Mark 7: Rules That Replaced the Commandment

The complaint is about unwashed hands. The answer goes somewhere else entirely: you have a fine way of setting aside the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

The example he gives is devastating. A rule had been developed by which money owed to ageing parents could be declared dedicated to God, and the duty to care for them dissolved. The rule was religious. Its effect was that elderly people went without.

Traditions are not the problem; traditions that quietly cancel a command are. The test is simple and uncomfortable: does this practice make it easier or harder to do the thing God actually asked for?