Can you quote your favorite Bible passage and explain how you personally relate with it?

What make a person unclean (in contrast to the previous discussion of foods and the lack of ritual practices that do not); Mark includes a list of evils. For Christians to apply rules of purity to some things, while refusing to recognize how they apply to the rest of our lives is foolish. Jesus challenges the Mosaic understanding of uncleanness It does not, so much, have to do with association, but with an internal choice.

Doing outward acts of religious significance and restraining from things that are sinful are good things to do. But if the intention and the overflow of the heart do not match the outward demonstrations, they are meaningless. Jesus challenged the Pharisees and scribes who thought that they, by virtue of their careful following of purification rituals, had achieved holiness.

“It is this separation of life into a religious or sacred sphere and a secular sphere, which does not belong to God, that was completely eradicated by Jesus”. The emphasis should be upon God’s saving capabilities, not on our ways in which we think we can save ourselves. The first way in which the reader should apply Jesus’ parable of true purity begins with self-examination.

What goes into my mouth? What comes out of my mouth? Do I keep more control on one than the other?

Am I consistent? Are my actions merely to impress, or are the true expressions of what is going on within me? Does my honest inspection of myself reveal that I am trying to save myself, or is the due credit, all the credit, going to God?

Secondly, we need to be aware of religious expectations within our own time period that diminish God and his work, to the inflation of our own efforts. Perhaps a person’s holiness can be determined best by the combination of words and actions as they flow forth in daily life, not when on show or under the demands of ritual. As Christians, we need to be careful of the easy trap of deciding a person’s “religiosity” by their purposeful demonstration thereof.

In contrast to this, we should personally seek God’s strength to carry out all of the aspects of our lives—menial duties, daily conversations, ways of witnessing, private whisperings, arguments, friendships—in a way that reflects the work that He has done in our hearts.

In the first century, many of the Jews listening to Jesus were focused on the Kosher laws of the Torah (i.e. Eating forbidden foods would defile the one who was defying the Covenant) while not giving as much thought to the evil thoughts and deeds of their lives which CERTAINLY defiled them. So Jesus was making a contrast.

He was saying that when one eats forbidden foods, they defile the body but at least they pass through the digestive system and are excreted. But when one defiles oneself by means of sinful thoughts and deeds, the defiling is far more insidious and ongoing.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.