Rev. David Speers, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Altamont, Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Mark 7.

“Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites!” Once again Jesus ☧ publicly clashes with the Pharisees and the Jerusalem scribes, this time in Mark 7 over the Fourth Commandment (in Mark 3 it was over the Third). Just when His opponents think they have Him for disrespecting “the Elders,” ☧ turns it around on them for disrespecting their own mothers and fathers.

☧ does not call them “hypocrites” for being inconsistent per se, but for shifting the focus of the Scriptures: they focus on how God’s Word might enhance their own external performance rather than what the Word teaches us about the heart of God. A sinful heart, ☧ says, is what really makes a person unclean. He then proceeds to heal a Gentile of faith made clean by “the Word,” and He heals a deaf and mute man to show that, without the Word in their hearts, the Pharisees and scribes are the ones who are truly deaf and mute.

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