Hello, welcome to the podcast, Bible Wisdom Today. My name is Stan Watkins.

The Bible has always been an important foundation for my personal faith, leading me to complete a Bible degree and enter Christian ministry, ultimately going with my wife and family to Europe for 6 years. There I served in the areas of Bible teaching and music. Since returning to the states, I have supported my local church as I have had opportunity, but now I would like a more regular outlet for teaching God’s word.

Understanding the Bible is not simply a matter of belief that it is God’s word. The Bible was written long ago, in a foreign language, within an alien culture, using unfamiliar literary styles. Today’s Bible student must overcome each of these obstacles. This podcast is for those willing to do the hard work to discover God's wisdom for life today.

In our last episode we read Mark’s story about Jesus disciples joining Jesus’ mission, at first traveling two by two without Jesus to spread the good news of the kingdom of God, and then working with Jesus as apprentices as he fed a crowd of 5000 or more. They also heard the of the beheading of John the Baptist, which must have caused them to realize the opposition they potentially faced and to count the cost of following Jesus. As we continue our study, today, we find two stories which Mark ties together, not with a shared subject but with a shared word. This is a literary technique which we find frequently in the Bible, and in this case, that word is “heart.” This gives rise to the title of this episode, “The heart of the matter,” and allows us to ask, what kind of heart does Jesus want from his followers?

The peril of a hard heart (6:45-56)

We begin reading in Mark 6:45, as Jesus has just finished feeding the 5000 and everyone is beginning to leave. 

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
 Mark 6:45-46

The Greek text here is unusually forceful. This was not a simple suggestion by Jesus that his disciples should probably get into the boat and go on ahead, rather Jesus compelled them to depart. The implication is that the disciples were reluctant to leave. Why might that be?

The countryside around Galilee was a breeding ground for revolution against Rome.[1] The independent sentiments of Galilee resisted granting the throne of Judah to Herod the Great in 37 B.C. and opposed the division of his kingdom among his heirs in 4 B.C. The Zealot movement was founded in A.D. 6 by Judas the Galilean who came from the hills of Gamala just east of Bethsaida, modern day Golan Heights. This was the geographic vicinity of the feeding of the 5000, which we discussed in our last episode. 

We often have an image of this event as a bucolic picnic, with families sitting on the grass enjoying a meal, but there are clues in the text of Mark of an undercurrent of populist and revolutionary sentiment. In Mark 6:31, just after the apostles returned from their missionary trip, we read that “so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat.” This is a strange statement, perhaps even suspicious. Was this some clandestine movement? This suggestion receives greater weight if you understand “many,” in this case, to be primarily men. Here it can mean either “many people” or “many men” but at the conclusion of the miracle, we read specifically that there were 5000 men. We also read that the crowd saw Jesus and the disciples leave and “ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.” This is populist anticipation. It seems that Jesus needed to remove the disciples from the scene in order to avert a revolutionary groundswell. They were susceptible to this fervor for a warrior messiah and Jesus would not have it. This understanding of the crowd’s sentiment is confirmed by the way the gospel writer, John, recalled the same event. “After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself” (John 6:14-15).

When Mark tells us that Jesus went up on a mountainside to pray, he may be continuing his references to the exodus which we saw throughout the story of the feeding of the 5000. Mark only mentions Jesus praying three times in his gospel. Each time it was at night in a lonely place. Each time, the disciples were separated from Him, not understanding His mission. Also, each time he faced an important decision or crisis. The unspoken crisis here was the temptation to become a warrior Messiah, like the crowd, and probably the disciples, wanted. During his time of lone conversation with his father, Jesus must have reaffirmed his calling to show his deity as a servant rather than a freedom fighter.

And so the disciples set out for Bethsaida. This town, named “house of the fisherman,” was on the northeast shore of Galilee, near where the Jordan River runs into Galilee. The disciples cast off from the shore just west of Bethsaida where the miracle of the loaves likely took place and sailed toward Bethsaida. This boat journey would have taken them along the north shore, not across open water, but when we continue reading in Mark we see that their journey had not gone to plan.

Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified.
 Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.
 Mark 6:47-52

The peaceful journey along the shoreline had turned into a major test for the disciples, for we read that “the wind was against them.” The sea of Galilee is well known for its storm winds. The strongest come from the east known as “Sharkia” from the Arabic word for east. They usually start in the early evening and are still feared by fishermen[2] today. This description fits perfectly the geography of our story, as the disciples attempted to sail eastward to Bethsaida. They were soon blown into the middle of the lake, while Jesus remained alone on land. This separation between the disciples and their master hints at the distress to come. The disciples were “straining at the oars.” The word for straining here means “torment,” and is a vivid description of the screaming muscle pain and total fatigue of these physically fit men.

In the New International Version, the translators describe this event as “shortly before dawn,” but a more literal translation says “fourth watch of the night.” Mark is using the Roman custom of dividing the night into four watches for the benefit of his Roman readers. The fourth watch was 3-6:00 AM. Think about this. If the disciples had left shore in the early evening, they now had been tormented by the oars for 6 hours. We often view the disciples as immature followers of Jesus, but here we see their committed obedience. Jesus had sent them to Bethsaida and they continued struggling toward that goal, even though it would have been much easier to allow the wind to blow them toward a different port. They would not give up!

In their distress, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. There is no other way of translating this. Jesus walked on water. Only God can walk on water, and the disciples knew it. In the book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures, Job says in chapter 9, “[God] alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8). Now, Jesus walks where only God can walk. Jesus unmistakably identified himself as God. 

As Jesus was walking on the lake, we read that he was about to pass by them. At first reading this strikes us as odd. Hasn’t he just come to them purposefully, and now he is just going to walk on by? The Old Testament again helps us understand this statement. The term “pass by” is sometimes used to describe a divine manifestation of God. In Exodus 33, Moses asks God to see his glory. God tells Moses that that is not really possible, but, God says, “I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” This is a description of a theophany. God, a spirit being, allows himself to be experienced by a human being in a physical way.

Similarly to Moses, many years later the prophet Elijah asks to see God. The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by” (1 Kings 19:11).

In Job chapter 9, which I quoted earlier, Job describes the awesome separation between God and humanity. He then says, “when he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.” For humans who commit to a rationalistic understanding of the world, God simply passes by unseen. They do not perceive him. Now, walking on the lake, Jesus wants to make God visible and palpable for his disciples in ways that previous generations could not have known.

If only one disciple saw Jesus walking on the water that could easily be ignored or explained away, but Mark tells us that they all saw him. The disciples realized that this was a spiritual event. They knew that human beings cannot walk on water. This mysterious walker must belong to the weightless spirit realm. They thought he was a ghost. This word, which means spirit or apparition, is only used here and in the parallel passage in Matthew. The fact that it is so unusual speaks to the basic rationalistic assumptions of the disciples. They were not superstitious. The appearance of Jesus walking on water challenged all their empirical boundaries.

They cried out in fear, but Jesus said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” This expression “It is I” needs further explanation. When God calls Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, Moses asks him, “When people ask, whom shall I say has sent me?” and God replies “I am who I am….Say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God is using a form of the verb “to be” as a name for himself. When the Jewish people living in Alexandria translated the Hebrew scripture into Greek they translated this name for God as “Ego eimi,” “I am I am.” This is the version that Jesus directly quotes, here. “Take courage! I am I am. Don’t be afraid.” Jesus not only walks where only God can walk, he also takes God’s personal name. Mark intends this as another powerful unambiguous claim that Jesus is God himself. In their distress in the previous storm at sea, the disciples had cried out, “Who is this?!” Now, they have their unmistakable answer. This is God.

This God, now climbed into the boat; when he did, the storm died. The disciples were completely amazed, Mark says, “for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.” This sounds like Peter’s recollection of the disciples’ mental state. They had not drawn the appropriate conclusion from the miracle of the loaves, that all natural forces were subject to Jesus’ sovereignty. 

What caused them to be so spiritually insensitive? Was it sin? Was it opposition to Jesus? Unlikely. These disciples followed him, served him, obeyed him, tried to be just like him, and yet their hearts were hardened; hardened by limited expectations. In an online forum, Kyle Davison Bair says, “The disciples still cherished their limited expectation that Jesus would be a human Messiah, establishing a physical kingdom imminently, where they would reign with Him in political power. That’s what they expected; that’s what they saw.”[3] This is the peril of a hard heart. They were so committed to their pre-determined interpretation of who Jesus must be that their hearts were hardened to anything else.

This reflects the common human struggle to comprehend divine truths and acts as a warning about spiritual insensitivity in our own heart. We also are in peril of a hard heart by expecting less of God than He really is. In Psalm 119, the Psalmist prays in verse 18, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” If all we had to do was read the Bible, this prayer would be useless. We already know how to read, but understanding God is inherently hard for humans. This Psalm instructs us to ask for God’s help to truly understand. Then, when God reveals himself to us, our enlarged expectation of God will allow us to know him. He will not simply pass by unseen.

Following this story, Mark provides another summary of Jesus’ ministry. Like Mark’s other summary reports, it centers on Jesus miraculous power and his incredible popularity. It reminds us that Jesus ministry was far larger than the particular stories included in Mark and the other gospels. 

Beginning our reading at Mark 6:53,

When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
 Mark 6:53-56

Jesus had initially sent his disciples to Bethsaida on the northeast shore of Galilee. Now, we read that they landed at Gennesaret, which is four miles south of Capernaum on the west side of the lake. Apparently, the battering wind from the northeast had blown them southwest to Gennesaret, where they put ashore. Mark gives us no words of Jesus in this report. He focuses on the crowds of people begging to be healed. Some were carried to him on mats, which refers to the simple pallets used by the poor. Throughout his Galilean ministry, Jesus personally cared for the suffering and needy. The story of the woman who was healed of the flow of blood must have become well known, since many begged just to touch the edge of his cloak. This refers to the tassels that observant Jews, like Jesus, sewed into the four corners of their outer garment as reminders of the commandments of God.

Following this short ministry summary, Mark records another confrontation of the Pharisees and teachers of the law with Jesus.

The danger of a distant heart (7:1-23)

This confrontation quickly becomes heavy with religious detail concerning appropriate Jewish worship in Jesus’ day. Because Mark was written for non-Jews in Rome, his editorial hand is prominent here as he breaks into the flow to explain various Jewish customs.

Mark 7:1,

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
 Mark 7:1-2

This was another fact-finding mission from Jerusalem, similar to the agents who came in chapter 3. Throughout Mark, Jerusalem is the source of opposition to Jesus, up until his death on a cross outside the city limits. This is Mark’s first editorial comment when he defines “defiled” as unwashed. The focus here is ritual uncleanness, not hygiene. Some prescriptions of Mosaic law did have the effect of protecting them from germs or contagion, but that was not their primary concern.

Mark continues his parenthetical explanation of Jewish customs in verses 3 and 4.

(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
 Mark 7:3-4

The real issue under contention was not specifically washing, but the tradition of the elders, referred to here and four other times throughout this passage. After the Jewish people returned from the exile, they were determined to keep God’s law faithfully in order to avoid future divine judgment. To that end, the elders of the faith developed the concept of oral law which they believed preserved an authorized tradition going all the way back to Moses and therefore equally authoritative with the written law. The purpose of the oral tradition was to provide a fence around Torah law. The Torah was the policy; oral tradition prescribed in infinite detail how that policy should be fulfilled in actual circumstances.

This is similar to our inclination to build a fence along the edge of a cliff to keep the public safe from falling. The fence is built, not right on the edge, but well back to keep everyone as safe as possible. Similarly, the oral tradition was designed to keep the Jewish faithful safe from any possibility of breaking the religious laws. In practice, however, the effect of oral tradition was to place the focus on peripheral matters, sometimes even perverting the actual intent. This oral tradition was eventually compiled around AD 200 as the Mishnah, because Jewish leaders feared the loss of this oral tradition after the Roman destruction of the temple and spread of the Jewish people beyond their homeland. This codified tradition continues to be a key source for Rabbinic Judaism, today.

Mark’s explanation of oral tradition provides a good example of the principle of building a fence well-back from the edge. The written Law of Moses only prescribed washing of hands and feet for priests entering the tabernacle or for anyone, priest or public, who touched a bodily discharge (Lev. 15). The elders, however, extended this requirement to all Jews before all formal prayers and all eating. Mark’s description includes two degrees of washing. First was a washing of hands that was required before prayers or eating, and second was an immersion of the entire body which was required after more serious contact with uncleanness, such as going to the marketplace, where they might encounter non-Jewish people.

After Mark’s general explanation of oral tradition, he continues with the Pharisees’ challenge to Jesus and his countercharge to them. Beginning in verse 5,

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
 but their hearts are far from me.
 They worship me in vain;
 their teachings are merely human rules.’ 
 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
 Mark 7:5-8

The Pharisees charged the disciples with disregarding the tradition of the elders, but Jesus charged them with hypocrisy, using a quotation from the prophet Isaiah. Though Isaiah was speaking to the religious leaders of his day, his words were just as applicable to Jesus’ generation. Human rules were a replacement for God’s commands. As such, they were idolatry. The Pharisees had substituted human interpretations of the law for the law itself. They made a great show of worship, but, as Isaiah said, their hearts were far from God. This is the danger of distant hearts.

Jesus uses the term, “hypocrites,” which comes from the theater. In Greek theater, actors wore various masks, which allowed them to play more than one role. This is the basic meaning of “hypocrites,” pretending to be someone you are not. In calling them hypocrites, Jesus is not accusing the Pharisees of lacking dedication. Quite the opposite. They were extremely committed, but their commitment was to the oral tradition, not the law of God. Jesus defined oral tradition as human tradition, which was not worthy of their commitment.

After Jesus launches his countercharge of hypocrisy, he develops it further with a specific extreme example of distorting the law with their human opinion.

Verse 9:

 “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
 Mark 7:9-13

You can hear the sarcasm dripping from Jesus words, here, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God.” Setting aside God’s commands is what they were good at! The original verbs are much stronger. The Pharisees do not simply “set aside” God’s commands, they “reject” them. They make a conscious choice against them. And they do this not simply to “observe your own commandments” but to erect something else in the place of God’s law. The present tense verbs also imply that they continue to uphold human traditions and continue to reject God’s commandments. Let’s try to work all that meaning into our English version: “You have a fine way of rejecting the commands of God in order to set up your own traditions in their place!”

Jesus then adds an example of oral tradition which allowed them to circumvent the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” This was the custom of Corban. The word, “corban,” means gift, and was often used of sacrificial offerings, dedicating something to God. In the tradition of the elders, this became a concept similar to deferred giving. Someone could vow to give something to God, so that at their death it would pass into the treasury of the temple. Meanwhile, however, they continued to use it, control it, and enjoy interest from it, but they could not return it to regular use without paying a penalty to the temple treasury. In this way, if a son gave his possessions to God through Corban, he could not then honor his parents by caring for them in their old age. The command, “honor your father and mother,” was thus not only nullified but reversed, forbidding this child from honoring his father or mother with his possessions.

“You do many things like that,” Jesus said. Corban was not an exception. Their oral tradition was willful, comprehensive perversion.

After Jesus makes his countercharge that the Pharisees are hypocrites and illustrates it with the example of the tradition of Corban, he continues with further explanation, first to the crowd and then to the disciples.

Let’s begin reading at verse 14.

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
 Mark 7:14-15

Jesus begins with an urgent appeal, “Listen to me and understand.” He then circles back to address the original question about eating with unwashed hands. He accepts the elders’ basic theory of defilement, that it is what is inside the vessel, whether it is a cup, pitcher, or kettle, which defiles it. He then makes a surprising leap of logic. He applies that principle to an individual person. Defilement starts within, in our own nature and then flows out, not the other way around. Jesus left this comment to the crowd without further explanation, as a parable for them to ponder, but he explained it further to his disciples.

Reading again from verse 17,

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) 
 
 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
 Mark 7:17-23

Jesus left the crowd and entered the house. We have seen this movement before from crowd to house. As I mentioned before, Mark uses an alliteration between the words for crowd and house to make his point. He left the ochlos and entered the oikos. Mark often places moments of special revelation in a house, with the insiders, away from the crowds and their mixed motives.

Jesus does seem exasperated when he asks, “are you so dull?” He had just asked the crowd to understand, but his disciples also seemed spiritually insensitive. Jesus treats the heart as the center of human personality, the source of one’s character. In this way he uses “heart” in the same fashion as Isaiah in the portion he had quoted earlier regarding the Pharisees, “their hearts are far from me.” The tradition of the elders failed to address the issue of the heart.

According to Jesus, the food we eat does not go into the heart, but into the stomach, and then out of the body. The original language was a bit more earthy. “It does not go into the heart but into the stomach and then into the sewer.” In saying this, Mark adds, Jesus declared all foods clean. This editorial addition sounds like it comes from Peter, who had this truth dramatically highlighted by God in his encounter with Cornelius, which we can read in Acts 10. The question of kosher foods and dietary regulations continued to be a thorny question for the early church. The apostle Paul dealt with the same question in his letter to the Romans, written to the same readers addressed by Mark’s gospel. 

This statement that all foods are clean, is quite strong. It was not only the food traditions of the elders that were suspended, but the written law of God on which they were based. Even the food laws of Leviticus were no longer binding when Jesus declared all foods clean.

After Jesus explains that food going into the body cannot defile a person, he specifies what can defile someone—the inner thoughts of the heart. The first six items in this list are plural in the original language, implying evil acts, and the next six are singular, implying that they are evil attitudes. No amount of external washing or following food laws can remove evil from our heart. We need a new heart. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of this need centuries before Jesus, “I will cleanse you from all your impurities…. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Exekiel 36:25-27). This is the gift God promises us, which we can receive by humble faith.

Final Comments

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with you, today. As we have followed along with Mark, we have been able to answer the question, what kind of a heart does Jesus want from his followers. Mark has warned us to avoid the peril of a hard heart, which is insensitive to spiritual things and to beware the danger of a distant heart, which focuses on external regulations rather than inward cleanliness. Jesus wants us to have a pure heart, which he freely offers us.

In our next episode we will see Jesus make an extended journey outside Jewish territory. There he meets both a woman and a man who experience his healing and whose tender hearts provide contrast with the insensitive hearts of the disciples.

If you have found this podcast helpful, I would appreciate your help in expanding its reach. One of the best ways to assist is by leaving a review on the podcast app where you listen. This demonstrates that you appreciate this podcast and will cause it to be listed higher where others can find it. While you are in your podcast app, be sure also to subscribe or follow the podcast so that you will be notified whenever new episodes are released. You also can follow this program at the podcast website, biblewisdomtoday.com. I look forward to spending time with you again, soon. Thank you for your help in growing this Bible Wisdom Today family.

[1] Edwards, James R. The gospel according to Mark. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016
[2] Edwards
[3] Bair, K. D. (n.d.). In mark 6:52, why were the disciples’ hearts hardened? what does that mean? Quora. https://www.quora.com/In-Mark-6-52-why-were-the-disciples-hearts-hardened-What-does-that-mean