# Persons Mouth *But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.* By [Reborn Jem](https://paragraph.com/@rebornjem) · 2026-04-25 faith, heartcheck, integrity, transformation, truth, christianmeditation, biblicalreflection, spiritualgrowth, matthew15, innerlife, tấmlòngbêntrong --- **Matthew 15:16-20 (NIV)** -------------------------- _16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them._ _17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?_ _18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them._ _19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts — murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander._ _20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”_ * * * Are You Still So Dull --------------------- Jesus asks His disciples a question that is uncomfortable precisely because of how direct it is. Are you still so dull? Not — let me gently help you understand this. Not — I appreciate your confusion, it is a complex topic. Are you still so dull. After everything you have seen and heard. After all the teaching and the miracles and the conversations. Still. That word still carries frustration in it. The patience of a teacher who has been covering the same ground and watching the same misunderstanding recur. Jesus loves the disciples completely — that is not in question. But love and frustration are not opposites. A parent who has explained something to a child fifteen times can love them deeply and still be genuinely exasperated the sixteenth time. There is something quietly important in the fact that Jesus said this to His disciples and Matthew recorded it. He did not hide the moments when the people closest to Him missed the point. The Bible is honest about the dullness of the people Jesus spent His life with. Which means it is honest about the dullness we are all capable of regardless of how long we have been following. Are you still so dull is a question worth sitting with personally. Not in shame. Just honestly. Is there something Jesus has been trying to show me that I keep missing because I am looking in the wrong direction? * * * The Wrong Place to Look ----------------------- The context of this passage is a dispute with the Pharisees about washing hands before eating. The Pharisees had an elaborate system of ritual purity. What you touched, what you ate, how you prepared your food — all of it had rules attached to it. And the underlying assumption was that defilement was something that came from outside. Something that entered you through contact with the wrong things. Jesus dismantles that assumption completely. Whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body. The physical process of eating does not touch the heart. Food does not make a person clean or unclean in the way that matters most. The problem has never been what goes in. The problem is what comes out. The Pharisees had built an entire religious system around managing external contamination. Washing hands, avoiding certain foods, maintaining ceremonial purity. All of it focused on the outside. All of it missing the point entirely. Because the source of what actually defiles a person is not out there in the unwashed hands or the wrong food. It is in here. In the heart. We are very good at the Pharisee mistake. Managing our external behaviour while leaving the interior largely unattended. Keeping the outside clean while the inside stays exactly as it was. Religion that is primarily about what we do and touch and avoid is easier than religion that requires genuine transformation of what is happening in the heart. Jesus is not interested in the outside. He is always looking at what is underneath. * * * Out of the Heart ---------------- The list Jesus gives in verse 19 is worth sitting with honestly. Evil thoughts. Murder. Adultery. Sexual immorality. Theft. False testimony. Slander. These do not come from the food we ate or the hands we forgot to wash. They come from the heart. Every external action on that list had an internal origin. The murder begins with the thought. The theft begins with the desire. The slander begins with something festering in the heart long before it comes out of the mouth. Jesus is making a point about origins. The behaviour is downstream from the heart. Fix the behaviour without addressing the heart and the behaviour will just find another outlet. The corruption is not in the action — it is in the source of the action. This is why the gospel is not primarily a behaviour modification program. It is a heart transformation. God does not just want you to stop doing the wrong things. He wants to give you a new heart that does not want those things in the same way. We saw this in Ezekiel — I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. The solution was never about better external compliance. It was always about the inside being made new. That is the work only God can do. And it is the work He is most interested in. * * * What the Mouth Reveals ---------------------- The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart and these defile them. Our words are diagnostic. Not always. Not every careless word reveals something deeply sinister. But the pattern of what we say over time — what comes out when we are tired or threatened or not paying attention — reveals what is actually in the heart underneath the presentation we manage for others. The person who slanders easily has something in the heart that produces slander. The person whose first response to threat is false testimony has something in the heart that produces deception. The mouth does not invent these things. It reports them. This is both sobering and useful. Sobering because it means our words are more revealing than we like to admit. What comes out of our mouths when we are not curating is a window into the interior that no amount of external religious behaviour can hide from God. Useful because it means if we want to understand what is actually happening in our hearts we can pay attention to what keeps coming out of our mouths. Not to condemn ourselves but to see clearly where transformation is still needed. Where the work is still in progress. Where we need to bring what we find to God and let Him do what only He can do. * * * The Dull and the Honest ----------------------- The disciples were called dull because they were looking in the wrong direction. They were focused on the external dispute about hand washing when Jesus was trying to get them to look at something far more important and far more personal. The real contamination was never out there. It was always in here. The honest response to this passage is not — I am glad I am not like the Pharisees. The honest response is to ask what is in my heart that keeps coming out of my mouth. What patterns in my speech reveal something in my interior that I have not yet fully brought to God. Where am I still managing the outside while leaving the inside unattended. That is not a comfortable set of questions. But they are the right ones. Jesus was not harsh with the disciples because He had given up on them. He was direct with them because He had not. He called them dull and kept teaching them because the lesson mattered and they were capable of getting it if they kept paying attention. He is the same with us. The directness is not rejection. It is the honesty of someone who loves us enough to keep pointing at what we keep missing. * * * Walk On ------- The external management was never the point. What comes out reveals what is inside. Bring what you find there to God — honestly, without the performance, without the curated version. He already sees it. And He is more interested in transforming the heart than in judging what He finds there. Let Him do the inside work. 🤍 * * * _If this reflection spoke to you, consider subscribing to follow along my journey of faith, meditation, and rebuilding — one day at a time. Your support truly means more than you know_ ❤ --- *Originally published on [Reborn Jem](https://paragraph.com/@rebornjem/persons-mouth)*