Jesus wasn’t a big “list” person. As a teacher He tended to much prefer telling a good story to handing out a list. However, when He did decide to use a list He was quite effective. Note the Beatitudes and the Seven Woes.
Jesus uses a list here. He lists things that come out of the heart and make one unclean. In all honesty the only one on this list that we tend to be troubled by is sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is a bad thing and we must try to avoid it but when we do avoid it that doesn’t exactly set in the clear. After all, it is only one of thirteen things on this list.
Of course we probably make a conscious effort to avoid murder and hopefully adultery. OK, that’s three and only leaves ten more. How about greed, or do we just always call that “blessing” these days? A little envy can’t really be that bad; especially if we dress it up as admiration. Maybe we have all of these under control? Well, if you get the first dozen one might overlook a little arrogance, right?
Too bad that Jesus had to close out this list by saying, “All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.
No comments:
Post a Comment