Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Leviticus 22-24
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 7:18-23
Jesus: Do you mean you don’t understand this one either? Whatever goes into people from outside can’t defile them because it doesn’t go into their hearts. Outside things go through their guts and back out, thus making all foods pure. No, it’s what comes from within that corrupts. It’s what grows out of the hearts of people that leads to corruption: evil thoughts, immoral sex, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wicked acts, treachery, sensuality, jealousy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All of these come from within, and these are the sins that truly corrupt a person.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Did you notice the list of things Jesus points out that makes us corrupt? What a list! But not one of them has to do with the things we seem to point out most of the time when we want to point out the bad in society. Did you notice? That person doesn’t attend the right social events. This one doesn’t wear the right clothes. That one doesn’t belong to the right clubs. He doesn’t support right to choose. She doesn’t agree with the LGBT movement.
And then we really start getting picky in the church. He doesn’t sing the right kind of songs. She wears her skirts too short. He wears shorts to church. His sermons are too long. She spends too much time with that guy. He’s too friendly with gay people. She has friends that have had abortions. He’s divorced. She’s in her forties and not married. He doesn’t like the color of the carpet we picked. She picked the paint and I don’t like it. She wears too much makeup.
We think the stupidest things make us righteous or unrighteous. The Pharisees thought it was their rules and rituals that made them righteous. If they could just do all the right things, they would be all right with God. If they washed properly, ate the right food, prayed the right prayers, gave the right offerings, did the right things, everything would be alright.
But Jesus saw through their hypocracy. He saw their hearts. He saw their devotion was not to God but to themselves. They were more interested in obeying their rules than in obeying God. And He called them on it. So when His disciples asked about His comments, He explained Himself. It’s not the rules that make someone good or evil, it starts with a wicked thought.
If you’ll recall Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from Matthew, He talks about the fact that murder starts with the thought of hating your brother. Adultery starts with a lustful thought. Those evil thoughts are the spart of evil actions and those evil actions are sin. James tells us the same thing in his letter to the churches. Corruption starts from the seed of a thought that we hang on to and let germinate in our mind until we let it become not just a thought but an action with our body.
Jesus then talks about some things all of us agree with right away. Everyone would give a resounding amen to those evil things – murder, theft, wicked acts, treachery. But you know, our society starts chipping away at what’s right and what’s wrong with some of those others. Some have even become common place today. Find a television program that doesn’t promote sensuality today. Not too many are there? Pride? Is that a sin? We say it is, but we often hide it as ambition rather than pride, don’t we?
But Jesus didn’t mince words when He laid out His list of evils as He shared with His disciples – evil thoughts, immoral sex, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wicked acts, treachery, sensuality, jealousy, slander, pride, and foolishness. Did He really say foolishness? Yep. That’s evil? It can be. Proverbs warns against foolishness a lot. Foolishness wastes effort, resources, hurts people carelessly. It’s not the same as having fun and enjoying life. Foolishness is the opposite of wisdom and harms God’s creation. So, yes, foolishness is evil.
We like to skip over those things that society says is okay, but they’re not. Sex outside of marriage is not okay despite what the world may say. Adultery is not okay regardless of who else might engage in it. Greed is not healthy for society or for the individuals that engage in it. Jealousy hurts not only the one who is jealous but it taints every relationship that person has. Slander creates distrust across society and is worse that theft because things can be replaced, but reputations can be destroyed forever. Pride sets us up for a mighty fall because it always puff us up falsely. Foolishness causes us to do things that just lead us into trouble unnecessarily. Yet all these things the world often thinks are okay. None of these are condemned the way Jesus condemns them .
So who will we listen to, the world or Jesus? If we want to live eternally, the answer better be Jesus. After all, He’s the one who will stand as our judge at the end of time. It’s probably best to do what He says.
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