What Does Mark 7:15 Mean?
There is nothing from outside a man, entering into him, that can make him common. But the things coming out of a man, those are the things that make the man common.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.THE KEY
The word behind “defile” means “make common,” so the verse locates the profaning force in what proceeds from within, not in what enters from outside.
THE MEANING
What enters from outside does not make you common before God; what proceeds from within can. The verse locates defilement in the inward life from which a person’s outward expression comes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that contact with an external thing, by itself, makes you inwardly profane.
THE ROOT
κοινόω
koinoō
GROWS FROM
κοιν-
koin-
To make common, or treat as ordinary or profane.
“make common” in this verse is koinoō. The Greek verb translated “defile” comes from the word for “common.” The verse presents defilement as a making-common that proceeds from within, while what merely enters from outside does not do this.
ALSO GROWS
koinos: Common, shared, or ordinary; in some contexts, profane or unclean.
κοινός
This is the base word behind “defile,” revealing that the word carries the idea of making something common.
koinōnia: Sharing in common; participation or fellowship.
κοινωνία
This related word shows the broader family’s sense of what is shared or held in common.
THE PATTERN
Defilement is traced to what proceeds from within, while what enters from outside does not make the person common.
Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.THE THREAD
And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has cleansed, do not make common.The Greek word-family behind “defile” in Mark appears here as “common.” Mark locates the making-common in what proceeds from within; Acts uses the same word-family when Peter is told not to call common what God has cleansed.
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