Highlighted New Testament Bible

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Sunday, April 1, 2012

St Matthew, Chapter 15, verses: 17 - 18, Understanding: Explanation

Our paragraph topic is: (Christ explains what defiles a man) Part 2.    
    
Christ is teaching the people and bringing to them understanding.  He has called forth Truth to come to open the minds and hearts of the people that they may not continue in darkness, lacking the knowledge they need to know truth.  Truth is with him.  Truth is in him.  Truth is upon him and the Pharisees did not want the people to have truth.  Even the disciples of Christ were wanting in truth.  Even they did not understand Truth despite Truth presenting itself through the author of Truth, the creator of Truth, Christ.

They did not realize.  They did not comprehend.  They did not have some way to make sense of the conflict that was presented to them.  The Pharisees taught that they were unclean when they ate if they did not wash.  Christ opened their eyes by teaching them that they were not unclean if they did not wash.  For it was not what was put into the mouth that made one unclean but what came out of it.  But they did not realize.  They did not understand.  They did not comprehend.  Christ told them,  "Do you not realize that whatever enters the mouth passes into the belly and is cast out into the drain?  But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is they that defile a man."

The things that proceed out of the mouth defile a man.  Hear and comprehend!  The things that proceed out of the mouth defile a man.  And the things that come forth from the mouth are things that come from the heart.  What is in our hearts?  What is Christ telling us about who we are?  Do our hearts reflect what and who we are?   For it is they that defile us.  It is they who speak to us.  It is they who guide us.  It is they who lead us, like blind men, into the darkness and we are not aware of who leads us.  What is in our hearts?  What comes forth from our hearts? 

Are we deceived?  Do we not have a brain that tells us what we do and do not do?  How does the heart say who we are?  It is how we think that makes us who we are?  It is what we believe with our minds that makes us a person of God.  It is what we know of the Gospel that gives us the words we speak.  Is it not with our minds that we are?  Or is it?  We feel.  We have emotions.  We love, we hate, we cry, we pain, we know, we have joy, we have sorrow, we have happiness, we are depressed, we have anger, all as part of who we are, humans.  These are emotions that we know in our minds and can feel within our hearts.  Yet do we think with out minds or with our hearts?  Christ instructed the disciples as he is instructing us today.  Hear and understand!  Realize that the "things" that come forth from our mouths are the things that are in our hearts and it is "they" that defile us.