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The Rose and the Thorns
Mark 7:1–13 · Matt Miller · Balkan Baptist Church, Novi Sad
Dust on the road
Picture a group of men walking up the road into Galilee. They have been on their feet for days. Their robes are dusty and their sandals are worn. These are not fishermen or farmers. They are important men, Pharisees and scribes sent all the way from Jerusalem, and they have come to see this Jesus everyone is talking about.
They find Him surrounded by people. Mark tells us that the sick were being carried on beds from every village, laid in the streets, and that "as many as touched him were made whole" (Mark 6:56). Then it comes time to eat. The disciples sit down, pick up some bread, and begin.
And the men from Jerusalem freeze. The disciples have not washed their hands. Not the right way. Not the way the elders taught.
All around them, God was healing the sick. And what did they notice? Unwashed hands.
"Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye."
— Mark 7:13
The rose and its thorns
Scripture: Genesis 3:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; Revelation 5:9.
Think of a rose. It is one of the most beautiful things God ever made. We give roses at weddings, on anniversaries and at funerals. But you cannot hold one for long before you find out about the thorns.
Here is something worth noticing. In the garden of Eden, there is no mention of thorns. They first appear after sin enters the world: "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee" (Genesis 3:18). Thorns belong to a broken world.
Traditions are roses too
Traditions in themselves are not bad. Many of them are beautiful: Sunday dinner with the family, reading the Bible together before bed, singing the old hymns, the way a church welcomes a guest. Paul even told the church to "stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught" (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
God is not against culture, either. Revelation 5:9 says Christ redeemed people to God "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." Around His throne there will be Serbians and Hungarians, Russians and Americans, every tribe and tongue, worshipping the Lamb together. God loves the rose.
Traditions in themselves are not bad, but every tradition can grow thorns.
How the thorns grew
The Pharisees did not start out as villains. They loved the law of God and wanted to protect it. Their teachers had a saying: "make a fence around the law." Add a few extra rules around God's commands, and no one will ever come close to breaking them. It sounds careful, even godly.
But fences have a way of growing. Over the generations, the extra rules multiplied until the fence mattered more than the law it was built to protect, and real people were getting hurt.
So the answer is not to rip out every tradition. Some see the thorns and want to pull up the whole rosebush. Jesus does something wiser in Mark 7. He shows us exactly where the thorns grow, so that we can cherish the rose and watch for the thorns.
When tradition becomes the ruler we measure others by.
When tradition takes the place of the heart.
When tradition cancels what God has said.
And because thorns always come back to the heart, we will finish with the only real cure.
When tradition becomes the ruler
Not about dirt
Scripture: Mark 7:1–5.
It helps to know what the complaint was really about. When Mark says the disciples ate "with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands," he is not talking about hygiene. He means hands that had not gone through the ceremonial washing.
Mark explains it for his readers. The Pharisees would not eat unless they washed their hands "oft," "holding the tradition of the elders." If they came from the market, where they might have brushed against a Gentile or something unclean, they washed again. And it did not stop with hands. Cups, pots, brass vessels and even tables had their own washings.
None of this came from the law of Moses. It was "the tradition of the elders," rules handed down from teacher to student and treated as if they carried the same authority as Scripture.
The wrong measuring stick
So notice the question they ask Jesus: "Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders?" Not "Why do your disciples disobey God?" but "Why don't they follow our rules?" The tradition had quietly become the ruler they used to measure everyone else.
That is how they could stand in the middle of healings and see only hands.
When tradition becomes the measuring stick, we start judging people by our rules instead of by God's Word.
It can happen in any church. A visitor walks in who does not know when to stand, where to sit or which songs we sing. If our first thought is about our customs instead of his soul, a thorn is starting to grow.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Is there a custom you use to measure other believers that God never actually commanded? |
From the hands to the heart
Jesus does not argue about washing technique. He goes straight past the hands to something much deeper.
When tradition takes the place of the heart
Lips and heart
Scripture: Mark 7:6–8; Isaiah 29:13.
Jesus answers with Scripture. "Esaias" is simply the Greek form of Isaiah, and Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13: "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."
In the Bible, the heart is more than feelings. It is the real you: what you think, what you want, what you choose and why you do it. Hebrews 4:12 says God's Word is "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And 1 Samuel 16:7 reminds us, "man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart."
When religion comes loose
The lips in this verse stand for religion: everything other people can see and hear. The right words. The right washings. The right forms.
Religion is not always bad. James calls some of it "pure religion and undefiled before God" (James 1:27). But religion can come loose from the heart. The lips keep moving while the heart drifts far away. James warns about that, too: the man who seems religious but "deceiveth his own heart" has a religion that is "vain" (James 1:26).
Jesus uses that same word in verse 7: "Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." In vain means to no purpose, without effect. All that washing and all that care counted for nothing, because men's rules were being taught as if God had spoken them. Verse 8 shows the swap: "laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men."
Your religion might fool the people around you. Your heart might even fool you. But it will never fool God.
Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart "is deceitful above all things." It can deceive us, but it can never deceive the Lord. That is why He never stops at the lips. He goes to the source.
PAUSE AND REFLECT If God looked past your religious habits this week, what would He find in your heart? |
A real-life example
To make sure no one missed the point, Jesus gives them an example, and it is a painful one.
When tradition cancels what God has said
"It is Corban"
Scripture: Mark 7:9–13; Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:17.
God's Word was clear. Jesus quotes Moses: "Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death." Honouring your parents included caring for them when they grew old. And notice that in verse 13, Jesus calls these words "the word of God."
But the tradition had found a way around it. A son could take his money or property and declare, "It is Corban," that is, a gift dedicated to God. Once he said that word, the elders taught that he was "free": free from using it to help his own mother and father.
Picture it. An elderly mother needs help. Her son looks at her and says, "I'm sorry, Mother. It is Corban." And he walks away feeling religious.
The rule was kept, and the commandment was broken, both at the same time.
That is what verse 13 means by "making the word of God of none effect." To be of none effect is to be without force, cancelled. The tradition did not simply sit beside God's Word. It switched it off.
"Many such like things"
Jesus said Corban was only one example among "many such like things." And the pattern did not end two thousand years ago. Many who still keep the tradition of the elders today practise things like these:
The leaven. At Passover there may be no leaven in the house (Exodus 12:15, 19). So many families "sell" their bread and flour to a non-Jew, lock it away in a cupboard, and buy it back after the feast. It never leaves the house.
The blowtorch. Before Passover, some take a blowtorch to their ovens, stovetops and pans, believing that leaven has soaked into the metal and must be burned out.
The pet. Because the law did not allow castrated animals as sacrifices (Leviticus 22:24), the rabbis extended this to forbid neutering any animal. Some get around it by having a non-Jew own or handle the animal for the procedure.
The elevator. On the Sabbath, some buildings run an elevator that stops on every floor automatically, because pressing a button has been ruled to be like kindling a fire (Exodus 35:3).
The wire. Some neighbourhoods string a thin wire on poles around the whole area, called an eruv. Inside it, people may carry their keys or push a stroller on the Sabbath, because the wire turns the streets into one shared "home."
The hand washing. The ritual washing of hands before bread, with water poured from a cup over each hand, is still practised today. It is the very tradition the Pharisees asked Jesus about.
These are sincere people working hard to honour God. But do you see the pattern? It is Corban again: keep the rule, find the loophole, and miss the heart of what God said.
Our own Corban
Before we shake our heads, we should be honest. We have our own versions of Corban. "I can't help my parents; I'm too busy at church." "I gave my offering, so I don't need to help that neighbour." "I don't have time for my family; I'm serving the Lord." Any time we use something religious to get out of what God plainly told us to do, a thorn is growing.
A thorn is growing whenever your religion gives you a way out of obeying God.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Is there anything religious you have been using as an excuse not to obey God? |
So how do you fix a heart?
If every tradition can grow thorns, and the real problem is the heart, the obvious question is: what can be done about the heart?
The only cure: a new heart
Washing the wrong thing
Scripture: Mark 7:14–15, 21; Matthew 23:26.
You cannot wash a heart. The Pharisees washed hands, cups, pots and tables. They washed everything except the one thing that was dirty.
Right after our passage, Jesus calls the crowd together: "Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man" (Mark 7:14–15). Then He explains, "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts" (Mark 7:21).
On another day He told the Pharisees the same thing, using the same cups: "cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also" (Matthew 23:26).
Religion can polish a stony heart, but a polished stone is still a stone.
What God promised
Scripture: Ezekiel 36:26; John 3:3, 10.
Hundreds of years before Jesus came, God made this promise:
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
— Ezekiel 36:26
Notice who does the work. "I will give." "I will put." "I will take away." God does not help us repair the old heart. He gives a new one.
That is exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus, one of the most respected religious teachers in Israel: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). When Nicodemus struggled to understand, Jesus asked, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" (John 3:10). The promise had been in his Bible all along.
How a heart is made new
Scripture: Mark 1:15; Acts 15:9; John 15:3.
It does not happen through a ritual. Jesus said, "repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15). Christ died for our sins and rose again. When a person turns from sin and trusts Christ alone, God gives a new heart; Peter says He purifies hearts "by faith" (Acts 15:9). And Christ keeps that heart clean through His Word: "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15:3).
There is the beautiful contrast with Mark 7. Tradition made the Word of God of none effect. The Word of Christ is what makes the heart clean and keeps it clean.
Fix the heart, and the hands will follow.
Bringing it home
When something is still off
Maybe you find yourself bitter or angry much of the time. No joy. No peace. Life feels hard, and it seems that everyone and everything is against you. And you are trying. You go to church, you read your Bible, you pray, you give it your best. But something is still off.
Think about these Pharisees. They did all the right things. They studied in the right schools, gave the right money and washed the right way. When they prayed, they felt something; perhaps there was even a tear. Yet in the end their lives still grew thorns, thorns that hurt their own parents and the people around them. No matter how hard they tried, they could not change their own hearts. Only God can.
What scientists did to the rose
In 2024, researchers reported in the journal Science that they had identified a gene behind the prickles on roses and many other plants. When that gene was switched off, the plants stopped growing prickles. They did not cut the thorns off one at a time. They changed the plant from the inside.
Men can do that with a rose. But for thousands of years, governments, religions and philosophies have tried to change the human heart with laws, rules, traditions and washings. None of them has ever succeeded. You can make a man wash his hands. You cannot make his heart clean.
Yet for two thousand years, in every nation, language and culture, Jesus Christ has been changing hearts. Drunkards made sober. Proud men made humble. Religious men made real. He does not trim the thorns. He gives a new heart.
Where the thorns ended up
Scripture: John 18:28; Mark 15:17.
The men who walked to Galilee to inspect the disciples' hands never changed. A couple of years later, early one morning in Jerusalem, the chief priests stood outside the Roman governor's hall. They would not step inside, "lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover" (John 18:28). So Pilate came out to them, and they cried, "Crucify him!"
Then the soldiers took thorns, the very sign of the curse from Genesis 3, "platted a crown of thorns," and pressed it onto the head of Jesus (Mark 15:17).
He wore our thorns so that we could have a new heart.
Key takeaways
Traditions in themselves are not bad, but every tradition can grow thorns.
A thorn is growing when tradition becomes the ruler we measure others by.
Religion can keep the lips busy while the heart is far from God.
A thorn is growing whenever religion gives us a way out of obeying God.
Only God can give a new heart, through faith in Christ, and His Word keeps it clean.
This week: cherish the rose, watch for the thorns
Take one tradition you love, in your family or in your church, and thank God for it. Then ask Him honestly: is this still a rose, or has it started to grow thorns? Is there a person it has been hurting, or a command of God it has been crowding out? If so, deal with the thorn, and keep the rose.
If you have not trusted Christ
You may have years of religion behind you and still sense that your heart is hard. Do not just try harder. Christ died for your sins and rose again. Turn from your sin and trust Him alone, and He will give you a new heart.
If you belong to Christ
Thank Him for the new heart He has given you, and let His Word keep it tender. Hold your traditions with open hands, and never let any of them speak louder than what God has said.
A prayer you can pray
You can pray right where you are, something like this:
"Dear Lord, I have been trying to do good. I have been trying to get rid of the thorns in my life. I have been trying to be better, and it is so hard. I don't know if I have the right heart. Lord, I need a new heart. I want a tender heart, a soft heart, and only You can give it. I believe Jesus died for my sins and rose again, and I am trusting Him alone. Take my hard heart and make it new. Make me beautiful in Your eyes, and remove my thorns. In Jesus' precious, holy name I pray, amen."
Questions you might have
1. Is it wrong for a church or family to have traditions?
No. Paul told believers to "hold the traditions which ye have been taught." Traditions are good when they serve God's Word and help us obey it. The danger is when a tradition is treated as equal to Scripture, or used to get around it.
Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:15; Mark 7:8
2. What was the "tradition of the elders"?
A large body of rules handed down by Jewish teachers and added to the law of Moses, such as ceremonial hand washing before meals. Jesus did not object to washing hands; He objected to men's rules being taught as if they were God's commands.
Scripture: Mark 7:3–8
3. What does "Corban" mean?
Corban means a gift dedicated to God. By calling his goods Corban, a son could avoid supporting his parents and still feel religious. Jesus said this made God's command "of none effect."
Scripture: Mark 7:11–13; Exodus 20:12
4. How can I tell if a tradition has grown thorns?
Ask three questions. Am I judging others by it instead of by God's Word? Has it become a substitute for a heart that loves God? Is it giving me a way out of something God plainly commands? If the answer to any of these is yes, the thorn needs to go.
Scripture: Mark 7:5–13
5. Can I change my own heart if I try hard enough?
No. Jesus taught that evil comes from within, and only God can give a new heart. He does this when we repent and trust Christ, who died for our sins and rose again.
Scripture: Ezekiel 36:26; John 3:3; Acts 15:9
6. Does God want people to give up their culture when they come to Christ?
God redeems people "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." Culture is not the enemy. Anything in a culture that contradicts God's Word must go, but the believer does not stop being Serbian, Hungarian or Russian. Cherish the rose, watch for the thorns.
Scripture: Revelation 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:9
ABOUT THIS STUDY This message is from our Wednesday evening Bible study at Balkan Baptist Church, Novi Sad. You are welcome to join us on Wednesdays at 18:30 at Ćirila i Metodija 42a, Novi Sad. If it helped you, share it with someone who needs a new heart. |
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Source for the rose study: Science, August 2024 (reported by Smithsonian Magazine and CNN).
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