But I Say To You... (Mark 7:1–13)

Because it would be easy, wouldn't it, to build up the wrong impression about Jesus? Jesus is always gentle, He is always humble, and He is always kind.

But it'd be easy to imagine that Jesus' gentleness and His humility and His kindness might cause Him to steer well clear from any sort of controversy or argument.

And yet throughout the Gospels, that is not what we find.

What we find is that Jesus is forthright in what He is willing to argue about, because when Jesus thinks something matters, He is not shy about it.

We mustn't mistake Jesus' gentleness for weakness or His kindness for cowardice or His humility for apathy.

The Jesus we meet in the Gospels is never quarrelsome, and yet He is a controversialist.

His humility is expressed in His conviction.

Conviction that what is true matters more than His reputation.

His kindness is expressed in courage.

Courage to say what needs to be said.

And His gentleness is expressed in His clarity.

Clarity about what is right and about what is wrong.

Jesus was not shy about being controversial, and today we're gonna see that in the first third of Mark chapter seven.