June 18
From the desk of Pastor Ben

The Defilement Principle Described

“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,  false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”         (Matthew 15:19-20)

Jesus here continues using the figure of eating to explain the principle of defilement. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus adds that food “does not go into man’s heart” (Mark 7:19). Food and drink are only physical, so they can effect only the physical. They can’t defile the inner person, represented by the heart, because the physical and spiritual are qualitatively different — of different realms. Outward ceremonial practices can’t cleanse a person spiritually; neither can failure to observe them defile a person spiritually. All the ceremonially clean sings, prescribed sacrifices, and special observances in the Old Testament never did more than picture spiritual cleansing.

Jesus rightly observes that the heart represents the inner person — his or her thoughts, attitudes, desires, loyalties, and motives. Therefore, what defiles is heart attitudes, like “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” A person commits sin when he wants to, whether or not he ever actually carries it out in action — and therefore he is defiled in God’s sight. Paul writes this: “To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him” (Titus 1:15-16a).

The things that defile us come from an unclean see heart, not from hands that might be unwashed. Therefore we always need the Lord and His Spirit to cleanse our hearts. When we have a pure heart — undefined inside — we will see God (Matthew 5:8).

Ask Yourself:
Part of what causes sin to keep coming out of us is that we allow our minds to dwell on things that foster it. What is God calling you to radically eliminate from your life in order to cut off much of sin’s supply to your heart?