Mark 7

The Pharisees are usually viewed as simply majoring in minutiae. But that does a disservice to them and obscures the issues.

Jesus is not accusing the Pharisees of an early form of Pelagianism.

When I was in first grade, teachers assigned students to reading groups based on how well they could read. They would name all the groups after birds so that everyone would feel equal, but you could always tell how well you were doing by what bird your group was named after. There were the Eagles, the Robins and the Pigeons. The Pigeons were not reading War and Peace

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If we are to get past our discomfort with the name-calling, we will have to look more closely and note what Jesus does with the word dog.