Mark 7:14-23

And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 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.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

What a man evacuates when squatting in the toilet is dirty, not the incoming food that he eats. In a similar manner all the bad things which a man gives birth to from his heart, it is these which make him or her dirty.

To wash dirty hands before eating is healthy; but keeping the Pharisees’ complicated washing and diet rules do not make anyone a clean person.

Mark 7:8-13

“…. You leave the commandments of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”‘ (that is, given to God) – then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

God revealed his commandments through Moses, but Jewish religion had traditions added by their ‘lamas’, the Pharisees.

Jesus points out the expert hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He does so by showing that their tradition of making a Corban vow to give money for the enrichment of the temple actually forces a man to disobey God’s command to honour one’s parents!

Mark 7:6-8

And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

  You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

Yeshu said, “You want men to hold fast to all the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ that you have invented. Your rituals are not real worship of God, but are like play-acting.”