Mark 7

verse 2 — “they saw”

• What did the Pharisees see?
• What things does my eye see most readily?
• Big or little things?
• Things where God is at work or things that vary from tradition?

verse 6 — How is  honoring God with “the lips” different from honoring him with “the heart”?

• What happens when  religion is conceived as a set of rules rather than a life of devotion?
• How are moral systems used to evade obligations; such as in the story of the Good Samaritan; or through the concept of “corban” or “devoting” mentioned here?

verse 12 — “making void” or “null”

• What aspects of God’s word are we making null and void?

verse 15– “outside”

• What aspects of religion are “inside” and what are “outside”?
• How do they affect a person’s faith and commitment?

 verse 24 — “And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.”

• Why could Jesus not be hidden?
• Why should Jesus not be hidden?
• Why does he always show up or just appear?

Kierkegaard speaks of the “contemporaneity of Christ”; Jesus is always present.

Bonhoeffer says that Jesus’ presence is a”who” rather than a “how” question.  Rather than getting stuck in the “how is this possible” mode, we should reaffirm that Jesus is with us because of “who he is” as God’s eternal Son.

H. E. Luccock writes that Jesus cannot be hidden:

• by a cloud of dense theological verbiage; by “polysyllabic barricades”; he will present himself clearly in simple words
• by the dim recesses of the church or its structures; he has escaped and he will walk the streets and be the friend of sinners
• by the changes of thinking and hasty judgments of modern approaches which seek to make him obsolete

TLT