<p>15:17&nbsp;<em>Do you not understand, that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the belly and is expelled?-</em>&nbsp;The world would not perceive / understand (Mk. 4:12); but they did, or so the Lord told them. And hence His distress that they did&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;perceive (Mk. 7:18; 8:17); and yet He said that blessed were their ears and minds, because they understood what had been hidden from so many. Surely He imputed more perception to them than they really had. The Lord was frustrated that by this point in His ministry, they still didn&rsquo;t understand that food couldn&rsquo;t really defile a person. And even by the time of Acts 10, Peter was still not persuaded of this. The Lord&rsquo;s hopefulness in them was such that He had great expectations of the speed of their spiritual growth, which resulted in disappointment for Him. This is all very much the enthusiasm of the lover for the beloved.</p>