Mark 7:14-19 - Listen to me

7:14-16

Having spoken to the Pharisees, Jesus now turns his attention to the crowd. The Pharisees were fundamentally misleading the people, with their great emphasis on outward actions. They taught people that observing all these washing rules and food laws was essential in order to avoid defilement. This was not true, and was not getting to the heart of the matter, not getting to the real root of the problem. What shows that we are defiled is the stuff that comes out of us. There is an implication in this in how we interpret the food laws etc from the Law. Their purpose was not to make or keep a person clean. 

Most versions will not have verse 16, KJV and NKJV will have, where the text of Mark 4:23 is added here.

7:17-19

Jesus, apparently, said little else to the crowd, but His disciples did not fully understand what Jesus was teaching. The high importance of ritual cleanliness was so ingrained in Jewish culture that the concept of anything else could not be easily understood. Jesus rebukes them for being so dull, it should have been obvious that stuff that enters the body from the outside cannot make a person clean or unclean. We should draw a distinction between what enters the body and what enters the mind. Dwelling on pornography, or evil ideas, or gossip or lies etc does not do a person any good. Food just goes in and comes out again. Wrong thoughts go in and can take root like an infection.