The Dirt on the Hands and the Truth in the Heart
There is something deeply human about wanting to keep things clean. We wash our hands before meals. We tidy our homes before guests arrive. We organize our thoughts before speaking. Cleanliness feels like control. It feels like order. It feels like safety. And yet, in Mark chapter seven, Jesus walks straight into that instinct and turns it inside out. He does not begin by talking about dirt under fingernails or crumbs on a table. He begins by talking about the dirt that cannot be seen. He speaks of what defiles a person, and in doing so, He reveals one of the most unsettling truths in Scripture: that the greatest mess in our lives is not usually on the outside, but on the inside.
The Pharisees and scribes come to Jesus with what seems, at first glance, like a reasonable concern. They notice that some of His disciples eat bread with unwashed hands. To us, this sounds like a hygiene issue. To them, it is a spiritual accusation. Their concern is not about germs; it is about tradition. Over generations, layers of ritual washing had been built around the Law of Moses. These traditions were meant to protect holiness, but they had slowly become a substitute for it. The act of washing had become more important than the condition of the person doing the washing.
Jesus does not respond gently. He quotes Isaiah and says, “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” That sentence lands like a thunderclap. It is not a critique of dirty hands. It is a diagnosis of divided hearts. They speak well of God. They appear religious. They perform devotion. But inwardly, they are distant. And then Jesus presses further: “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” The tragedy here is not that traditions exist. The tragedy is that traditions have replaced truth.
There is something haunting about the phrase “vain worship.” It suggests activity without connection, motion without meaning, and religion without relationship. It suggests that a person can be busy with God and still be far from Him. That is a sobering thought, because it means proximity to holy things does not guarantee a holy heart. You can attend services, quote Scripture, and follow customs, and still miss the very God those things are meant to point toward.
Jesus then gives a concrete example. He talks about the tradition called Corban, where a person could declare their resources dedicated to God and therefore avoid helping their parents. What looked like generosity toward God was actually a loophole to escape love toward people. It was religious language used to excuse selfish behavior. And Jesus exposes it without apology. He shows how human systems can be constructed that appear spiritual but quietly undermine obedience. It is possible to honor God in speech while dishonoring Him in action. It is possible to protect one’s image while neglecting one’s responsibility.
This tension between outer performance and inner reality is not confined to ancient Pharisees. It lives comfortably in modern faith as well. We have our own versions of ritual. We have our own patterns that can become shields instead of pathways. We know how to look faithful without being transformed. We know how to clean the outside of the cup while leaving the inside untouched. Mark 7 does not allow us to hide behind appearances. It calls us to confront the question we would rather avoid: what is actually happening in my heart?
When Jesus gathers the people and says, “Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand,” He is not offering a small clarification. He is reorienting their entire framework. “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” That sentence alone dismantles a worldview. It says that contamination is not primarily external. It is internal. Evil is not something that sneaks into us from the world; it is something that flows out of us from within.
Later, when He explains this privately to His disciples, He lists what comes out of the heart: “evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” This is not a random list. It is a mirror. It does not accuse society. It does not blame circumstances. It does not target outsiders. It describes the human condition. It shows that sin is not merely something we encounter; it is something we carry.
This is uncomfortable because it removes our favorite defense. We like to believe that if we can control our environment, we can control our goodness. We assume that if we avoid certain people, certain places, and certain influences, we will remain pure. But Jesus says purity is not preserved by distance. It is preserved by transformation. The problem is not what touches your hands. The problem is what lives in your heart.
This teaching does not make the Law irrelevant. It fulfills it by exposing its true aim. The Law was never meant to produce outward compliance without inward change. It was meant to reveal the need for a new heart. In this sense, Mark 7 is not merely a critique of tradition. It is a preparation for grace. It sets the stage for a deeper healing than ritual could ever provide.
Immediately after this teaching, Mark shows Jesus leaving Jewish territory and entering the region of Tyre and Sidon. This geographical shift is not accidental. He moves from debates about defilement into direct contact with someone considered defiled by cultural and religious standards: a Gentile woman whose daughter is possessed by an unclean spirit. If the earlier discussion redefined what defiles, this encounter demonstrates what redeems.
The woman comes to Him desperate. Her daughter is suffering. She has no status, no leverage, and no religious pedigree. She simply has need. Jesus initially responds with a statement that sounds harsh: “Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.” This is not an insult thrown carelessly. It reflects the order of His mission: first to Israel, then to the nations. But the woman does not withdraw. She does not argue theology. She leans into faith and says, “Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.”
In that response, there is no demand. There is no entitlement. There is humility mixed with confidence. She does not deny her outsider status, but she refuses to believe it disqualifies her from mercy. And Jesus answers, “For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” No ritual washing. No elaborate prayer. No physical touch. Just a word of authority and a miracle of release.
This moment reveals something profound about defilement and deliverance. The unclean spirit is not removed by tradition but by trust. The child is not healed by lineage but by faith. And the mother’s heart, once marked by desperation, becomes a channel for grace. What comes out of her is not evil; it is belief. And belief becomes the doorway through which power flows.
Jesus then travels to another region and encounters a man who is deaf and has an impediment in his speech. This man lives in partial silence and partial isolation. He cannot hear clearly, and he cannot speak freely. Others bring him to Jesus, and Jesus does something curious. He takes him aside from the multitude. He does not make him a spectacle. He does not heal him in public display. He creates a private moment of restoration.
He puts His fingers into the man’s ears, touches his tongue, looks up to heaven, and sighs. That sigh is one of the most tender details in the Gospel. It is the sound of compassion meeting brokenness. It is the breath of God entering human suffering. Then He says, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened.” Immediately, the man hears and speaks plainly.
There is symbolic depth here. The chapter begins with ears that hear tradition but miss truth. It ends with ears that are opened by Christ and tongues that are freed to speak clearly. The physical healing mirrors the spiritual need. Humanity does not only need forgiveness. It needs perception. It needs ears opened to hear God and tongues freed to confess Him.
The people are astonished and say, “He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.” Their statement echoes creation language. It sounds like Genesis, where God saw that what He made was good. Jesus is not merely fixing defects. He is restoring design. He is undoing the consequences of sin by reasserting the order of grace.
Mark 7, taken as a whole, forms a kind of spiritual arc. It begins with a debate about what contaminates a person. It ends with a demonstration of what heals a person. It moves from arguments about washing to miracles of opening. It shifts the focus from hands to hearts, from rituals to relationships, from rules to redemption.
This chapter also challenges the idea that holiness is something we manage. Holiness, in the world of Jesus, is something He imparts. It is not achieved by careful avoidance but received through connection. It is not about keeping distance from sinners but about bringing sinners near to grace. When Jesus touches the deaf man, He crosses a boundary that others would avoid. When He heals a Gentile child, He crosses a cultural line. When He confronts tradition, He crosses a theological comfort zone. In every case, He shows that love is not defiled by contact with need. Love is defined by it.
What, then, does this mean for those who read Mark 7 today? It means we must ask whether our faith is primarily about managing appearances or about cultivating surrender. It means we must examine whether our spiritual habits are helping us love God and people more, or simply helping us look correct. It means we must confront the possibility that what we fear most in the world may not be what truly threatens our souls.
It is easier to focus on what goes into us than on what comes out of us. It is easier to regulate diet than desire, speech than pride, behavior than motive. But Jesus insists on beginning where transformation actually occurs. The heart is not just the seat of emotion. In biblical language, it is the center of intention. It is where choices are born. If the heart is unchanged, the life will remain divided.
The beauty of Mark 7 is that it does not leave us with condemnation. It leads us to Christ. It shows that the One who names the problem also provides the solution. He does not merely say, “Your heart is unclean.” He demonstrates, “I can make it whole.” He does not merely identify what defiles. He reveals what delivers.
The sigh over the deaf man is the same sigh that echoes over every broken human story. It is the breath of God grieving what sin has done and rejoicing in what grace will undo. It is the sound of divine patience in a world of stubborn hearts. And it invites each listener into a different kind of cleanliness, not the kind achieved by washing, but the kind received by opening.
To open one’s ears to Christ is to admit that tradition alone cannot save. To open one’s mouth in faith is to confess that mercy can reach even those outside the expected circle. To open one’s heart is to accept that the truest defilement is internal and the truest healing is relational.
Mark 7 is not a chapter about manners or meals. It is a chapter about identity. It asks whether we define ourselves by what we avoid or by whom we trust. It asks whether we believe holiness is about separation or about transformation. It asks whether we are more concerned with being seen as righteous or with becoming renewed.
In the next movement of this story, which continues beyond this point, Jesus will feed multitudes with bread. But here, He feeds something deeper. He feeds understanding. He feeds faith. He feeds the hunger for a God who does not merely instruct from a distance but enters into human mess and calls it toward healing.
What defiles a person is not the dust of the road or the crumbs of a meal. It is the hidden violence of the heart, the quiet pride of the mind, the secret greed of the will. And what redeems a person is not the water of tradition but the word of Christ. The chapter ends with people marveling at what He has done, but its real power lies in what He has revealed: that the kingdom of God begins not at the sink, but in the soul.
And in that revelation, there is an invitation. Not to clean ourselves up before coming to Him, but to come to Him so that He may make us clean.
There is a quiet danger in believing that holiness is something we can manage with systems. Systems give us predictability. They give us categories. They give us a sense of control. But what Jesus exposes in Mark 7 is that holiness is not mechanical. It is relational. It is not something that can be preserved by fences and formulas. It is something that must be lived out through communion with God and compassion toward others. The Pharisees had created a structure that looked impressive, but it had become a substitute for love. And when love is replaced by regulation, faith becomes brittle.
One of the most unsettling aspects of this chapter is how easily devotion can drift into distance. The Pharisees were not atheists. They were not careless. They were serious about God. And yet, Jesus says their hearts are far from Him. That distance did not happen overnight. It happened gradually, as practices replaced presence and habits replaced humility. They honored God with their lips, but their hearts had been trained to value control more than connection. Their religion had become an instrument for managing others instead of a pathway for knowing God.
This raises a painful but necessary question: how do we know when our faith has shifted from relationship to routine? The answer is often found in how we treat people who do not fit our expectations. When faith is alive, it moves toward brokenness. When faith becomes hollow, it moves away from it. The Pharisees moved away from people they considered unclean. Jesus moved toward them. That difference reveals everything.
The teaching about what defiles a person is not merely a theological statement; it is a moral compass. It points inward instead of outward. It demands self-examination instead of scapegoating. It requires honesty instead of performance. Jesus does not say the world is corrupting you. He says your heart needs healing. That is both humbling and hopeful. Humbling, because it removes excuses. Hopeful, because it means transformation is possible.
When Jesus lists what comes out of the heart, He is not compiling a legal code. He is describing a condition. These things—evil thoughts, pride, deceit, envy, and the rest—are symptoms of a deeper disorder. They are the fruit of a heart that has not yet been reshaped by grace. In this sense, sin is not just behavior that needs correction; it is a wound that needs restoration. And that is why rules alone cannot cure it. Only relationship can.
The movement of the chapter reinforces this truth. After redefining defilement, Jesus enters Gentile territory. This is not a coincidence. It is a lived parable. He steps into a place that religious systems would label unclean and demonstrates that His presence does not become polluted by contact. Instead, pollution is undone by His presence. The woman whose daughter is tormented by an unclean spirit does not contaminate Him. He liberates her child. The boundary is not reinforced; it is transcended.
Her response to Jesus is one of the most remarkable moments of faith in the Gospel. She does not argue her worthiness. She does not claim entitlement. She simply trusts in His mercy. In doing so, she shows that faith is not about position but about posture. She approaches Him not as someone who deserves help but as someone who believes help is possible. And that belief becomes the bridge between her need and His power.
There is something profoundly important about the fact that Jesus heals her daughter from a distance. He does not enter the house. He does not touch the child. He simply speaks. This shows that defilement is not a spatial problem. It is not something that must be physically avoided. It is something that must be spiritually overcome. The authority of Jesus is not limited by geography or culture. His word reaches across boundaries and brings freedom where oppression once ruled.
Then comes the healing of the deaf man. This scene deserves careful attention, because it is filled with meaning. Jesus takes him aside from the crowd. Healing is not always a public event. Sometimes restoration requires privacy. Sometimes dignity matters more than display. Jesus does not use this man as a demonstration object. He treats him as a person. The touch of His fingers, the look toward heaven, and the sigh before He speaks all reveal a God who is emotionally engaged in human suffering.
The sigh is especially significant. It is not necessary for the miracle, but it is essential for understanding the heart of Christ. It is the sound of divine grief meeting human pain. It is the recognition that this brokenness is not what God intended. It is a moment where compassion precedes command. And then comes the word: “Be opened.” The simplicity of that command is striking. It is not complicated. It is not ritualistic. It is authoritative and restorative.
The opening of the man’s ears and the loosening of his tongue are more than physical events. They are symbolic of what the Gospel does. It opens people to God and frees them to respond. It removes the barriers that prevent hearing truth and speaking praise. In a chapter about what comes out of a person, the final image is of a man whose speech is healed. What comes out of him now is not distortion but clarity.
This is where the chapter circles back to its beginning. At first, we see religious leaders who speak but do not truly honor God. At the end, we see a man who could not speak now speaking plainly. The contrast is intentional. One group has words without heart. The other has healing that produces speech. One honors God with lips while hearts are distant. The other has a heart restored and a tongue released. This is the difference between religion and redemption.
The people’s reaction—“He hath done all things well”—is a profound statement. It echoes the language of creation. It suggests that Jesus is not merely repairing damage but reasserting design. He is bringing humanity back into alignment with God’s intention. The deaf hear. The mute speak. The unclean are healed. The outsider is included. This is not a new law; it is a new life.
Mark 7 forces us to confront the possibility that our greatest spiritual danger is not contamination from the world but insulation from compassion. When faith becomes about preserving purity instead of practicing love, it loses its center. Jesus does not deny the importance of holiness. He redefines it. Holiness is not about avoiding sinners. It is about restoring them. It is not about maintaining distance. It is about bringing healing.
This has enormous implications for how faith is lived. If what defiles a person comes from within, then transformation must also begin within. It cannot be achieved by rearranging circumstances alone. It requires repentance, which is not merely sorrow for wrong behavior but a turning of the heart toward God. It requires humility, which admits need rather than projecting superiority. It requires faith, which trusts Christ more than custom.
There is also a warning here about substituting tradition for obedience. Tradition itself is not evil. It can preserve wisdom and guide practice. But when it becomes untouchable, it can eclipse truth. The Pharisees were not condemned for having traditions. They were condemned for using them to invalidate God’s commandment. They had created a system that protected their resources while neglecting their parents. They had found a way to appear faithful while avoiding sacrifice. Jesus exposes this not to humiliate them but to reveal the cost of hollow piety.
True obedience is not clever. It is costly. It does not look for loopholes. It looks for ways to love. It does not ask how little it can give. It asks how fully it can serve. In this sense, Mark 7 is not simply about ritual washing. It is about moral evasion. It is about the human tendency to hide behind structure to avoid surrender. Jesus dismantles that tendency by insisting that what matters most is not what we do with our hands but what we do with our hearts.
The heart, in biblical thought, is the center of decision. It is where loyalties are formed and directions are chosen. When Jesus says evil comes from the heart, He is not saying humans are hopeless. He is saying humans need renewal. This prepares the way for the Gospel message of new birth and new creation. The problem is not just that people sin; it is that their inner orientation is broken. And that is why forgiveness alone is not enough. Healing is needed. Restoration is needed. A new heart is needed.
The miracles in this chapter are not distractions from the teaching. They are demonstrations of it. The woman’s daughter is freed from an unclean spirit. The deaf man’s ears are opened. These are outward signs of an inward kingdom. They show that what defiles can be driven out and what is closed can be opened. They show that Christ’s authority reaches into the deepest forms of human brokenness and brings order where chaos once ruled.
This also means that faith cannot be reduced to boundary maintenance. It must become boundary crossing. Jesus crosses into Gentile territory. He crosses into disability. He crosses into social marginalization. He crosses into controversy. And in doing so, He reveals that the holiness of God is not fragile. It is powerful. It does not retreat from need; it transforms it.
For the reader, Mark 7 becomes an invitation to self-examination. Not an anxious inspection of every thought, but an honest reflection on where trust is placed. Is trust placed in systems or in Christ? Is identity rooted in custom or in calling? Is energy spent defending reputation or practicing compassion? These questions do not accuse. They clarify. They help reveal whether faith is moving toward life or stagnating in form.
There is also comfort here. If what defiles comes from within, then shame does not have to be hidden. It can be healed. Jesus does not tell people to fix themselves before coming to Him. He shows that coming to Him is how fixing begins. The woman does not cleanse herself before asking for help. The deaf man does not restore his own hearing before being brought to Jesus. They come as they are. And in coming, they are changed.
This is perhaps the deepest message of the chapter. Transformation is not achieved by exclusion but by encounter. The Pharisees sought purity by separation. Jesus brings purity through presence. He does not retreat from the unclean. He reclaims them. He does not fear contamination. He imparts restoration. And in doing so, He reveals that God’s holiness is not about withdrawal but about renewal.
The sigh of Jesus before healing the deaf man is a reminder that God is not indifferent to human pain. He does not merely issue commands from a distance. He engages. He feels. He responds. The opening of the man’s ears is not just a physical act. It is a statement about God’s desire for humanity to hear Him. The loosening of the man’s tongue is not just a medical event. It is a declaration that restored lives are meant to speak.
What comes out of a person matters. That is the central theme of the chapter. Words reveal hearts. Actions reveal priorities. Reactions reveal loyalties. Jesus is not obsessed with rule keeping. He is concerned with what flows from the inner life. And when the inner life is touched by grace, what flows out changes. Instead of deceit, there is truth. Instead of pride, there is humility. Instead of cruelty, there is compassion.
The people try to silence the news of the miracle, but they cannot. “So much the more a great deal they published it.” This is another subtle lesson. Restoration cannot remain private forever. It becomes testimony. It becomes proclamation. It becomes praise. The man who once could not speak now cannot be silent. His healing demands expression. This is what happens when faith moves from form to fire. It spreads not by command but by overflow.
Mark 7 is therefore not merely an argument against tradition. It is a revelation of God’s intention. God desires hearts that are near, not lips that are loud. He desires obedience that is lived, not loopholes that are crafted. He desires compassion that crosses boundaries, not systems that protect comfort. He desires transformation that begins within and manifests without.
In a world that still obsesses over external markers of goodness, this chapter remains unsettling. It refuses to let faith be cosmetic. It refuses to let holiness be performative. It insists that the real struggle is not with dirt on the hands but with disorder in the heart. And it insists that the real hope is not in better rules but in a better relationship.
Jesus does not abolish the call to holiness. He fulfills it by redefining its source. Holiness flows from a heart touched by God. It is not produced by ritual; it is produced by renewal. And this renewal is not abstract. It is seen in healed children, opened ears, and freed tongues. It is seen in lives that move from isolation to inclusion, from silence to praise, from fear to trust.
The chapter leaves us with an image of a man who can now hear and speak. It is an image of restored humanity. And behind that image is a question: what would it mean for our own ears to be opened? What would it mean for our own speech to be healed? What would it mean for our faith to move from guarding boundaries to opening lives?
The answer is not found in washing hands more carefully but in opening hearts more fully. It is not found in tightening traditions but in trusting Christ. It is not found in avoiding the unclean but in bringing the broken to the One who heals.
Mark 7 does not flatter human religion. It reveals its limits. But it also reveals divine mercy. It shows that the problem of defilement is not solved by distance but by deliverance. It shows that what comes out of a person matters because it reveals what has been done within. And it shows that Jesus is not merely concerned with appearances but with restoration.
In this chapter, Jesus confronts the illusion that cleanliness equals goodness. He replaces it with the truth that wholeness comes from God. And in doing so, He invites every reader into a different kind of life, one not governed by fear of contamination but guided by faith in transformation.
This is the dirt on the hands and the truth in the heart. It is the story of how outward religion can hide inward distance and how inward faith can produce outward healing. It is the declaration that the kingdom of God does not begin at the sink but in the soul. And it is the promise that when the soul is opened to Christ, what comes out will no longer defile, but testify.
Your friend,
Douglas Vandergraph
Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph
Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/douglasvandergraph
