In chapter 7 of Mark's Gospel we come across, again, confrontation with the scribes. This confrontation began when Jesus healed the paralytic who had been carried by his friends to Jesus. These men, when they could not approach Jesus where he was, took their friend up on the roof, dug a whole, and then lowered him down to Jesus. Jesus sees their faith and says to the man, “Your sins are forgiven you.” What? Who can forgive sins but God only? Precisely.
Then Jesus provokes them further by calling a wicked tax collector to be his disciple. He goes even further by reclining at table in the man's house with even more tax collectors and sordid characters. Sinners.
After that they were in a grain field on a Sabbath morning and Jesus’ disciples are plucking grain with their hands and eating it. How dare they do that on the Sabbath? Jesus is challenged by the Scribes of the Pharisees. Formal charges may be brought! But Jesus defends the practice with Scripture and declares himself Messiah and Lord of the Sabbath.
From there he is followed to the synagogue where they are watching him, looking for any reason to bring charges against him. He purposely provokes them by healing a man who didn't have to be healed right then and doesn't even appear to have approached Jesus initially for healing. The story ends with the Pharisees conspiring with the Herodians how they might kill him.
It doesn't take long before scribes, official scribes, come down from Jerusalem to render judgment on Jesus. What is their assessment? That Jesus is possessed by Satan and does his miracles in the power of Satan.
And that's where we are as far as the relationship between Jesus and official religious Judaism. The Church has rejected him and is seeking to kill him. That's why they're watching him and his disciples now. They're looking for something, anything they can nail him on and have him arrested.
Click here: Mark 7:1-13 - Jesus Corrects the Scribes (Part 1)
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