Last night we looked at another scripture which seems to be especially important to know for the times we’re living in. This scripture is one that inspired me to do this series of studies. it has come up in a number of our studies in the past few years (when we were studying what Jesus tells us about life, when we were studying orientation) and it inspired a blog post here early on. Here are the notes from the study:
The Scripture: Mark 7:14-23
“When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: 15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!” 17 When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. 18 So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him,19 because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?” 20 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
Why it’s essential:
- It provides us a clear picture of Jesus, which is backed up by the rest of the Gospels. An important foundational idea we run into here is that we have access to the things Jesus said, so we can actually figure out what he taught. In this instance, we can see that Jesus cared about what we call “morality.”
- It’s an essential text for thinking about all issues of morality we face today. It is especially important in the struggle to get a clear idea about Jesus’ views on homosexuality.
- It gives us an excellent way to discuss the need everyone has for the gospel:
- For those who feel rich and complacent, and like they just have no need for Jesus, it explains that everyone is, as Jesus says “defiled.” Defilement, as defined in Jesus’ time, is the state of being separated from God because of some unholiness.
- For Muslims, it shows that their view of sin is defective, and way too small. They think God “will just forgive” sin. Because they don’t understand how big, and how deep our problem with inner sin and defilement really is, all of their religious practices amount to “hand washing” and get them no closer to God than the Pharisees in this scene. This is true of just about every other religion as well…
- For those who promote themselves as basically good and militantly moral because of some cause they champion, this text says that God doesn’t judge them as righteous because of their cause. There is a deep, radical problem which they may deny, but that doesn’t change the reality. In our day there are all these issues and causes (everything from movements about food to the environment to moral issues to social justice issues); they may be alright as far as they go, or not, but people can tend to think that they are morally good and cool with God because they take up this cause. Then they say, “Why don’t you guys do more about____.” From this standpoint, Jesus would call all those things simply “hand washing.”
Key things to understand from these verses.
“Heart” – Is essentially the same idea as what we would call either our “orientation” or on a bigger level, or “true-self.” It forms the basis for our identity. Since these ideas are massively huge in our society, we should understand Jesus’ core teachings on these things. And, while it is common today to be passionate about any number of things, Jesus invites us to be passionate about what really matters: the human heart—our own first, and then about what affect’s others hearts.
“Inner v. Outer” or “Heart” vs. “Belly” This is not to say that what is without, or what it physical or bodily doesn’t matter, it is to say that the core of who we are shows our connection to God or our distance from him. When we use our bodies to physically enact the things that are in our hearts, Jesus calls this having something defiling come out from within, and this is what it means to be defiled.
“Defiled” “Defilement” is the state of being separated from God because of some unholiness. Morally unclean, impure or ritually unacceptable are other meanings. Contrary to hand washing, or any other cause people espouse today: defilement is a major issue to Jesus. He seems to be saying that to focus on those other things and ignore defilement is to tragically miss what really matters.
The list of things that defile. Some of the things on this list people agree are “bad.” But people would disagree with Jesus on others. What we need to see is that we can’t cherry pick if we want to really know Jesus. And key in this list for our day is the word “porneia.” It means “sinful sexuality”. And how would a member of Jesus’ Jewish audience of the first century define what is sinfully sexual? They would look to the OT law, such as those laws in Leviticus 18. Everything listed there would be considered “porneia,” and Jesus says, “forget hand washing, go back and read Leviticus 18. Those issues reveal what is in your hearts. Those things are what defiles you.”
The key point, and how this teaching is part of the good news:
At first Jesus to be stressing the fact that we shouldn’t make up rules and say God cares about it—because he doesn’t. And Jesus does say that. But then he takes it much further, and says that the reason God doesn’t care about those rules is that they only affect the outer person, and they don’t actually get into the core of our being, where the problem is. Which means that the real problem with these rules, or anything else people get into, is that they don’t go deep enough—they underestimate sin and how horrible, dirty, and deep it is. They ignore the fact that because these things live in us and come out of us we’re totally separated from God, in a way that can’t be fixed by rituals. So the point is not that God hates rules and rituals, but that God ignores (or even hates) things that make people think they’re getting close to him when they’re not. And of course, this teaching points to the whole reason Jesus came, and why he was who he was. He didn’t come and give advice, he didn’t come and say we just needed to realize that God was already cool with us, and he didn’t come and give us some new laws to patch everything up between us and God. Instead, his teaching, his miracles, and his totally righteous life lead up to the most important part of who he was—his death for us, in our place and on our behalf, because nothing less could get to the heart of the issue we were facing, and nothing less would be big enough to heal the breach between humanity and God. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus show us how deep our problem was, and how big hearted God was to go to the lengths which were necessary in order provide us a way back into fellowship with him after we sinned our way out of that privilege.