From the Pulpit...
Seeking Signs - Matt Postiff
The last time we encountered the Pharisees and company was at the beginning of chapter 15, where they were criticizing the Lord’s disciples for not washing their hands before eating. In their way of thinking, this caused ceremonial defilement. The Lord corrected two errors in their thinking. First, eating with unwashed hands does not cause defilement; rather, defilement comes from a person’s inner nature. Second, they placed more weight on their traditions than they did on the words of God, with the effect that they voided God’s word. Now they come with another test. Hard-hearted unbelief is shown here in the lives of the Pharisees and Sadducees. We must make sure that we do not have any scraps of that kind of attitude in our hearts. There is a lesson not just in avoiding the example of the Pharisees, but more positively in how the Lord answers their inquiry. He rebukes them for being focused on the wrong things. How often we too are wrongly focused— not on the things of Jesus, but on the things of the world.