Wednesday, 6/29/2011
Reading: Mark 7:1-23
Reflection: It's interesting how easy it is to blame external symptoms for internal problems. For example, we see a person who is an alcoholic and think he has a drinking problem. We blame the alcohol for destroying the man's life. We think that if we get rid of the alcohol the man will be fine. However, the man does not have a drinking problem. Drinking is what the man does to cope with some other kind of deeper issue. Until that internal, deeper issue is resolved, the man will continuously look to external coping mechanisms. We often do this. Our teen begins to choose bad friends, or exhibit bad behaviors, and we focus on changing the friends and behaviors instead of dealing with the internal issues that cause them to choose those friends and behaviors to begin with. We see people going into debt, and never ask what is missing inside of them that causes them to spend money they don't have to make themselves feel better. That seems to be the issue in this passage of scripture. Jesus insists that it is what is inside a person that is the real problem, not the external behaviors. Thus, what makes a person unclean is not the visible behavior, but the invisible internal heart issues that drive that behavior. As we seek to grow as believers, we need to stop blaming external influences for the internal infections that are really causing our problems.
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