Did the Fruit Defile Adam and Eve or Was It Their Disobedience?

# 438 - Today's Living Word comes from Mr 7:17,18 “When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. So He said to them, "Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him,

Parable? I thought a parable was an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Not always. Sometimes the broader sense of the word can mean an adage or a saying.

The saying of Jesus that the disciples couldn't grasp was found in verse 15, "There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.” They really had a tough time with this saying because the traditions of the religious leaders were so ingrained that they had replaced the Word of God.

If someone tells you long enough that your dirty hands make you unclean or eating pork makes you unclean, and you don't square it up with the Word of God, pretty soon you start to blame the dirt and the pork for your uncleanness. The disciples had come to believe that it was the dirt and the pork's fault. It never is, and it never was. The core issue is always disobedience to God's commands.

Did the fruit defile Adam and Eve or was it their disobedience?

I'm Duane Matz and that's Today's Living Word.