GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 7:3
We’ve always done it this way
 As I prepared breakfast, I measured out an ingredient. Alice asked why I had done that, and I told her that I had seen her mother do it. That touched off a discussion about traditions in her family and mine, and before long, we had a list of traditions that we often observed, usually without question—we always did it this way.
 In one position, it was my duty to assign teachers to classrooms. After distributing the list one semester, a teacher came to point out a mistake: the list assigned a teacher to the wrong classroom. I wondered how it could be the wrong classroom when all classrooms seemed to function the same way. The visitor pointed out that this particular teacher had always had this particular classroom. To avoid upsetting anyone, I distributed a “revised” list with that teacher assigned to that classroom—the way it had always been done.
 A pastor told about beginning his service at a new church. He moved some of the platform furniture around, including the position of the piano. An elder told him that the new arrangement would make people feel uncomfortable and suggested that the furniture be replaced in its original position—because we’ve always done it that way.
 As Jesus taught and ministered in the region of Gennesaret, a delegation of leaders made the long trip from Jerusalem north, apparently with the intention of discrediting Jesus before his audience. Then they saw it: Jesus’ busy disciples ate without ritually washing their hands. Not that their hands were dirty—they were ceremonially unclean. It was as if they were saying, “This is the way we’ve always done it.” “For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, unless they wash their hands with a fist, they do not eat because they hold to the tradition of the elders.” (Mark 7:3)
 Translators often render Mark’s word “fist” as “ritually,” “carefully,” “properly,” or “diligently.” But it seems that Mark explained for his Roman readers that the Jews pour water on their hands, then take the fist and diligently rub it into the palm of the other hand, then vice versa, ritually purifying their hands. Matthew did not mention this routine when he wrote about this incident (Matt. 15:1-2).
 The prominent leaders were insisting that everyone should observe their particular tradition because “we’ve always done it that way,” and it seems that this makes the tradition superior to the message—a condition that is rarely a good thing.
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