- Q: Begin by listing the 4 specific issues described in v.1-4.
- Q: Are these things that you would naturally think of as objects that all belong to the same category, things that are all naturally related to one another?
- A: Most likely they appear to be 2 different categories mixed together, the 1st and 4th items having to do with oaths or speech and the 2nd and 3rd things having to do with uncleanness.
- Q: Why might they actually be related from God’s point of view? How would you guess that they all belong to the same category?
- A: God views our speech as “clean” or “unclean”. “Clean” if it comes from a pure heart that follows through to do what was stated, “unclean” if it does not.
- And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”
- Mark 7:18-23
- Then I said,
- “Woe is me, for I am ruined!
- Because I am a man of unclean lips,
- And I live among a people of unclean lips;
- For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
- Isaiah 6:5
- Q: How seriously does God take His own Word?
- For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
- And do not return there without watering the earth
- And making it bear and sprout,
- And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
- So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
- It will not return to Me empty,
- Without accomplishing what I desire,
- And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
- Isaiah 55:10-11
