Matthew 15:21-28
“Included at the Lord’s Table”
Translation
& Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 07 Oct 2012
Translation
15:21
Then setting out from there, Jesus retreated into the district of Tyre and Sidon.
15:22
And, check [this out], a Canaanite woman came out from those boundaries and
cried out to Him saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is
badly demonized.”
15:23
But as for Him, He did not answer a word to her.
Then the disciples approached Him and were making a request of Him, saying,
“Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.”
15:24
But He, in reply, said, “I was not commissioned to [any] except the lost sheep
of Israel’s house.”
15:25
Then she came and she was bowing down before Him saying, “Lord, rescue me!”
15:26
But as for Him, in answer He said,
“It is not good to take the children’s bread and toss [it] to the puppies.”
15:27
She then said,
“Yes, Lord, for the puppies also eat from the crumbs that fall from the table
of their lord.”
15:28
So then, in answer, Jesus said to her,
“O woman, your faith is great! Let it be done to you as you desire!”
And her daughter was cured from that very hour.
Exposition
15:21
Then setting out from there, Jesus retreated into the [coast/region]
district of Tyre and Sidon.
Και εξελθων
εκειθεν ο
ιησους
ανεχωρησεν εις
τα μερη Τυρου
και Σιδωνος
- Jesus went out of Galilee into Lebanon – 30 to 60 miles away from Capernaum, depending on the destination. [Show on map.]
- He had just offended the Pharisees in Capernaeum,
so that may have been one reason – Jesus may have been moving out of the
area for a little while to let things cool down.
- But He could have gone to some other part of Israel. Instead He goes outside of Israel to a gentile nation.
- What was it like to go on a foreign mission trip
with Jesus? The Gospel of Mark (7:24) tells us that He stayed in a house –
maybe He knew someone who lived there? But He didn’t want people to know
where He was staying.
- There also seems to be some sort of poetic
parallel between Jesus and the prophet Elijah who announced God’s judgment
of drought on Israel for their idolatry and had to go into hiding when
King Ahab and Queen Jezebel blamed him for the famine. The town of Zarepath inbetween Tyre and Sidon was one of the homes he hid out in. It was in this area
that Elijah encountered a single woman with one child. The child became
deathly ill, and God miraculously returned the child to life and health. (I
Kings 17) Does that sound familiar?
- In addition to this mysterious recapitulation of
the ministry of Elijah, I expect that Jesus was continuing to teach His
disciples. What is interesting is that the disciples apparently didn’t
find this teaching time remarkable enough to comment on (unless perhaps a
lot of the times when it says they went into the house and Jesus explained
parables was referring to this retreat time rather than to times
inbetween ministering to crowds in Galilee).
- The only thing that the Gospel writers actually
remark on during this trip was an encounter with a local woman:
15:22 And, check [this out], a
Canaanite woman came out from those boundaries and cried out to Him saying,
“Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is badly demonized.”
και ιδου γυνη
Χαναναια απο των
‘οριων εκεινων εξελθουσα
εκραυγασεν
[αυτω] λεγουσα
Ελεησον με κυριε
‘υιε Δαυιδ
η θυγατηρ μου κακως
δαιμονιζεται
- The LXX of Gen.
10:19 states that these cities formed the northern “boundary” of the land
of the Canaanites, using the same Greek word as Matthew uses here. These
towns were on the coast of the Mediterranean Ocean which would have
naturally formed the Western boundary of the Cananites as well, so these
towns were at both the northern and western boundary of the region of the
Canaanites, and that may explain why the Greek word (translated “coasts”
in the KJV (“vicinity” in the NIV, and “region” in most others) is plural
in the Greek text.
- The other Gospel accounts inform us that the news
about Jesus had already reached people from Tyre and Sidon:
- Back in Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount
(6:17), it says that people from Judea and Jerusalem as well as the
coasts of Tyre and Sidon heard Him when He gave the Beatitudes, and that
many were healed of diseases and delivered from evil spirits..
- Also Mark 3:8 informs us that people from Tyre and Sidon were gathered to Jesus at the shore of the Sea of Galilee being healed of
diseases and of demon-possession after Jesus healed the man with the
withered hand in the synagogue.
- So there’s people from this woman’s neighborhood
who have been freed from evil spirits, and perhaps those people are ones
Jesus is visiting, and perhaps they are the ones who have encouraged her
to bring her case before Jesus.
- Matthew calls her a Canaanite, which would
have been a general term for all the ethnic groups in the region of Israel before Joshua moved the Jews in.
- Mark is a little more precise, saying that she
was from Syria and Phoenicia, which are the countries in which Tyre and Sidon were located, and that she spoke Greek.
- Matthew and Mark are the only two Gospel writers
who record this incident. One possible reason is that the conversation
between the woman and Jesus may have taken place in the Greek language,
and, due to their level of education, Matthew and Mark probably knew
Greek better than the other disciples and so caught more of the
conversation. (Bailey, p.219) Just a guess, though.
- The woman seems to be alone. Is she a widow like
the widow Elijah visited? If so, she could well have been destitute in
other ways besides just having a sick child.
- The woman’s cry is remarkable:
- To call Jesus the “Son of David” indicated that
she had heard that God had made a covenant with King David a millennium
before, that one of his descendents would be king forever, and that she
believed Jesus was this special promised Messiah.
- Furthermore, to add the word “Lord” to that
title may have indicated a belief that Jesus was God, the Lord! This is
some informed faith!
- This is also an applied
faith, because she believes that Jesus has the power to release her
daughter from the bondage of powerful evil spirits, and she is asking Him
to do so.
- Furthermore, she is respectful in her
approach to Him.
- She keeps a respectful distance, knowing
that a Jewish man would not appreciate a Gentile woman coming close, and
- she makes no demand, but rather pleads for mercy,
recognizing that she is asking for what she does not deserve, she could
never pay Him back for this favor; it would have to be an act of mercy
from Him if He were to grant this request.
- Wow, do you see the example this
amazing woman sets for us?
- Lots of people come to Jesus
without understanding who He is – they would ask favors of the devil if
he had the power to fulfill their wishes. When we come to Jesus
asking for something, let us be sure that we know who it is that
we are approaching: He is the God who created the universe, who is the fulfillment
of every Biblical prophecy, and the answer to every human hope and dream and
prayer, the Lord, the Son of David.
- And
when we need something, do we believe He can really help us? Do we
believe it is His will? If we believe it, do we actually step out in
faith and ask, like this woman did?
- And when we ask, are we respectful?
Or are we demanding, indignant, or prone to take His favors for granted?
15:23
But as for Him, He did not answer a word to her. Then the disciples approached Him
and were making a request of Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps
crying out after us.”
‘Ο δε ουκ
απεκριθη αυτη
λογον και
προσελθοντες
οι μαθηται
αυτου ηρωτων αυτον
λεγοντες Απολυσον
αυτην ‘οτι
κραζει οπισθεν
‘ημων
- Do you remember the last time that the disciples
asked Jesus to send somebody away? That was just before the feeding of the
5,000. Jesus told them, “No, don’t send the crowd away, just feed them
yourselves!”
- It will happen again later when the disciples
try to shoo away a group of children.
- Here it is occurring with a gentile.
- The disciples have yet to learn
that they are not to send anybody away from Jesus! Have we learned that
lesson ourselves?
- As far as the disciples are concerned, this woman
is creating an uncomfortable situation,
- threatening to defile their Jewish company by
interaction with a Gentile,
- threatening
cultural taboos by a woman initiating a conversation with a man,
- and continuing to trail behind them and yell at
them when Jesus has made it known by His silence that He is obviously not
interested in her.
- She’s making a nuisance of herself, and the best
way to deal with this nuisance is to dismiss her forcefully, since she
isn’t taking their polite hint.
- Are there any nuisances in your
life that you would like to get rid of? Is it possible that getting rid
of them is not God’s will?
- Notice that Jesus did not fulfill this
urgent request made to Him by His disciples. He did not send her
away – either by a forthright dismissal or by a hasty healing
to get her off His case. Something fishy is going on here.
- But what about the woman? Here she has exercised
faith and courage to bring a request to Jesus… and He ignores her!
- William Hendriksen made a good point in his
commentary about this: “Christ’s ‘delay’ – if we may call it that – in
granting this woman’s request is not unique. It is one of the many
instances in which requests are not immediately answered:
- “Abraham and Sarah had to wait a long time
before they finally received Isaac (Gen. 21:1-5; Rom 4:18-21).
- “Did not David express dismay because God did
not immediately answer his prayers (Psalm 22:2)?
- “Did it not seem as if Jesus was going to
arrive at the home of Jairus too late? (Mark 5:35)?
- “And if Jesus knew exactly what He was going to
do about feeding the hungry multitude… they why did He not immediately
tell Philip all about it instead of saying to him, ‘How are we to buy
bread?...’ (John 6:5-6)
- “And why do we read , ‘So when he [Jesus]
heard that he [Lazarus] was ill, He then remained two days in the
place where He was (John 11:6)?
- In several cases the reason is… plainly stated…
In connection with Philip we read, ‘This He was saying to test him’
(John 6:6). And in connection with Lazarus, the Lord says to His
disciples, “’For y o u r sake, that y o u may believe, I am glad that I
was not present’ (John 11:15)”
- “Now if a tiny seed of doctrine
could bear such rich fruit in the Canaanite woman, it certainly does not
behoove us to faint if He ever keeps us in suspense and does not
immediately vouchsafe a kind reply… And this is the true proof of faith,
when we do not permit the general principle of our salvation, which is
founded in the Word of God to be shaken from us in any way.” ~J. Calvin
15:24 But He in reply said, “I was not commissioned to [any]
except the lost sheep of Israel’s house.”
‘Ο δε
αποκριθεις
ειπεν Ουκ απεσταλην
ει μη εις τα
προβατα τα
απολωλοτα
οικου Ισραηλ
- Jesus didn’t reply
to the woman when she spoke to Him, but He did reply to His own disciples.
- This is because He
is teaching them. This is a learning experience for them as well as a
faith-building experience for the woman.
- Kenneth Bailey, in
his book, Jesus through Middle Eastern
Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, reminds us that “In the
stories from and about Jesus, the surrounding community (on- or offstage)
is a critical component in all that takes place, and its presence must be
factored into any interpretive effort… Jesus is not simply dealing with
the woman, He is also interacting on a profound level with the
disciples…” (p.218-219)
- Where did Jesus get this idea that He was only
sent to the Israelites?
- It is nowhere in the O.T.,
and there is no other passage in the New Testament which quotes this as
the Father’s instructions to the Son.
- Certainly
it was a fulfillment of God’s word that the Gospel would be offered first
to the Jews before it was offered to the Gentiles, but it had already
been offered to the Jews pretty well by now – so well that the ones who
weren’t trying to kill Him were trying to make Him King!
- So, where did Jesus come up with this quote? He
is actually quoting Himself in the instructions that He had given
to His own disciples when He had sent them out on their first preaching
tour in Mat. 10:6.
- It was a time-limited command from Jesus to the
12 disciples for their early ministry projects, not one intended to bind Jesus
in His ministry, or even His disciples in their later ministry.
- I suspect that the disciples had used it,
however, to excuse their ethnocentrism, assuming that they should only
ever minister to fellow Jews and never to Gentiles.
- It is easy for me to imagine them being there in
Lebanon talking about ministry ideas while Jesus is in the very act of
following up on Gentile converts He had made in Galilee. So while Jesus
is there ministering to Gentiles, His disciples are oblivious, missing
opportunities right and left because they have these blinders on,
thinking that they have no responsibility to share God’s grace with the
SyroPhonecians all around them. I can imagine them staring right at some
needy locals with a mixture of disgust and pity, and then shrugging their
shoulders and reassuring each other, “Jesus said we were only to go to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel, so don’t worry about them!”
- Now Jesus is sick of hearing this lame excuse,
so I think that when He repeated it, He said it sarcastically.
- Think about it, when we look at prophecy and
Biblical history, we see that the opposite of this statement is true:
- When God made His covenant with Abraham in
Genesis 12, He said that the seed which He would give to Abraham would be
a blessing to all the families of the earth. (cf. Gal. 3:8)
- In Isaiah’s
prophecy in chapter 19 concerning Egypt, he says, “(16) Egypt… will tremble and fear before the hand that Jehovah of hosts shakes over them… (20) When they
cry to Jehovah because of oppressors, He will send to them a Savior and
Defender, and He will deliver them. And Jehovah will make himself known to
the Egyptians…”
- And didn’t this same Isaiah prophesy in chapter
42, “Look, my servant… My chosen one, delight of my soul; I set my Spirit
upon Him; He will cause justice to go out to the nations…. And in
His name the Gentiles will hope.” (cf. Mt. 12:21)
- And were not Gentiles mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy
of the Messiah – a testimony to the fact that the door of God’s mercy had
never been totally shut to Gentiles? For God had included Rahab
the Canaanite, Ruth the Moabite, and the wife of Uriah the Hittite as ancestors
of Jesus.
- There is something incongruous with prophecy
about the Messiah now claiming to be only sent to Jews. And there is some
inconsistent with what actually happened in Jesus life for Him to
claim that He never ministered to Gentiles:
- Did not foreign Magi come and worship him in the
second chapter of Matthew?
- Hadn’t Jesus healed a Roman centurion’s slave? (Mt.
8)
- And hadn’t He shared the good news with a
Samaritan woman at a well? (John 4)
- Sent to “none but the house of Israel”? Either Jesus is lying or He is communicating something different than the face
value of the words.
- As for the woman,
she obviously did not believe that Jesus meant it at face value, or she
would have left at this point. Instead she presses in, and the disciples
kind-of fade out of the picture.
15:25 Then
she came, and she was bowing down before Him saying, “Lord, rescue me!”
‘η δε
ελθουσα προσεκυνει
αυτω λεγουσα Κυριε
βοηθει μοι
- Again, this woman shows respect to Jesus, calling
Him “Lord/Master,” and bowing down before Him.
- And she says, “Help me!”
- These were the words of the man with the demon-possessed
son, mentioned in Mark 9:22-24, whom Jesus healed. Perhaps the woman had
heard of this incident.
- Perhaps this woman knew that the Old Testament
scriptures affirmed over and over again that God is a helper (NASB
quoted below):
- Genesis 49:25 “…the God… who helps you”
- Psalm 28:7 The LORD is my strength
and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped...
- Psalm 37:40 The LORD helps them and
delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, Because
they take refuge in Him.
- Psalm 79:9 Help us, O God of our
salvation, for the glory of Your name; And deliver us and forgive our
sins for Your name's sake.
- Psalm 94:17 If the
LORD
had not been my help, My soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.
- Isaiah 41:10-14
'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I
am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' Do not fear… I
will help you," declares the LORD...
- Isaiah 44:2 Thus says the LORD who made you And
formed you from the womb, who will help you, 'Do not fear...
- Isaiah 49:8 Thus says the LORD, "In a
favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped
You; And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people, To
restore the land, to make them
inherit the desolate heritages;
- Cf. Psalms 40:13,
41:3, 44:26, 46:5, 54:4, 70:5, 86:17, 94:18, 109:26 119:86, Proverbs
20:22, 28:18, Isaiah 50:9, Hebrews 2:18)
- As you can see from
the use of this word in the Greek translation of the O.T., this kind of
help is not merely a helping hand, but the dramatic rescue of someone who
is helpless.
- This is a very appropriate
prayer, and if you haven’t prayed it yet, keep it close at hand – it’s
very easy to memorize, even if you have to humble yourself to pray it.
- “Those whom Christ intends most
signally to honour, He first humbles and lays low in a sense of their own
meanness and unworthiness. We must first see ourselves to be as dogs, less
than the least of all God’s mercies before we are fit to be dignified and privileged
with them.” ~Matthew Henry
15:26 But as for Him, in answer He
said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and toss [it] to the puppies.”
ο δε
αποκριθεις
ειπεν ουκ
εστιν καλον
λαβειν τον αρτον
των τεκνων και
βαλειν τοις
κυναριοις
- Jesus finally speaks to her, but it is not what
we would expect; He calls her a dog!
- Jesus actually uses a diminuative of the word
for “dog” so it could be translated “doggies/little dogsNKJ/house-dogsHendricksen/puppiesCalvin”
– Wycliffe and Tyndale both translated it “whelps.” It’s not found in the
Bible anywhere outside of this story, so we’re left a little uncertain as
to its connotations, but it can’t be entirely positive.
- The regular word for “dog” was clearly an
insult, from the context of other stories in the Bible like 1 Sam. 17:43
(Goliath’s taunt to David) and Abner’s outrage at being criticized (2 Sam
3:8, cf. 16:9).
- In Philippians 3:2 and Psalm 22:16, the Jews who
crucified Christ and opposed Christianity are called “dogs,” using the
non-diminutive form of the word.
- Jesus is actually paraphrasing a passage of
scripture from Exodus 22:29-30 that says that unclean meat should not be
eaten by Jews, but could be thrown to the dogs.
- And we’ve already seen another reference Jesus
made to that passage in Matt 7:6 Don’t give the holy stuff to the dogs,
and don’t throw your pearls in front of the pigs... (NAW)
- The picture is of a father
and mother putting dinner on the table, and all they have to feed the
family is a loaf of bread, so the father chops up the loaf of bread so that
there is enough for each child to get one piece of bread. Then he puts
butter on each peace, but then he deliberately drops the pieces of bread
on the floor so that the dog can gobble them up, leaving his own children
to go hungry that night. Of course it
would be all wrong for a father to do that!
- “After all, dogs, no matter how dear to
the owner, are not children, and have no right to be
treated like children.” ~William Hendricksen
- And, to some extent this was true, for
Jesus’ mission was intended to begin among the Jews. The Jews were to be
the first to receive God’s grace, and it would be inappropriate for
Gentiles to expect the outpouring of God’s blessing prematurely.
- However, the fact
that people from Tyre and Sidon have already been healed of demon
possession indicates that there were exceptions to this general principle.
- This woman had pretty good reason to respond inappropriately
to Jesus:
- On the one hand, she could have clammed up with insecurity:
“Oh, I am not worth this great man’s time. I am poor, widowed, and a
Gentile. I am too wretched to love. God would never listen to me. I
should have known better!”
- Brothers and sisters, if you ever start
thinking that God would never listen to you or that you are not worth
anything, please understand that those are the devil’s lies put into
your mind to prevent you from praying. They are not true. Keep calling
out to Jesus! He will never be too busy for you.
- On the other hand, she could have gotten
indignant and lost her temper with offended pride: “How dare he call me a
dog! What a jerk! I deserve at least as much attention as the next guy! Forget
Him; I never want anything to do with that Jesus again!”
- Once again, if you ever find yourself thinking these
kind of angry thoughts toward God, you’ve fallen into the other side of
the ditch.
- The Syrophonecian
woman shows us the way forward: “She so seasoned her confidence with
humility that she did not lay rash claim to anything, and yet did not
shut herself off from the fountain of Christ’s grace by the sense of her
own unworthiness.” ~J.Calvin
- “A humble,
believing soul that truly loves Christ takes everything in good part that
He says and does, and puts the best construction upon it.” ~Matthew Henry
15:27 She then said, “Yes, Lord, for
the dogs also eat from the crumbs that fall from the table of their lords.”
η δε ειπεν
ναι κυριε και
γαρ τα κυναρια
εσθιει απο των
ψιχιων των
πιπτοντων απο
της τραπεζης
των κυριων
αυτων
- The KJV renders the first word “Truth,” and most
of the Bible scholars I read said that the woman was agreeing with
the truth of what Jesus said.
- However, based on the Greek grammar, I want to
tentatively suggest that she was actually disagreeing with Jesus. He
said, “It’s not good…,” and I think she rebuts Him by saying, “Yes it is…”
- That was a risky thing to do – to argue with the
man from whom you’re asking a favor!
- However, she sees the false dilemma and calls Him
on it. The Master has enough bread to feed both the kids and the
dogs, otherwise he wouldn’t have dogs in the first place. To feed the dogs
a few crumbs will not leave the children to starve.
- “For crying out loud, Jesus, if you were only
sent to the house of Israel, what in the world are you doing in Lebanon? You obviously have something to share with us Gentiles or You wouldn’t be here in
the first place!” she must have though.
- The Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus explained,
“Let the children be filled first,” indicating, not that His grace
was only for Jews, but that it was to come first to the
Jews, and implying that the Gentiles would get their turn in time. (Mark
7:27)
- Now, it’s a bit ironic that the argument she uses
is totally inappropriate for the Jews she is addressing. The disciples
would not have had dogs – unclean animals – running around in their dining
rooms, licking everything and making everything ceremonially unclean.
Jesus could well have retorted, “Of course not, no self-respecting person
should ever have a dog in their dining room to feed crumbs to anyway!”
Instead, He accepts her foreign analogy – without criticism – and says, in
effect, “Touché; You win!”
- Jesus is looking for faith, not
perfection, in you when you come to Him for salvation. If you are trusting
Him, He is not going to withhold His kindness until you fulfill a long
list of do’s and don’ts. Certainly He has standards of right and wrong to
be obeyed, and it is worthwhile to grow in knowledge about Him, but don’t
let yourself be intimidated by people like the disciples standing around
Jesus – people who know a lot more about God and His commands and who
don’t think you are worthy of God’s kindness. Of all this woman’s graces,
it is her faith that Jesus commends the most (Henry), so make that your
concern.
15:28 So then, in answer, Jesus said
to her, “O woman, your faith is great! Let it be done to you as you desire!”
And her daughter was cured [healed/made wholeKJV] from that very hour.
τοτε
αποκριθεις ‘ο Ιησους
ειπεν αυτη Ω γυναι
μεγαλη σου ‘η
πιστις
γενηθητω σοι
ως θελεις Και ιαθη
‘η θυγατηρ
αυτης απο της
ωρας εκεινης
- The disciples start to realize they’ve been had.
They thought Jesus was on their side against the woman, and now it becomes
apparent that He was on her side all along and was exposing their
stingy selfishness by parodying them!
- In the words of Dr. Kenneth Bailey,
author of Jesus through Middle Eastern
Eyes, “Jesus chose to take the theological attitudes of the
disciples and press them to their ultimate conclusion with a reductio ad absurdum… Jesus here
gives concrete expression to the theology of His narrow-minded disciples,
who want the Canaanite woman dismissed. The verbalization is authentic to their
attitudes and feelings, but shocking when put into words and thrown in the
face of a desperate, kneeling woman pleading for the sanity of her daughter…
Jesus is saying to them, ‘I know you think Gentiles are dogs and you want
me to treat them as such! But – pay attention – this is where your biases
lead. Are you comfortable with this scene?’ … It is acutely embarrassing
to hear and see one’s deepest prejudices verbalized and demonstrated…
[But] evil cannot be redeemed until it is exposed” (p.223-226)
- The wording is almost identical to what Jesus
said to that other Gentile who came to Him for healing of his boy in Mt. 8:13
“Jesus said to the centurion, ‘…as you believed, let it be done to you.’ And
his servant was cured in that very hour.”
- Finally, Mark adds an epilogue to the story which
indicates that the disciples ran into her again later and heard the rest
of the story: “And going back to her home, she found the child lying on
the bed, the demon having left.” (Mark 7:30, NASB)
Conclusion
What would this woman say she learned
in this episode?
- Keep trusting Jesus, even if He doesn’t answer
right away.
- “Every accepted prayer is not immediately an
answered prayer… but it is to prove, and so to improve, their faith and make His after-appearances
for them the more glorious to Himself, and the more welcome to them… When
the answers of prayer are deferred, God is thereby teaching us to pray
more, and pray better. It is then time to enquire wherein we have come
short in our former prayers, that what has been amiss may be amended for
the future. Disappointments in the success of prayer must be excitements
to the duty of prayer.” ~Matthew Henry
- “Tough exams are not a negative putdown.”
(Bailey, p. 220)
- Dr. Zachary is taking his board renewal exams
next year. If they were easy enough for me to pass those exams,
would any of you be willing to start coming to me to be your doctor? Of
course not! Tough exams are helpful in qualifying people for roles that
not just anybody can fill.
- Conversely, If I were to hand out exams to my
children and I gave the easiest test to my oldest son Josh, would that
honor him? If I thought he wasn’t smart enough to handle a hard test,
that would be an insult.
- So if you have a difficult challenge before
you. Don’t see it as proof that God doesn’t love you. It may just be
that He thinks the world of you! (cf. Job)
- “Her faith is expressed in her unfailing
confidence in the person of Jesus as the agent of God’s salvation for
all... She confesses Him as Lord and Master. A final, almost indefinable
element in that faith is her willingness to pay any price, even public
humiliation, in order to receive the grace mediated by Jesus…” ~Ken
Bailey (p. 225)
- Bring the concerns of your children in prayer to
Jesus.
- She took on her daughter’s troubles as her own,
saying, “Lord help me.”
- “It is the duty of parents to pray for their
children, and to be earnest in prayer for them, especially for their
souls… Bring them to Christ by faith and prayer, who is able to heal
them.” ~Matthew Henry
What would the disciples say they
learned?
- God is opposed to the proud, but He gives grace
to the humble… therefore humble yourself before the mighty hand of God.”
(James 4:6-10, NASB)
- “In humility of mind, consider one another as
more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3) And don’t despise people who
are different. Foreigners have a place at the Lord’s table.
- And whenever you become “weary of the [bread our
Lord has given us and are tempted] to play with it and find fault with it
and crumble it away… when we are ready to [glut] on the children’s bread,
we should remember how many there are what would be glad of the crumbs”
“let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God”
(Heb 13:15) for including us at His table in His kingdom!