Mk 6:45-46 After he finishes teaching, Jesus sends the disciples on ahead by boat to Bethsaida on the north east coast of the lake, while he goes to pray quietly (see 2 on Map 8).
Mk 6:47-52 A spring squall blows the disciples’ boat into the middle of the lake. They struggle to row against the headwind. Just before morning, Jesus appears, walking towards them across the water (as God was pictured walking on the waves in Job 9:8). The disciples are terrified as they think they’ve seen a ghost. Jesus climbs into the boat and calms the storm. The disciples are utterly amazed!
The Sea of Galilee near Ein Gev (Mark 6:45)
Mk 6:53-56 Driven off course by the gale, they reach Gennesaret (meaning ‘garden of a prince’) on the western shore, where Jesus heals many sick people (see 3 on Map 8).
Jesus confronts the Pharisees
Mk 7:1-8 Some pharisees and teachers of the Jewish law come from Jerusalem to Galilee to discover what’s going on. They criticise Jesus because his disciples are eating food without having first performed the Jewish washing ceremonies to make themselves ritually ‘clean’ (see John 2:6 & 11:55).
Mk 7:9-23 Jesus accuses the Pharisees of hypocrisy because they condone people who neglect their elderly parents by resorting to a technicality in the Jewish law. Uncaring sons are formally declaring their earnings to be ‘Korban’ – an offering to God – and thereby refusing to use this money to assist their elderly parents. Jesus adds that nothing outside a person can make him ‘unclean’. Rather, it is what is inside – greed, envy and arrogance, for example – that makes people unacceptable to God.