For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The wise treasure knowledge and seek it when and where they can find it. Those who spend their time talking in an effort to convince others of the knowledge and wisdom are fools. They are too busy talking to actually learn anything.
The psalmist acknowledges that his troubles are the result of his sins:
too many to count!
My sins pile up so high
I can’t see my way out.
Even so, he calls on the Lord for rescue. God will rescue us if we turn from our sins and cry out to Him. Those who search for God will be filled with joy and gladness. If we acknowledge that we are too poor and needy to save ourselves from our sins (and we are, no matter how rich and powerful we may be in this world), God will keep us in His thoughts.
When Jesus rejects the traditions of the teachers of religious law it would be easy to take this as an outright rejection of tradition. However, Jesus that the problem with the traditions is that they have come to be given higher priority than the Laws of God they purport to protect. Instead of providing boundaries against doing wrong, traditions had become loopholes that allowed people to find ways around God’s commands.
The traditions of Jesus’ day had become focused on keeping people from becoming defiled by things outside of themselves. Jesus explained that we become defiled by the things that come out of us, our words, our thoughts, and our actions. It is not what we eat, or drink, or touch which makes us vile. It is not even the people we hang out with. Smoking cigarettes or marijuana does not make you a disgusting person. No, it is evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. Those are the things which make you, or me, a disgusting person. Those things all come from within us. We have the ability to change them…or at least, the ability to be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to change them.
Ultimately, it is not things outside of ourselves which make us vile, disgusting people. We are vile, disgusting people because we bring vile, disgusting things out from within us. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and replace those things within us with Himself.
I am always struck by the understanding about how disease is spread by exposure to bodily fluids which this passage demonstrates. By mentioning many different instances of where people secrete bodily fluids and the importance of avoiding contact with others while those secretions are ongoing and the importance of cleaning up thoroughly after they have ceased the passage gives us a starting point for modern hygiene.