Things That Defile

Summoning the crowd again, He told them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. If anyone has ears to hear, he should listen!”

When He went into the house away from the crowd, the disciples asked Him about the parable. And He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.” (As a result, He made all foods clean.) Then He said, “What comes out of a person—that defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, lewdness, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.”
(Mark 7:14-23 HCSB ©®)

We clearly don’t need demons working on us or in us in order for us to be sinful. The list of flesh works in Galatians 5:19-21 are not offered there as works of demons. Having demons make things worse, and can tempt us into doing things we were already inclined to do, but there is enough sin in our flesh to ruin our lives and the lives of those near us.

The second list in Galatians 5 is the power to find what Paul called somewhere else “the way out.” Our responses to inclinations and temptations and plainly stupidity can be the power of righteousness when the Spirit of Holiness is influencing us from the inside. Then, what comes out won’t be defiling us or anyone around us.