“What Comes Out Of A Person Defiles”

Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God) – then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Mark 7:9-23

The Pharisees were irritated that Jesus’ disciples did not wash their hands before eating – a violation of one of their traditions. Jesus immediately challenged them. He explained it was from what came inside a person rather than outside a person that defiled the person, not the other way around.

If we are not careful, we can become absorbed with looking good on the outside and forget what really counts. Harboring bitterness, clinging to critical attitudes, and thinking too highly of ourselves all make us hypocrites.

Don’t miss the point. Remember, the things that really matter are on the inside, and they include your heart, your thoughts, and your attitudes. Those really matter.

What matters to Jesus is what is on the inside.

Our Daily Bread – March 17, 2008