VERSES one to twenty of chapter 15 of Matthew's Gospel contain teaching, and it is tempting to feel this to be dry stuff and so move on quickly to the next account of action and experience. This tendency is very prevalent in today's Christian culture. There are numerous books being published which deal with Christian experience in one way or another, but few books, other than commentaries and academic writing, which deal with the great truths of the Bible, and teaching concerning right belief and behaviour. These are not published because people will not buy them. This is sad, and causing the church to decline into traditions of one kind or another, such as we find Jesus speaking against in the verses before us. Tradition becomes more important than the written Word of God in the Bible, and is used to interpret the Bible, rather the Bible being used to examine tradition.

Traditions are things in religion which have grown up over time, but which are products for human wisdom. We can learn so much from the church in the days of Jesus which was the Jewish religion, for the same evils exist and hold sway in the church of today. The traditions are different, but the hold which these traditions have is the same, keeping people from the truth as we see here in Jesus' time, and bind people with burdens that are simply of no validity.

The example of tradition before us in our passage is the tradition that before taking food there must be ceremonial washing of hands. This was a ceremonial washing, and without it a person was said to be unclean. If the washing had been for hygienic purposes then it would have been a good thing to do, but not obligatory, and certainly not a cause of sin if such washing was not carried out.

What Jesus points out is a serious problem which concentration on such traditions brought about. In the meticulous application of the traditions, which is an outward thing, people were taught that they were righteous and holy. The state of a persons heart was not considered important. As long as a person kept all the traditions, it did not matter whether the inner thoughts and feelings of a person were evil. Paul tells us in Philippians 3 that he could say he was faultless. This was legalistic righteousness - just the keeping of all the outward rules. When Christ met him he saw that all this so called righteousness was rubbish. He realized that this legalistic righteousness did not make him righteous before God, or acceptable to Christ. He found that what he needed was Christ and his righteousness imputed to him, and a new heart which is given by God to those who trust in Christ alone for salvation. In the church today the truth of Christ and his saving work for us, is being neglected and obscured by traditions and human engendered practices.

Then Jesus points out in verses 3-7 how the traditions in the Jewish church were actually used to avoid obedience to the law of God. In the case Jesus examines we find that tradition was used to avoid the law of God to honour parents. The Law to honour our Father and Mother means much more than obedience when we are children, but also respect and honouring our parents all through their lives. This means that children should be prepared to care for their parents when they grow old and infirm.

This care of parents does get in the way of doing what we want to do in our lives, and limits the time we can give to our own ways and wishes. Because of this a tradition had grown up amongst the Jews that if a person dedicated their money to the Lord, or their time to the Lord, or anything which was needed to care for parents, then this dedication meant that there was no responsibility any more to care for parents. This sophistry was not used to give more time to God, but simply to avoid giving time and resources to the care of parents.

The trouble with such traditions is that we can easily deceive ourselves that we are doing good when really we are doing evil. This is the point Jesus is making. He is telling the Jews that by their traditions, which had no authority before God, they may have thought they were actually being very holy, but really they were avoiding obedience to the law of God.

Jesus presses home the hypocrisy of such thinking and behaving. Outwardly all seems very good and holy and righteous, but this is only honouring God with the lips and not honouring God truly from the heart. This turns religion and worship into something that is vain and even sinful. We have to see these traditions as simply human rules which have no authority. Traditions are only worth following if they do not contradict the law and truth of God, and have some real spiritual benefit. Even so they can never be pressed on people as obligations, nor must people be judged and looked down upon when they do not hold to these traditions.