Mark 7 Commentary
The healing of a man who was deaf and could hardly talk is truly strange. Very strange! Mere words could do but not now. He doesn’t lay His hands on the man as requested. He doesn’t even speak – the usual way. Instead, the LORD Jesus performs a couple of strange rituals, away from the crowd.
Fingers in the man’s ears and saliva on the man’s tongue, the deaf man is healed completely. The miracle has two components. First, the problem stops. Second, the LORD Jesus recreates the faculties. And is it immediate!
A person who cannot hear will not actually speak properly. Even for an adult, it would take time for the cured man to speak plainly. The tongue must be trained. But never mind. We have a miracle of creation. Creation? Could this explain the strange healing ritual? Is the LORD’s saliva a connection to humanity’s source of life?
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2 verse 7.
A heap of clay only becomes a living being after the Creator God (Jesus) puts part of Himself in the clay – His breath, or in this case, His saliva.
A journey into the healing rituals of the LORD Jesus Christ would be an interesting trip!
The Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem are on a fact-finding mission. They don’t have long to wait. They have seen enough already. Let Jesus explain this sacrilege. Why do his disciples eat with unwashed hands?
For their benefit as well as ours, we are happy that we have this question. Man’s search for God – that’s what traditions are all about. And the traditions exist in place a clearly defined route to Heaven! The holy scriptures are that route.
Traditions can be complex. Like traditions, business transactions can be very complex and clearly designed to escape the core values of the scriptures. It is possible to attach a good deed to your name even when you haven’t performed the deed yourself. We can equally distance ourselves from a clear sin by putting a proxy in between. But God examines the heart.
A Greek woman’s daughter is cured but at a huge cost – faith. It takes faith to argue your case against Heaven. Scripture explains scripture; at times in some very interesting way. In Matthew, the LORD Jesus sends the disciples with instructions to preach only within the borders of Israel. The same account in Mark doesn’t have this detail. Instead, this story here (independent of the sending) says the same thing – the same thing but with an explanation. Let the children eat first. It is Heaven’s lineup of things or a queue, not exactly a setup to deny the gentiles the good news.
When the children are full, they (the children) will in turn bless the nations. But who cares? Not faith! Faith has a way of twisting God’s arm!
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