Bible Strands
Matthew 15:20
These are what defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile him.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus concludes his teaching to the crowds and his disciples about ritual purity, directly responding to the Pharisees' earlier challenge regarding handwashing traditions. He stands at the threshold of departing Galilee to enter the district of Tyre and Sidon.
The words — The participle κοινοῦντα (koinounta) literally means "defiling" or "making common," contrasting ritual uncleanness with moral corruption. The demonstrative ταῦτα (tauta) points directly back to the list of heart-born evils in Matthew 15:19.
The thread — This distinction between external ritual and internal morality runs through the Pharisees' handwashing dispute in Matthew 15:2 and Mark 7:3, while anticipating Jesus' later condemnation of cleaning only the outside of the cup in Matthew 23:25.
Why it lands — The text states that moral defilement originates in the heart rather than in physical contact with unwashed utensils. It requires readers to shift their priority from external compliance to internal integrity.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
Cross-references
- Mark 7:3 Now in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially.
- Matthew 15:2 “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands before they eat.”
- Matthew 23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
- Luke 11:38 But the Pharisee was surprised to see that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
- 1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
- 1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
- Ephesians 5:3 But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.
- Revelation 21:8 But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
- Revelation 21:27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.