what percentage of the time are you required to stop for the person who's hurting, or uh, you know, it's it's all a life of following the spirit. I'm wearing my all of life in the spirit t-shirt right now. Nice. And it's why we just keep coming back to this theme is because if we are tuned into the spirit of God and we're constantly aware of what he's saying, what he's pushing us to do, then we won't miss these opportunities, you know? Yeah. And there might even be times, uh, this could be a little bit of a tangent. There might even be times when we would stop or feel bad that we didn't stop that he wouldn't have stopped. Like there's the story where uh is it Peter and John, I think, they they heal the guy who's been a beggar at the temple gate for a long time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And one day I was reading that and I realized that that guy had been a beggar there for a really long time at the most popular temple around. Like Jesus must have walked past him a bunch of times. And Jesus didn't heal him. But on this day, Peter and John healed him. And I thought, oh man, this is why it's actually really important for us to be zoned into God's timing and what God's saying in every moment. But while that sounds really comforting and could maybe let me off the hook for for lots of things that I haven't done, even more so, Jesus seems to be so aware of all the people that are around him as we read, you know, about his life. Yeah, just the amount that he is able to be interrupted and just stop for each person who needs it, who has a need. Yeah. Man, I'm not that interruptible. I'm I'm really important. Yeah, really busy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. My friend's dad, my friend told me the story, like he'd be fixing his hair, getting ready to go to school, and his dad would walk by and he'd say, uh, what did he say? You seem so important in your own eyes. Something like that. But yeah, one of the things I thought about, well, and obviously, like when you told me the scripture, I was like, okay, well, I gotta pop back a bit to see the context. Um, and like, you know, Jesus mentions this thing that they it was like a common, I guess it was a somewhat common practice to call, well, we would have been responsible for our parents as they aged out. There was no social security, yeah, right. And so people, there was just a common understanding that like you would take care of your parents, but they had made this rule that like whatever you would have given to your parents, you can donate to the temple. And then that's like that's called Corbin, and that's uh even more holy, even more holy in God's eyes, and like so to pervert like generosity in that way is just it's just a bit wild. But like, I love how Jesus just like right out of the gate, just you know, basically just yeah, he calls them hypocrites and points out how easy it is to like say all the right things and think you're doing all the right things, but let like your heart being far from God, and in that you worship in vain, and you know, for Jesus, worship wasn't just like four songs on a Sunday, it was like it was a devoted life, like you're talking about all of life in the spirit, and so he's basically saying, like, your life of following God is done in vain when you slip into this, and yeah, I think I think the only thing we can do is on a regular basis just ask the Holy Spirit to show us like where am I being hypocritical?
SPEAKER_00Exactly, and even going back to you know, the Ten Commandments, if we just kind of rewind it to the close to the beginning of the Bible, you know, you shall not take God's name in vain. And how many times have I heard someone quote that scripture, assuming that it's using God alongside a cuss word of some sort?
SPEAKER_01The old G D.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, but which don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of throwing that around.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But but what I don't the way I don't want to take God's name in vain is that I don't want to profess him and talk about him and then not represent him well. Right, yeah. And not live in the righteousness and holiness that he's called me to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, Ryan, why don't we uh we'll close this thing out, but will you just will you just pray for everyone that God will help us to not take his name in vain to be true with our worship and uh just whatever else comes to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. God, thanks for having me. Father, we thank you so much for the scriptures and the opportunity to yeah, because of modern technology, we have these scriptures in our language, and we have probably multiple copies and various forms. We're thankful that we have these scriptures, and yet with an abundance of opportunity to read and know and learn more about you and get to know you better, we can we can easily fall into the trap of uh getting good at the Bible or getting good at like Zane was talking about earlier, try and become a theologian and and completely miss the heart of it. So, Holy Spirit, would you, even now, would you show us the places in us that are prone to hypocrisy, the places in us that are prone to worshiping you in vain, taking your name in vain, representing you in vain? And in your grace and goodness, would you also, as you point those things out, like a good doctor, a good physician, would you would you give us hope with a prognosis? And thank you that we can confess and repent. And that is one of the greatest benefits of life in the spirit, in community, is that we can we can unburden ourselves of the shame and the condemnation by repenting and confessing and asking for accountability. So I just pray, Lord, as you show us these things that you would yeah, just would you reveal your love, your incredible love that you have for each one, each one of us, each one listening. You desire you desire change, you desire heart change in us. And you know how to do it, so help us to yield. Especially the prideful areas that we think we have all together. Help us to yield those areas to you. In Jesus' name I pray.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. Ryan, thank you, my friend. Thank you, Zayn. Love you dearly.
SPEAKER_01Love you too, man.
SPEAKER_00Love every time you get to be with us and everybody online. Until next time. Follow the spirit. Goodbye, Clearpathians. Peace out.