Daily Devotional For Saturday, November 29, 2025
Good morning Southside. We are slowly making our way through Matthew’s Gospel and today, we are looking at a passage that reveals how we as the people of God can take our traditions and elevate them to a status of idolatry. We have looked at the first 6 verses of Matthew 15 and today we pick up with the last two verses in this section of Matthew 15. Today we come to Matthew 15:1-9:
“Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked Him, (2) ‘Why do Your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.’ (3) Jesus replied, ‘And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? (4) For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ (5) But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ (6) In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. (7) You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, (8) ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. (9) Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God’” (NLT).
In verse 7, Jesus does not mince words. He calls the religious leaders hypocrites. The Greek New Testament word is [ὑποκριτής, hupokrites]. This word comes from the theater. It referred “to one who wore a mask.” In the first century, actors often portrayed multiple roles and to distinguish which role they were playing they sometimes held a mask to their face. Over time, the word came to refer to someone who was not who they portrayed themselves to be. The religious leaders were just actors on a stage acting as if they were holy and close to God and therefore judged all clothes as sinners. Jesus answered their question with a verse they knew all too well.
The word translated as “right” is the Greek New Testament word [καλῶς, kalos]. This word means “beautifully, excellently.” Meaning, “The prophet Isaiah had written beautifully correct words when he wrote . . .” In quoting Isaiah with ‘these people’ Jesus was referring to the religious leaders. This is from Isaiah 29:13, which begins with, “These people . . .” The religious leaders said all the right words but their hearts were far from God. They gave lip service, not heart service. Their authority was from each other and the majority of their rules, rituals and regulations were not from God, but themselves.
It is not enough to act religious or godly or holy, we must be these in our attitudes and actions. If not, then Isaiah’s words and Jesus’ words are about us also. Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll writes this:
“In Isaiah’s context, the Lord God was calling the people of Israel to task for offering mere lip service while their hearts were insincere. Such external worship without internal conviction manifested itself among the religious leaders of Jesus’ day in their prioritization of the traditions of men over the true teachings of God” (Source: Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Bible Commentary, “Matthew 1-15,” Vol. 1A, p. 323).
New Testament scholar Douglas Sean O’Donnell reminds us something we all need to be aware of through a very vivid illustration:
“In seventh grade Kevin Koplowski had the coolest science fair project ever. His project earned him a place in the State Fair, where he did not place. It was not for lack of a genius mind or coolness of the project that it didn’t place, but rather because he didn’t carefully follow directions. His project was technically not an experiment. Unlike my experiment, which proved through careful, rigorous, repeated testing which paper towel was the most absorbent, Kevin’s display, report, or whatever it should be called merely showed the existence of blind spots in the human eye. Here’s how it worked. You would come up to his booth, stand on a certain X on the floor in front of it, place your head wherever you were supposed to place your head, and then try to view certain objects at various points around you. The fact that you couldn’t see all the points proved the existence of blind spots” (Source: Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Preach The Word, “Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth,” p. 417).
It is a struggle to be physically blind, but the truth is all of us have spiritual blind spots. There were times the disciples had blind spots about who Jesus was. The religious leaders were totally blind spiritually to Jesus and God the Father’s will and plan. Here they were spiritually blind guides acting as if they were guiding people spiritually. The result was Jesus’ words in Matthew 15:14, “So ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch” (NLT). It wasn’t that they were spiritually blind, they were attempting to lead other spiritually blind people. The spiritually blind do several major things:
- First, they always ask the spiritually wrong questions. We see this in Matthew 15:2. Over and over Jesus had proved He was the Messiah through the miracles He did and His vast knowledge of Scripture. Some religious leaders had traveled all the way from Jerusalem to talk to Jesus but failed to ask the right question: “How should we follow You the Messiah?
- Second, they always put a lot of stock in unscriptural traditions. We see this in Matthew 15:2. Jesus knows these are not the Jewish germ police out to protect the Jews from some kind of plague or outbreak. Jesus knew how legalistic they were to wash everything involved in eating (See Mark 7:3-4). Jesus was not condemning traditions because He knew they help hold a society and culture together. It’s when they become a legalistic idol we follow with no heart to the Word of God. All churches have traditions. They sing hymns written by dead English composers. They sing contemporary Praise songs composed by modern composers. They celebrate Advent and have Christmas Eve services, etc. All of these are good as long as these traditions do not replace truth. So the question is not, “Does your church celebrate traditions?” The real question is: “Does your church’s traditions violate Scripture?” To quote Sean Douglas O’Donnell again:
“Here Jesus is teaching against the enthronement of tradition and the dethronement of the Word of God. He is addressing traditions that immediately or inevitably force God’s people to leave, reject, or nullify the written Scriptures. Thus we are taught here that those very traditions—if we are to see as we should see—are to be left, rejected, and nullified. The spiritually blind trust in un-Scriptural traditions, but those with spiritual sight trust in the Word of God for the proper worship of God” (Source: Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Preach The Word, “Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth,” p. 422).
There is a third thing spiritually blind people do and we will look at that tomorrow.
Assignment: Do you wear a “spiritual mask” around religious people or at church? You are one way at church and around God’s people and a totally different person in the world? What are your own spiritual blind spots? Do you even know? If not, ask someone who knows you well to be honest with you. Don’t get defensive but rather let the soil of your heart be extensive to the truth. Are there any traditions you celebrate that violate the word of God? If so, what are you going to do about it?
Scripture To Meditate On: Hebrews 13:9, “So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas. Your strength comes from God’s grace, not from rules . . .” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, I want to be sincerely authentic before You and others. I do not want to wear a “spiritual mask” – one way at church and another way around culture. Bring me someone who can be honest with me about my own spiritual blind spots. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly