Show Don't Tell: Mark 7:14-23

Instead of saying "Jesus taught that sin comes from the heart," trace the pollution to its source. Jesus calls the crowd again: "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them." The disciples don't understand. Jesus explains: "Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body." Mark adds: "In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean." Revolutionary. The food laws are over. But it's what comes out—from within, from the human heart—that defiles: evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly. "All these evils come from inside and defile a person." The heart is the problem. Diet doesn't determine purity; the heart does.