Mark 7:14-23

What really defiles a person Mark 7:14-23: The desire of Jesus was that the people would listen to and understand His teaching. The thing that defiles a person is not some dirt on their hands or failing to follow some ceremonial washing. It is what comes out of a man that defiles him or makes him unclean. Jesus wanted each person to hear the truth, learn that message and conform their life thereto.

In the house, Jesus' disciples asked for an explanation of the parable. He asked them if they did not understand that what entered a man from the outside can not make him unclean. The things that enter a man from the outside do not reach his heart. They are eliminated from the body along with other waste matter. By these words Jesus pronounced all foods clean thus showing that the ceremonial distinctions concerning food in the Levitical Law would end. (Leviticus 11) The things that defile a man are the things that come from his heart: things like evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness. These defile because they come from a corrupt heart and produce an evil life.