“Unclean”
You hypocrites!
Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: " 'These
people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship
me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' "
Jesus called the
crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's
mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes
him 'unclean.' "
Then the disciples
came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when
they heard this?"
He replied,
"Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by
the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man,
both will fall into a pit."
Peter said,
"Explain the parable to us."
"Are you still
so dull?" Jesus asked them. "Don't you see that whatever enters the
mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come
out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out
of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft,
false testimony, slander. These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with
unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "
Matthew
15:7-20
Jesus told people to
“listen and learn.” He asked if they were, “dull?” He tried to explain that it
is not what goes into someone’s mouth that is unclean,
it is what comes out of someone’s mouth. Because what comes out of the mouth,
comes from the heart, sometimes that is good, but at other times it is bad.
The Pharisees were in
a similar situation. They focused on what the disciples ate and with whom they
ate. Jesus was concerned about what came out of their mouths in teaching.
We too can teach and
serve at church but be far from God. Even our religious activity becomes meaningless when our focus is not on Jesus.
When
Christ is the center of our life, all else comes into proper focus.
Our Daily Life –