Oct 14, 202110 min read

What Makes us "Clean" and "Unclean"? REST in the Teachings of Jesus Christ. Part 6.

Does the food that we eat make us "clean" or "unclean"?

If we don't wash our hands before we eat, does that make us "unclean"?

What about the words that we speak?

Does saying hateful words to our neighbor make us "unclean"?

And how do we know what is "clean" and what is "unclean"?

These are all questions that you may be asking yourself or have asked yourself, and we will be answering these today through this parable of Jesus Christ about clean and unclean.

Today's episode is part 6 on the teachings of Jesus Christ and we're going to be going over clean and unclean. If you haven't checked out parts 1-5 of the teachings of Jesus Christ, I have those on this podcast so you can go check those out after this episode. It's so important when we're trying to have a close relationship with Christ to study and know the teachings of Jesus Christ, live by them and follow Jesus.

First I want to say a quick prayer... Lord, I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. I pray that you give us knowledge and understanding to know exactly what it is that we're reading and the wisdom to implement it in our daily lives. Lord, please open up our eyes to see the truth of your words, to know the truth, discern the truth, and live by the truth. Lord, please open up our hearts, our mind, and our ears to you. I pray that whatever it is that we're supposed to get from this teaching that we receive it and live by it. I love you with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Alright, I'm going to go straight into some scripture:

1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"

3 Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' 6 he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8 " 'These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

9 They worship me in vain;

their teachings are but rules taught by men.' "

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"

13 He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

15 Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."

16 "Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. 17 "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' " -Matthew 15:1-20

Also, I did want to point out that Mark 7:1-23 also goes over this teaching of clean and unclean. If you guys want to check those verses out you can, but I'm not going to read these verses here because they basically say the same thing that I just read in these verses in Matthew chapter 15. So in the verses above these Pharisees were asking Jesus why he allowed his disciples to break the tradition of the elders because his disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate. These Pharisees were so worried about their traditions and about the law, but they weren't worried about the command of God. Jesus said this here in verses 3-6 that they didn't listen to the word of God about honoring their mother and father, but they were so worried about the disciples washing their hands before they ate. In verse 7 Jesus said that Isaiah was right when he prophesied about these Jews. In verses 10-11, this is the part of this teaching that is really important for us to know and understand. Jesus said that what goes into a man's mouth doesn't make him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth is what makes him unclean. And he explains this parable to his disciples in verses 16-20.

So anything that enters our mouth goes into the stomach and then goes out of the body. The things that come out of our mouth come from the heart; harsh words, arrogance, greed, pride, all of these things that come out of our mouth, the words that we speak, they come from the heart. Those are the things that make a man unclean. We have a sinful nature and the only way to purify our hearts is by repentance, asking for Jesus to forgive us, asking him to come into our hearts, following Jesus Christ, and trying to live like Jesus. I know so many people are so worried about the food that they put in their body, or if they wash their hands before they eat, but those things are far less important than the words that we are speaking to other people. The things that are coming out of our mouth, the wickedness in our hearts that are reflecting towards other people, are the things that make us unclean; not the things that we're putting inside of our body. Jesus says in verse 19 that "out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander," and those are all part of the sinful nature. We all have that sinful nature, but whenever we are saved and we have the Holy Spirit within us then we have the fruit of the Spirit and we have to live by the Spirit.

Here is a scripture pertaining to the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit:

16 "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." -Galatians 5:16-26

So all of those verses go hand in hand with what Jesus was speaking about here when he said "things that come out of the mouth come from the heart." We as humans have a sinful nature, but whenever we're saved and we have the Holy Spirit within us, then we have the fruit of the Spirit and we have to live by the spirit. When we're living by the Spirit, then the things that come out of our mouths are not going to be unclean. We are made clean by the blood of Jesus. He washes us white as snow.

These Pharisees, teachers of the law, and these Jews had hatred in their hearts and they were full of wickedness. They were so worried about the traditions of the law, but they weren't worried about the commands of God and about all of the evil things that came out of their mouth. Those evil words, thoughts, and the sinful nature are what make us unclean, not if we wash our hands before we eat or the food that we put in our mouth. This world is our temporary home and our true home is in heaven. In order to get to heaven, we have to repent and be saved by Jesus. He is the only one that can save us. He's the only one that can give us eternal life. Whenever we are saved then we have the Holy Spirit within us, so we no longer are unclean because we don't have that sinful nature and we don't have that wicked heart anymore.

Here are a few other verses:

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."

-Proverbs 14:12

I wanted to read this verse because it's so important for us to know and understand that just because man thinks something is right, or just because something is under a law or a tradition of man doesn't mean that it's going to lead to eternal life. We have a sinful nature, and we have to listen to the commands of God and know what is right and wrong by studying our Bible, studying these teachings of Jesus Christ, and having a close relationship with Christ.

"They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean."

-Ezekiel 44:23

"By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear." -Hebrews 8:13

The new covenant that they're speaking of here is the covenant that Jesus made whenever he died on the cross for our sins.

25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it." -1 Corinthians 10:25-26

19 "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21 It is better to not eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin." -Romans 14:19-23

So all food is clean and what comes in our mouth, through the stomach, and out of our body is not what causes us to be unclean. The things that come out of our mouth, the things that come out of our heart, and the sinful nature is what makes us unclean. When it comes to eating foods, the things that we feel like we should eat should be between ourselves and God. If we're studying our Bible, we're praying to God, and we're letting the Holy Spirit guide us, then we will be able to discern the truth. But we should never do anything to make another person stumble, and everything that we do should be done by faith. So if we believe that something is bad for our body and we put it in our body, then that's not good because we don't have faith that it's good. So why would we put it in our bodies? So anything that we do should be done by faith and it's so important for us to always pray, study the Bible, seek to live like Christ, let the Holy Spirit guide us, and we will know what is true, what is right, and what is wrong.

I just wanted to point out that I have done episodes for each different things of the fruit of the Spirit. I did nine different episodes on my podcast going over the fruit of the Spirit if you want to go check those out, I'm not exactly sure the numbers of all of those episodes, but you can just scroll down on my podcast and you will see those episodes.

Here are some takeaways from this parable of Jesus Christ about clean and unclean:

1. What goes in a man's mouth does not make him unclean

- So the food that goes in our body, us washing our hands before we eat, none of that makes us unclean.

2. What comes out of a man's mouth is what makes him unclean because it's from the heart

- When we have wickedness in our heart and we're living by the sinful nature, that is what makes us unclean.

- It's important for us to be saved, have the Holy Spirit within us, and live by the Spirit.

- When we live by the Spirit we are clean and we're made clean by Jesus Christ.

3. We have to live by the spirit

- Whenever we're saved and we have the Holy Spirit within us, then we have the fruit of the Spirit and we have to ask God to reveal the fruit of the Spirit in our hearts and to portray the fruit of the Spirit to others.

- Every single day we have to let the Holy Spirit guide us and live by the Spirit. It's something that we have to choose to do every day because as humans we have a sinful nature and we have to make sure that we are letting the Holy Spirit guide us, that we're praying, we're studying the Bible, and we're seeking to be more like Jesus.

4. Traditions and the law of men should never override the commands of God

- That's why it's so important for us to know and understand the Bible, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the commands of God.

- We have a sinful nature and so the traditions and the law of men may not always coincide with what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

- We should never let anything override what God commands us to do and what we know is right based on the truth of God's words.

So I hope this episode helped you guys to know and understand this parable of unclean and clean and know that we should always live by the Spirit, portray the fruit of the Spirit to others, and not live by the sinful nature. Next week we'll go into part 7 of the teachings of Jesus Christ, so make sure you stay tuned for that.

I love you guys so much.

Never forget to choose faith over fear.

-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)

p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, business, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.

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