Proverbs says, 'Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it flows the issues of life'. Although variously translated the importance of the heart remains clear in all of them.
In one of Jesus' sayings, he taught that a person is not defiled by what he eats.
What is defiling is what comes out of his mouth from his heart (Mark 7.20). Such things as, 'evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness' and 'All these evil things come from within, and defile the man' (vv21-23).
