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Mark 7:14-23 - What defiles a person

This section is commonly seen together with the previous - in continuation to what Jesus explains of the tradition of washing of hands not making a person clean, nor any other thing a man does.

He goes on to condemn the crowd. He tells them nothing outside a person can go in and defile him, but instead what comes out of a man that defiles him.

He later goes on to explain to his disciples - telling them anything that goes into a man goes into his stomach and not his heart, and comes out again. It seems to say that what we eat is not a spiritual affair, but a purely physical one.

He then goes on to tell them explicitly, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. A long and non-exhaustive list - but these are the things in the heart of man.

Clearly, the first lesson is this - all foods are permissable. There is nothing wrong with eating anything - this act doesn't make you unclean. However, it is our attitudes, our lifestyles, and inherently our nature and hearts that make us unclean and unacceptable to God.

Look a little further, and we also realise that being inherently evil, we are inherently unacceptable to God, and nothing we do, inward, outward - nothing cleanses us either.

The mistake made by the Pharisees was that they could cleanse themselves.
The mistake made by the general population was that they could keep themselves clean by abstaining from dirty things.
Truth is, we are the dirty things. And only Christ can cleanse us.
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