2 “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.
12 Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?”
17 “Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?
18 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 “These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.” Matthew 15:1, 2, 8, 11, 12, and 17-20.
None of us worry now about whether or not we wash our hands before we eat as a matter of religious practice that we should follow. We don’t worry about defiling ourselves, although as a matter of common sense, we may worry about physical contamination, as compared to spiritual contamination, if we eat with dirty hands. So, I don’t think the lesson is, at least primarily, one of freedom in Christ.
Rather, the lesson in these verses is the importance of a clean heart as compared to the relative non-importance of clean hands. We covered this point just a bit in our last devotion, as one among several points, but this devotion will be devoted to this one point.
Jesus explains his statement in Matthew 15:11: “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” He states in Matthew 15:17-19: “Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”
It is a lot easier to clean one’s hands than to clean one’s heart. As is stated Proverbs 20:9: “Who can say, “I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin”?”
Where do we go from here? When I did a word search for “heart” at the Gateway web site, there were 805 entries! Click here: BibleGateway.com – Keyword Search: heart I have selected two entries and will talk about those verses.
Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, ” I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 