Audience Matters in Gospel Interpretation: Reading Mark 7 in Jewish and Gentile Context
Audience Matters in Gospel Interpretation
One of the most important yet often underappreciated factors in biblical interpretation is the identity of a book’s intended audience. The Gospels are not abstract theological treatises detached from lived communities; they are pastoral documents written to real groups of believers navigating real questions about faith, identity, and practice. Recognizing this helps readers distinguish between the historical setting of Yeshua’s ministry and the literary setting in which the evangelists present his teaching. When approaching the Gospel of Mark, many scholars conclude that the text reflects a primary — or at least substantial — Gentile audience. This recognition becomes especially significant when interpreting passages related to Jewish practice, purity laws, and covenant identity.
Internal Evidence for a Gentile Readership
Several internal features of Mark’s Gospel support the view that it was written with Gentile believers in mind. One of the clearest indicators is Mark’s tendency to explain Jewish customs that Jewish readers would not have required. When discussing ritual handwashing and purity traditions, Mark pauses to provide explanatory detail, suggesting that his audience was unfamiliar with these practices. This editorial habit indicates that Mark is interpreting Jewish life for outsiders rather than insiders.
In addition, Mark frequently preserves Aramaic phrases spoken by Yeshua but then translates them into Greek. Expressions such as Talitha koum, Ephphatha, and Yeshua’s cry from the cross are presented in their original Semitic form and then interpreted for the reader. Such translation would have been unnecessary if the audience were primarily Aramaic-speaking Jews but becomes intelligible if Mark is addressing Greek-speaking Gentile believers.
Mark also occasionally clarifies geographical or cultural details that would have been self-evident to Palestinian Jews. Early church tradition further associates Mark’s Gospel with Rome and the preaching ministry of Peter in that setting — a context that would naturally involve a predominantly Gentile Christian community. While not conclusive on their own, these strands of evidence collectively strengthen the case for a Gentile-oriented readership.
The Historical vs. Literary Setting of Mark 7
This audience framework becomes particularly important when approaching Mark 7:
“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” (Mark 7:15, ESV Bible)
Within the narrative itself, Yeshua is clearly engaged in an intra-Jewish dispute. Pharisees challenge his disciples for eating with unwashed hands, raising questions about ritual purity within Jewish halakhic life. The discussion unfolds entirely within Jewish categories, involving Jewish teachers, Jewish customs, and debates internal to first-century Judaism.
On the surface, nothing in the immediate setting addresses Gentiles or the obligations of non-Jewish believers. For this reason, many readers instinctively interpret the passage strictly within its Jewish historical frame.
Reading Mark 7:15 Within Its Jewish Context
Before considering the implications of Mark’s audience, it is important to ask whether Yeshua’s statement itself requires the abolition of Jewish purity practice at all. Kinzer begins his analysis within the immediate narrative setting, treating the passage as an intra-Jewish halakhic dispute rather than a declaration about Gentile inclusion.
Many readers assume that Yeshua’s words — “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him” — abolish dietary laws and purity categories altogether. However, Kinzer notes that the “not… but” structure common in Jewish teaching does not always signal total cancellation. Instead, it can function rhetorically to reorder priorities.
Scholars such as E. P. Sanders argue that such formulations often mean “not this only, but much more that.” In this light, Yeshua is emphasizing moral impurity — what proceeds from the heart — rather than denying the existence of ritual impurity itself.
Kinzer draws a prophetic parallel from Hosea 6:6:
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6, ESV Bible)
The prophetic statement in Hosea 6:6 should not be read as a cancellation of Israel’s sacrificial system. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, sacrifices remain a divinely commanded element of covenant worship, instituted in the Torah and practiced faithfully by Israel. Hosea’s words function rhetorically, not legislatively. By declaring, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,” the prophet is confronting a people who were maintaining ritual observance while neglecting covenant faithfulness, mercy, and relational obedience to God. The contrast is therefore one of priority rather than abolition. God is not rejecting sacrifice itself but rebuking the emptiness of ritual performed without ethical integrity. In this prophetic framework, mercy and covenant loyalty interpret the meaning of sacrifice rather than replace it. This helps illuminate similar “not… but” formulations in Yeshua’s teaching, where moral and spiritual priorities are elevated without necessarily annulling the underlying covenant practices.
In the same way, Mark 7 may be understood as elevating inner righteousness — the “weightier matters” — without annulling Torah purity distinctions.
The narrative context reinforces this reading. Just prior to this teaching, Yeshua rebukes certain Pharisaic traditions for elevating oral customs above written Torah, accusing them of “making void the word of God” (Mark 7:13). If Yeshua were simultaneously abolishing divinely commanded purity laws, he would appear to be doing precisely what he condemns — setting aside God’s commandment for reinterpretive innovation.
Thus, within its Jewish narrative frame, Mark 7:15 may be read as a prophetic reordering of moral priorities rather than a rejection of covenantal practice.
Only after establishing this Jewish narrative reading do audience considerations come into view. However, once we distinguish between the historical setting of Yeshua’s words and the literary setting of Mark’s Gospel, interpretive space opens. By the time Mark writes, the messianic movement has expanded beyond its Jewish nucleus. Gentile believers are now integrated into the ekklesia and are wrestling with practical questions of identity and practice — especially regarding food, purity, and table fellowship.
Kinzer’s Proposal: An Editorial Aside for Gentile Believers
It is within this interpretive framework that scholar Mark S. Kinzer offers his proposal regarding Mark 7:19b — the parenthetical statement often translated, “Thus he declared all foods clean.” Rather than reading this as a universal abolition of Jewish dietary practice, Kinzer suggests that the comment may function as Mark’s own explanatory aside directed toward Gentile readers.
Writing to a largely non-Jewish audience, Mark may be clarifying that Gentile followers of Yeshua are not obligated to keep Israel’s dietary laws. Such reassurance would have been pastorally necessary within mixed Jewish–Gentile communities where table fellowship posed social and theological challenges.
If prohibited foods were viewed as inherently impure, Gentile believers who consumed them could be regarded as permanently defiled or spiritually inferior. By reframing impurity as non-ontological — not an inherent property embedded within certain foods — Mark could affirm Gentile equality in Messiah without requiring Jewish believers to abandon their covenantal dietary identity.
Canonical and Communal Support for the Reading
Supporters of Kinzer’s interpretation point to several converging lines of support. Mark consistently portrays Yeshua as an observant Jew who participates fully in Jewish covenant life. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke show no interest in abolishing Jewish practice and, in certain parallels, soften or omit Mark’s more controversial formulations. The book of Acts portrays Jewish believers continuing to wrestle with food laws and table fellowship long after the resurrection, suggesting that dietary observance remained operative for Jews. Paul’s letters likewise reflect ongoing tensions surrounding food and communal meals.
Within this wider canonical context, Kinzer’s reading emerges as a theologically coherent attempt to preserve both Gentile inclusion and Jewish covenant continuity within the ekklesia.
Ongoing Scholarly Tension
At the same time, the proposal remains debated. Critics argue that the narrative flow of Mark 7 never signals a shift from Jewish to Gentile concerns and that the parenthetical comment appears to interpret Yeshua’s teaching directly rather than redirect it pastorally. Furthermore, early Christian readers widely understood the passage as abolishing food laws, suggesting that the Gentile-reassurance reading was not the dominant historical interpretation.
For this reason, Kinzer’s proposal is often seen as hermeneutically driven — shaped by his broader commitment to a non-supersessionist ecclesiology that seeks to preserve the ongoing validity of Jewish covenant practice.
Why Audience Still Matters
Even where one remains unconvinced by Kinzer’s specific conclusion, the broader methodological insight remains valuable. Reading Mark as a Gospel written to a primary Gentile audience reminds interpreters that the evangelists were not merely recording events but shepherding communities. Their writings addressed real tensions about belonging, identity, and covenant life within an increasingly multinational people of God.
Viewed through this lens, passages such as Mark 7 may be understood not simply as theological decrees but as pastoral engagements with the lived realities of Jewish–Gentile fellowship in the early ekklesia.
Summary
This lesson explores how understanding a Gospel’s intended audience can significantly shape how we interpret its teachings. The Gospels were not written as abstract theological documents but as pastoral writings addressed to real communities facing real questions. In the case of the Gospel of Mark, many scholars conclude that it was written primarily — or at least substantially — to a Gentile audience. Internal evidence supports this view: Mark explains Jewish customs, translates Aramaic phrases, and clarifies cultural details that Jewish readers would not have required.
This audience awareness becomes especially important when interpreting Mark 7. In its historical setting, Yeshua is engaged in an intra-Jewish debate about ritual purity, responding to Pharisaic criticism regarding handwashing traditions. Before considering Gentile implications, the passage must first be read within this Jewish framework. Kinzer argues that Yeshua’s statement about defilement does not necessarily abolish purity laws. The “not… but” structure in his teaching can function rhetorically to reorder priorities rather than cancel commandments. Drawing on parallels such as Hosea 6:6, where mercy is elevated without abolishing sacrifice, the passage may be understood as emphasizing moral impurity over ritual impurity without rejecting Torah practice altogether.
Only after establishing this Jewish narrative reading does audience context come into view. Kinzer proposes that Mark 7:19b — often translated “Thus he declared all foods clean” — may function as Mark’s editorial aside directed toward Gentile believers. Writing to a mixed Jewish–Gentile community, Mark may be clarifying that Gentiles are not obligated to keep Israel’s dietary laws, while still allowing Jewish believers to maintain covenantal observance. Supporters of this view point to ongoing food-law tensions in Acts and Paul, as well as the continued Jewish practice reflected elsewhere in the Gospels.
While this interpretation remains debated, the broader methodological insight stands: audience matters. Recognizing Mark’s Gentile readership helps readers understand how Yeshua’s Jewish teachings were pastorally applied within an expanding, multinational ekklesia. Mark 7 thus becomes not merely a doctrinal statement about purity laws, but a window into the early community’s struggle to hold together Jewish covenant identity and Gentile inclusion in Messiah.