Inside Out
5 min read
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
—Mark 7:14-15
The disciples couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying because this lesson ran contrary to their worldview. According to Jewish culture, some foods (going into a person) inherently defile a person. On the other hand, religious acts (coming out of a person) are necessary for cleansing and atonement.
Christians today fall into the trap of culture too in all kinds of ways, making it more difficult for us to understand the gospel.
Nothing going into a person inherently defiles, but our culture has taken that lesson to the extreme—not just in terms of drugs and alcohol, but also in terms of education, information, online content, entertainment, and so on.
How many of us, for example, would love to send our kids or future kids to Harvard or Stanford, knowing that those institutions are bastions of anti-Christian brainwashers? But even on a more basic level, how about someone like me who loves to watch movies? Where do we draw the line? How much is too much?
I believe in the freedom that comes from my salvation in Christ. But this is not a kind of freedom that condones the consumption of harmful products and content. It is the freedom to not live in a regulatory prison of “do only this” and “don’t do that.” It is the freedom to call upon the Lord to seek repentance through the grace of Christ.
The apostle Paul pointed out that our freedom in Christ means that we might have the right to do “anything.” At the same time, we must not become mastered by anything, whether good or bad (1 Corinthians 6:12). We also should learn to discern what is constructive versus not constructive (1 Corinthians 10:23).
In reality, for most people, including myself, rules and regulations are just easier. It is important for us to understand, however, that because of sin, a culture guided by human rules and regulations always leads to “death” (2 Corinthians 3:6), because those very rules and regulations lead us away from the gospel.
Not that rules and regulations are necessarily bad, but we need to be discerning and do our best to err on the side of love and grace (if it is possible to err on the side of love and grace).
The attitudes, thoughts, and, eventually, behaviors that are born in our heart are what defile us. There is only one thing in our hearts that we can trust—our faith in Christ alone, and that by God’s grace alone.
Father, we live in a world of self-righteousness and finger-pointing. But we do not reflect enough on the evil tendencies coming out of our own hearts and the power of Your love. Forgive me. Forgive us. But help us to grow in understand—not for the sake of self-loathing, but to guard against self-righteousness. Out of Your glorious riches, Lord, fill us with power through Your Holy Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in in our hearts through faith. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
