Mark moves from the compassion of Jesus for the people who were like sheep without a shepherd to the men who should have been the shepherds of the people but who were failing in this, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. They challenged Jesus because his disciples did not follow the traditions which they did, with particular reference to ritual washing to avoid defilement. As Mark was writing for Gentile readers unfamiliar with these traditions, he gives an explanation in 7:3-4.

The Pharisees could not understand how anyone claiming to be a religious teacher could apparently ignore the question of defilement.

Jesus in turn challenged the Pharisees to recognize the hypocrisy in themselves (7:5-13) with particular reference to a scribal ruling about 'Corban', a Hebrew word meaning a gift to God. It was possible for Corban to be misused in a way that broke the commandment about respecting parents. A man with a grudge against his parents could avoid his duty of helping to support them in their old age by taking a vow to give wealth to the Temple; such a vow took precedence over all other vows, according to contemporary scribal rulings. The practical result could be that while his old parents struggled on in miserable poverty, their son had a public reputation as being one who gave generously to God. It has been suggested that Jesus may have chosen this example of how the requirements of the Law could be avoided by scribal argument because there may have been some recent notorious case about which his accusers knew. Jesus challenged the misuse of Corban by quoting from the Law (7: 10), so indicating that the Pharisees and scribes ignored God's will to follow their own man-made arguments and traditions.

In the teaching which follows in 7:14-23 there is a brilliant and devastating analysis of what defilement really is. It is the evil in man's inner thoughts and intentions, the sinful attitudes and impulses which result in external evil actions. Paul, Peter and James knew exactly what Jesus meant when they wrote to the churches about the Christian's duty to avoid evil (Galatians 5:19-21, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, I Peter 4:2-4, James 3:14-16 and 4:1-3). They knew the power of Jesus Christ to transform evil men into the sons of God. In 7: 19, Mark's comment on food was originally intended for Gentile readers who may have been concerned about whether they should eat what had been offered in sacrifices to pagan gods (1 Corinthians 8).