We are quick to blame circumstances, people, or environments for our sin, just as the Pharisees did with their man-made traditions. They assumed defilement came from something outside of them—food touched by Gentiles, unwashed hands, unclean environments. But Jesus confronts this thinking head-on: the real problem is not out there, but inside of us. “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (v. 15). External things may tempt or pressure us, but they cannot make us unclean. Defilement is not transferred from the outside in; it flows from the inside out.

When Jesus explained this to His disciples, He clarified that food enters the stomach, not the heart. The heart—our center of thought, will, and desire—is the real issue. Outward religion may scrub t ...