My Point Exactly.

 

It's very interesting how God's timing works. 

Our house family here in Costa Rica had actually just had a discussion on violent movies....

Are they okay to watch? Can we watch and enjoy them? How much violence is too much violence?

David brought up the verse,

"it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out."

Okay, so let's go to context: Mark 7

Mark 7

That Which Defiles

 ¹ The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus ² and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. ³ (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. ⁴ When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.^[a])

 ⁵ So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

 ⁶ He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

   “‘These people honor me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me.
⁷ They worship me in vain;
   their teachings are merely human rules.’^[b]

   ⁸ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

 ⁹ And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe^[c] your own traditions! ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’^[d] and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’^{[e] 11} But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— ¹² then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. ¹³ Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

 ¹⁴ Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. ¹⁵ Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” ^{[16] [f]}

 ¹⁷ After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. ¹⁸ “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? ¹⁹ For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

 ²⁰ He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. ²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

So where do we go with this? I encourage you to ponder the words of Jesus. Think about them. Meditate on them. As a house we had an hour long discussion on what this means. What is coming out of our hearts? What are we putting into our hearts that enters through our eyes and ears? It's true, what we eat doesn't make us unclean. Let's not misinterpret scripture...but what are we filling our hearts with? What are we putting in our minds? What are we looking at? Listening to? Meditating on? Isn't it time we as Christians stood up for what we say we believe in? Start practicing it? Start reading God's Word again instead of getting sound bites of it on Sunday mornings with an occasional snack of it on the Christian radio? Actually use it to fight against the demonic that is present in our world and really, really good at deceiving us because there are people that actually like being deceived?

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable

—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—

think about such things."

~Philippians 4:8