Matthew 15

http://www.esvbible.org/Matthew+15/

Some scribes and Pharisees ask Jesus why the disciples break tradition and don't wash their hands before they eat. Jesus, as usual, answers with another question. He asks them why the Pharisees break God's rules for their traditions. The Ten Commandments say, "Honor thy father and mother." Yet the Pharisees tell their parents that all the money and support the parents would have gotten in their old age is going to God now. Jesus calls them hypocrites because of this! They say that they believe in keeping the rules of God, but they break them themselves. Jesus says this is how Isaiah predicted: that the people would worship God, but it would be meaningless. The Pharisees just want to look good to the people they lead, so they sacrifice what they truly claim to believe and a relationship with God. Jesus tells them that it is not what goes into a person's mouth that makes him unclean but what comes out of his mouth. What goes into the mouth came from without and has nothing to do with the person. He or she will digest it and poop it out in the end. What a person says or what comes out of his or her mouth comes from within, so it comes from evil thoughts, and that makes a person unclean. Evil thoughts come from within. No one can make you think evil things. The disciples ask Jesus if He knows He just made the Pharisees mad, and He tells them not to worry about the Pharisees because they are blind leaders. We should not worry about lost leaders because they are trying to lead others away. We need to focus on the one's looking to follow.

While Jesus and the disciples are traveling, a Canaanite woman begins to follow them and shouts to them that her daughter is demon possessed and asks the Lord to help her. Jesus seems to ignore her, so the disciples ask Him what's going on. he tells them that He was sent to help Israel. Sometimes, something seems plausible, but it is not the will of the Lord. Still, the woman urges Jesus to help her daughter, so Jesus finally stops. He asks her if it's fair to take food from children and give it to dogs, and she replies that even dogs pick up scraps from the floor from the master's table. Again, Jesus is amazed by people's faith, and so He cures her daughter. Faith is the bottom line of the Gospel. We must have faith, and there Jesus will be. Then, Jesus moved on and went up a mountain. a crowd followed Him and brought Him the sick, possessed, lame, deaf, mute, blind, etc. and Jesus cured them all. Then, the people praised the God of Israel. Matthew repeats this story after stor because Jesus came to serve people, just as He calls us to serve people. When people see such selfless serving, they will begin to understand the Gospel. That is the key way to bring people to Christ, our lifestyles.

Jesus tells His disciples that He feels bad for the people because they have been with Him for three days and have not eaten. He can't send them away hungry because they might grow exhausted. If you go to Jesus hungry, He will not turn you away. He will feed you. If you leave Him hungry, He knows that you may grow exhausted. If you grow Spiritually exhausted, then there is nothing you can do. You are not useful. Jesus will not allow that to happen if He can help it. The disciples, after seeing this happen once before, do not believe that there is a way to feed such a large crowd. Jesus takes all of the food that they have left, prays over it, breaks the bread, and passes it out. Everyone ate their fill until they were full, and there were seven large baskets of food left over in the end. Four thousand men (and unaccounted for women and children) had eaten that day. After that, Jesus left on a boat. Why such a similar story again? Jesus is not a cheap trick. He knows what He is doing. He can repeat the things that He does, so if He rises from the dead, then He can certainly repeat the process and bring us up from the dead with Him.