Word@Work 085 - Mark 7:17-23
Published: Tue, 03/18/08
Word@Work from BeaconLight
Read Mark 7:17-23 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean".) He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean'. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'." (NIV)
Jesus rebuked them for being dull. Dullness, here, is not an intellectual weakness: it is dullness-of-sight ... the inability to see truth after spending so long in spiritual darkness. They had languished under the burden of relationless religion, and so they had lost their ability to see what pleased the Lord. In their obsession with ceremonial washing before meals (that was unlikely to remove many bacteria anyway), they missed the point that God was looking for clean hearts.
Jesus is concerned about what comes out of people's hearts ... because what comes out, in behaviour, simply reveals what is already lurking there. The long list of wrong behaviour and habits start with wrong thoughts and end in folly: and the characteristic of a fool is that he lives as though there is no God (cf Psalm 14:1). When a heart is not filled with the presence of the living God, many evil desires can be at home there: and an outward veneer of religion is merely a comfort blanket to wickedness!
Hypocrisy, is the name Jesus gave to such a lifestyle - and religious people were in the glare of His searchlight. As we approach Easter, the liturgical words, "Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden ...", should spur us to reject the right of any evil desire to stay inside. That is much more important than layering another religious role or action on the outside of our busy lives.
Prayer (from Psalm 139:23-24): Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. For Jesus' sake. Amen.
You can read more of this Bible passage online - in English and other languages - share the Bible with your friends!
Jesus rebuked them for being dull. Dullness, here, is not an intellectual weakness: it is dullness-of-sight ... the inability to see truth after spending so long in spiritual darkness. They had languished under the burden of relationless religion, and so they had lost their ability to see what pleased the Lord. In their obsession with ceremonial washing before meals (that was unlikely to remove many bacteria anyway), they missed the point that God was looking for clean hearts.
Jesus is concerned about what comes out of people's hearts ... because what comes out, in behaviour, simply reveals what is already lurking there. The long list of wrong behaviour and habits start with wrong thoughts and end in folly: and the characteristic of a fool is that he lives as though there is no God (cf Psalm 14:1). When a heart is not filled with the presence of the living God, many evil desires can be at home there: and an outward veneer of religion is merely a comfort blanket to wickedness!
Hypocrisy, is the name Jesus gave to such a lifestyle - and religious people were in the glare of His searchlight. As we approach Easter, the liturgical words, "Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden ...", should spur us to reject the right of any evil desire to stay inside. That is much more important than layering another religious role or action on the outside of our busy lives.
Prayer (from Psalm 139:23-24): Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. For Jesus' sake. Amen.
You can read more of this Bible passage online - in English and other languages - share the Bible with your friends!
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