Matthew 15:10-20

¹⁰ Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:

¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this contaminates a man.”

¹² Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard you say this?”

¹³ He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.

¹⁴ Leave them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵ But Peter said to him, “Explain the saying to us.”

¹⁶ And he said, “Are you also still without understanding?

¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth has first come from the heart, and this defiles a person.

¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, like those of murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, blasphemy.

²⁰ These are the contaminators of a man. But to eat with unwashed hands does not contaminate a man.”

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true contamination and true purity

Jesus and the Pharisees had two radically opposite views of spiritual contamination. For the Pharisees, a person can make himself holy by avoiding common things. By performing a simple ritual washing before a meal, for example, the Pharisees thought they were protecting themselves from the invasion of any foreign spiritual pollutants. It had nothing to do with hygiene – the avoidance of germs and such. It was supposed to be a protection against the moral pollutants in the world caused by Gentiles and sinners.

Jesus knew that true spiritual contamination is already there in every human soul (except his own). Since these temptations to disobey God come from our hearts, no amount of ritual cleansing can protect against them. This is why Jesus – as a discipler — insisted that his disciples not go through the Pharisees’ cleansing ritual. He did not want them accepting the false concept of spiritual contamination that was inherent in the ritual. He wanted them to know that even if they stayed away from “common” things, they were still going to struggle with spiritual impurity.

LORD, help us to resist the simple solutions the world gives us for our complex spiritual problems. May we seek a true purity that can only come from a relationship with you.