Matthew 15 Bible study: Great is your faith

"Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem" (15:1), and asked, "Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat bread." (15:2) (tap disobey, tradition). Jesus answers with a question of his own: "Why do you also disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition?" (15:3) (tap commandment). Here is what almost everyone misses: he answers them in their own word. Disobey is the same Greek verb in their question and in his, and the New Testament has it in no other Gospel verse. Then he gives an example: "For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’" (15:4). "But you say, ‘Whoever may tell his father or his mother, “Whatever help you might otherwise have gotten from me is a gift devoted to God,” he shall not honor his father or mother.’" (15:5-6). Then he says, "You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition" (15:6) (tap void). Favor's Mark 7 notices that in Mark's telling the tradition of the elders is never Jesus's phrase: there he says "the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8) and "your tradition" (Mark 7:9, 7:13). Here too it is their phrase (15:2), and his is "your tradition" (15:3, 15:6). These notes say what the text says of those it names, and apply none of it to any people, church or group today.

Exodus 21:17→leads toMatthew 15:4

"Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death" (21:17); Leviticus 20:9 gives the same law. Jesus quoted this law beside the commandment to honor parents (20:12): "For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’" (Matthew 15:4). In Mark he says, "For Moses said" (Mark 7:10). The WEB has "curses" and "shall surely be put to death" in Exodus, and "speaks evil of" and "let him be put to death" in the Gospels. He used it against a tradition that let a man tell his parents that what might have helped them was "a gift devoted to God" (Matthew 15:5): "You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition" (Matthew 15:6).

τιμάωtimaosay tim-AH-o

Strong's: "to prize, i.e. fix a valuation upon; by implication, to revere". Thayer: "to have in honor, to revere, venerate", and he lists 15:4 where the honor is given to parents, and 15:8 where it is given to God. "For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’" (15:4), and Isaiah's words, "These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips" (15:8). The saying Jesus gives as theirs (15:5-6) has the same verb: "he shall not honor his father or mother" (15:6). Matthew's Greek has it six times (counted in RP2018, the Byzantine text the WEB translates), three of them in this answer, and Jesus says "Honor your father and your mother" again in 19:19. Favor's John 5 studies it at John 5:23.