Dirty

May 13, 2009

Today's Reading: 2 Samuel 1-2 and Mark 7

I don’t normally do word searches, but since I was reading the in the book of Mark about what is clean and unclean, I decided to do a few.

Yeah, I usually hate word searches, because I know a lot of people who are addicted to them for their Bible reading. Still, I found that clean was mentioned 177 times, and unclean was mentioned about 182. Usually they were used in context of the Levitical law, as you might have guessed.

The thing that I discovered is that the word “dirty” is not in the Bible once. It is true. I can understand why. I don’t think that dirty is in God’s plan, and I think that it is only humanity who uses that term.

Seriously, we usually refer to something dirty as something sinful. Like Harry Callahan is “Dirty Harry” because he doesn’t play by the cop’s rules. The truth is, if the fall had not occurred, we would not have any use of this word dirty. In fact, we probably wouldn’t use the word unclean.

Here’s a weird thought that I’ve mentioned before. If the fall had not occurred, then sex would not be dirty. We would all be naked, and seeing nudity would not lead to any illicit arousal. Sex would be right up there with a biological reaction like going to the bathroom. Who knows? We might not even do it in private.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that everyone feels dirty sometimes. I remember some sins that I did, and I felt just dirtiest of dirty. It was like when you get dried dirt on your hands, and nothing but soap and water can get it off, but you can’t find it anywhere. Like when you’re working outside, or something.

You know what is interesting? Jesus actually says that there is nothing that can make us dirty or unclean. In fact, the only thing that makes us unclean is what comes out of us, not in.

The truth is, we don’t have to have to feel dirty. Christ died so we wouldn’t feel guilty about anything. That is a relief, because that means that no matter what dirty things that we exposed ourselves to, whether we did it to ourselves, or whether others did it to us, then it should not haunt us.

For those who were sexually abused, even if you feel at fault, you are not dirty. By the way, even if you watched the worst porn in the world, you also don’ t have to feel dirty.

In all honesty, you don’t have to be dirty, so don’t. No matter what!