1. The question of cleanliness (7:1-23)

Although in this passage Jesus is engaged with Pharisees and teachers of the law, their debate prepares the way for ministry with Gentiles in 7:24-37. The topic of controversy is not proper hygiene but the Pharisaic lifestyle that made strict standards of ceremonial purity the embodiment of true religion. Unfortunately, by making such behavior as ritual washings the measure of orthodoxy, these Pharisees not only overlooked, but indeed violated, other areas of God’s Word. (Contrast their concerns for ritual cleanliness at meals with Jesus' habit of eating with religious outcasts! Clearly the arrival of the kingdom was an expression of what Wesley referred to as God’s prevenient grace.) Jesus sets the issue of cleanliness on a new plane, insisting that sin, not certain foods or other objects, separates a person from fellowship and worship.