For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
Christ speaks figuratively when He names these evils as proceeding from the heart, but His meaning is clear: the heart of man is the seat and source of all evils, and the sins themselves prove it. The mouth was mentioned only by way of allusion, but now He reveals the deeper truth, that corruption flows from within.
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Christ turns from the proud Pharisees, who thought themselves too good to hear Him, and welcomes the multitude instead. The humble, though weak, are teachable; the proud are willfully blind. He teaches the common people what the learned men despise.
AI summary
Commenting on Matthew 15:10-20
Evil thoughts are the root: wicked imaginations and lustful desires devised in the corrupt heart. From there spring murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies, all accountable to God. The catalogue is long because man's depravity is deep.
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