MAY 18 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#16 “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)

MAY 18  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#16 “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?”  (Matthew 15:3)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer    

JESUS, You Lord are worthy to be Praised even if not a single person did so. Your Mercy and Grace are extended to All, believers and non-believers receive Your Blessings and one gives Praise and Thanksgiving and the other rejects the gifts of God, yet acceptance and rejection are no reflection on Your Glory but merely a reflection of who we are. Lord forgive me when I think that my thoughts have anything to do with who You really are! What we believe about God is as A. W. Tozer writes to open his book “Knowledge of the Holy”, the “…most important thing about us…” but our “belief” about who God is has no bearing on who God IS nor on God’s Holy Character ——— God IS God because He IS God and His Character is solely determined by what God chooses to reveal about Himself to us and the TRUTH of who He IS, is in no way associated with what we believe about Him!!! Lord Jesus, I Praise You because You are Worthy of our Praise.     AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has been Teaching the “multitudes” with one style and His disciples with another and I believe Jesus Taught according to each ones need — because Jesus can use the same event but Teach different Lessons at the same time accordingly to the needs of the one that Jesus is Teaching ——— Jesus is just that good! Jesus proves His consistency and His “Fairness” by always Teaching the Truth of God and Jesus makes His Lesson personal and intimate or global in nature depending on the needs of His followers. JQ#16 is the second time that Jesus has used the term “Hypocrite!” in His Teachings as we see in Matthew 7 that Jesus was Teaching the multitudes that we should not judge others (JQ#4) for if we “say to your brother ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye…” and miss the “plank” in our own eyes then Jesus used the term “Hypocrite!” to describe us judging others and overlooking our own faults which in reality is the greater sin in God’s eyes. (see Matthew 7:2-5) and now in JQ#16 we see that the “scribes and the Pharisees” are questioning Him again as to His Lordship which is very similar to JQ#7 when the Pharisees had questioned Jesus about “lawful” things for the Sabbath and Jesus had answered, “…the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath’.” (Matthew  12:1-8)  In the first instance the Pharisees asked Jesus if it was “lawful” for Him and His disciples to pick heads of grain and to eat them on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-8) and Jesus answered their question with a definitive Statement about His Lordship and in this instance Jesus does the Pharisees just like He did Peter and turns their question into an indictment on themselves as the Pharisees asked  “Why do you transgress the tradition of the elders?” (Matthew 15:2) and Jesus turns that back on them and asks  JQ#16   “Why do you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)  When we look at the context of this question we see it is directed strictly to the “legalists” (lawyers and politicians of that age) and was not addressing His Question to the “multitudes” in general, so Jesus has directed His Teaching at a specific group, a powerful group that thought that man’s opinion of the law was greater somehow than God’s own written Law! Jesus pointed out that the commandment of “Honor thy father and thy mother…” had been re-written by the Pharisees so that they could “justify” getting around that commandment for the purpose of personal gain! Jesus quickly lets His contenders know that changing the commandments of God even though it be declared “legal” by a governing body of men is a sin in itself! Matthew records for the second time in this type of accusation against His Authority that Jesus using the word “Hypocrite!” to describe His accusers!  (see Matthew 7:5) Jesus is in this instance talking about the Pharisees practice of changing God’s Law to suit themselves and again Jesus uses the term “Hypocrites!”. (Matthew 15:7) Each time the Pharisees try to trap Jesus using their man-made law (the Pharisees interpretation of God’s Law) Jesus points out that God’s Law cannot be changed nor interpreted any way but the way God said it! Jesus makes it perfectly clear with His Question that “your tradition” is wrong if it transgresses “the commandment of God”! Jesus again quotes the Prophet Isaiah to describe the Pharisees: “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, and in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:8-9 taken from Isaiah 29:13) Jesus has once again taught the specific Lesson needed to what a specific group needed to help them see that there is the SINGLE TRUTH set forth by God and no amount of “legislation” or “popular outcry” from a majority of voters can alter or change in any way the Commandments of God!!! I have to stop and ask a question of our world today, “Why does the world today fight over who has the ‘right’ to establish law when the Law has already been established by the One that first established The Law and has the only True Power to enforce it?”