Matthew 15:1-20
What Defiles Us
1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
3Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' 6he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"
10Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. 11What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "
12Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"
13He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
15Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
16"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. 17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "
There has been a lot of news on the subject of politics...Politics deals mostly with the externals of life, while the Father and His Son deal with the heart and how we might make our hearts better and have less evil in it...Our hearts need to be more open and full, our hearts must be kind, forgiving, peaceful, and each day keep a good heart toward all neighbors...Keep a heart where evil does not reside, but where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reside in harmony with you...Have a loving heart that loves God and neighbor...A heart that is always forgiving and forgiving to everyone is a cure for the world...Keep your heart filled with the Holy Spirit and that will help you live an abundant life...
When Jesus was teaching the Pharisees and teachers of the law tried to tell Him that not washing your hands make you unclean and defile you...But Jesus teaches us that the things that come out of a person’s mouth are things that have come from the heart, and these type things defile us...For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander...These type things are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them...
Author Philip Yancey wrote: “Politics deals with externals: borders, wealth, crimes...Authentic forgiveness deals with the evil in a persons heart, something for which politics has no cure...Virulent evil (racism, ethnic hatred) spreads through society like an airborne disease, one cough infects a whole busload...When moments of grace do occur, the world must pause, fall silent, and acknowledge that indeed forgiveness offers a kind of cure...There will be no escape from wars, from hunger, from misery, from rancid discrimination, from denial of human rights, if our hearts aren't changed.”...