March 4
Leviticus 23-24
Psalm 30:1-6
Proverbs 7:1-3
Mark 7:17-37
Treasure the Law
“My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
Proverbs 7:1-3 LSB
“And He said to them, ‘Are you lacking understanding in this way as well? Do you not perceive that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and goes to the sewer?’ (thus He declared all foods clean). And He was saying, ‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, coveting, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.’” Mark 7:18-23 LSB
A couple of days ago, we looked at the law and its importance. God gave the Law to the children of Israel to help them know how they should love God and love other people. The Pharisees had turned the Law into a long list of rules that they followed strictly in order to be “holy and righteous.” In today’s passage in Mark, Jesus was trying to show them that they had missed the point of the Law. They strictly followed the rules and yet there was no change in their hearts. They didn’t understand the reason behind the Laws. The passage in Proverbs gives us that reason. God’s desire for us is that we internalize God’s commandments and write them on our hearts. He does not desire that we just blindly follow the Laws with no thought to their meaning and purpose. God wants us to examine them, meditate on them, reflect on them and ask Him to help us really understand them.
Proverbs 7:3 explains that we are to bind God’s commands on our fingers and write them on our hearts. This means making the commandments as familiar to us as if they were on our fingers. Our hands are the part of our bodies that we know best because we see them and use them all day long. Over 20 years ago I had a melanoma in the middle of my back. If the doctor had not found it, I would have never seen it because it is not within sight for me. I watch my body very carefully and I know when I get a new mole or when a spot changes. I point anything different out to my doctor when I get my regular exams every six months. Usually they are nothing, but occasionally they will biopsy them to make sure. My hands and fingers are the first place I notice something new or different because I look at them all day. Places on my back are harder to find so I rely on the doctor to catch those. The other thing I see when I look at my hands is my wedding ring. It is a symbol on my finger of a commitment I made 35 years ago to love, honor and cherish my husband, Brian, for as long as I live. My ring is a constant reminder of that commitment. Solomon is suggesting that the Law should be as familiar to us as our fingers and that we should be reminded of the commitment we made to God to love Him and honor Him as long as we live. “Writing the tablets on our hearts suggests that we internalize them so deeply that they become part of our nature. This foreshadows the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer as He indwells us and changes our hearts from the inside.
The Law was able to change behavior but it was unable to change the heart. Following the rules for the sake of following the rules was never God’s intention. He gave us the rules to help us get to know Him more and to teach us how to love Him and love others better. As we study God’s Word we get to know our Savior and are able to cooperate with Him as He changes our hearts to reflect Him. The more He changes our hearts the more we treasure His Law and delight in it like the “apple of our eye.”
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