7:20-23
It is what comes out of us that defiles us. He is not saying that we are clean until these things come out of us, but that they demonstrate that we really are defiled. And these things come out of the heart of man, they are the product of our mind, will and emotions. We then get a list of various ills. There are various lists, both of the good and the bad, in various places in the New Testament, the fruit of the Spirit perhaps being the best known of the good lists, and a bad list is found in the same section in Galatians 5. Notice that evil thoughts is the first thing in the list. What we think matters. If our hearts were truly good then no evil thoughts would come from it. Then we get various overt sins. The list is not intended to be exhaustive, but it is fairly comprehensive, accounting for most of what goes wrong with humanity. We should notice also that Jesus was speaking to the “normal” people, and He was talking to them about sin. Most of them would not have committed murder, maybe few had committed adultery, but coveting, deceit, envy, slander, pride and foolishness would apply to virtually all of them. Jesus had no qualms about telling people that they were sinners, because that is the truth, it is what we are, and it is why Jesus came to saves us, it is why we need to be saved.
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