Mark 7 – The Listening Plan

Devotional

When He had called all the multitude to Himself,He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: “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.

– Matthew 7:14-15

Often we are captivated—seduced even—by the religious notion that certain foods are morally defiled and therefore morally defile the partaker of them. Jesus in Mark 7 dispels that idea completely. Could His words be anymore emphatic? “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him.”

No doubt there are unclean foods that can make you sick, or unhealthy. But when it comes to wickedness and immorality, those things are in this world because of the wicked, fallen hearts of humanity. And that wickedness cannot be purged by religious rituals or formality. Only the saving and sanctifying power of Christ will suffice.