The Wednesday after the Seventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 6, 2025 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 15:10-20 (NKJV)
15:10 When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”
12 Then His disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”
13 But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”
15 Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.”
16 So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”
Devotion
Jesus proclaimed the truth and defended His disciples, and the disciples seem to try to “check” Him on His words. There can be a propensity among Christians to act as if we wish the Word said something other that what it does, but that is a very dangerous mentality. The disciples said to the Lord: “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?” Of course He did! That is part of why Jesus said what He said in the way that He said it. As St. Paul wrote to St. Titus: “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.” (1:10-14) It should go without saying that needless offense should be avoided; at the same time, the fact that the wicked are offended is “a feature, not a bug.”
Jesus spoke very directly with the disciples because of the danger attendant in the way they were thinking: “Are ye also yet without understanding?” They were, but the directness of our Lord’s instruction brought them back into the way of Truth. Sometimes, it needs to be the same way with us. But we need that. God’s Word is not bound, and the Law and Gospel are instruments where by the Holy Spirit brings us to repentance and faith.
Collect: O God, Whose never-failing Providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
