Mark 7:24-8:10 (October 16 2022)

The Syrophoenician Woman’s Humble, Persistent, and Bold Faith

If you have your Bible open up in Mark chapter 7, we're going to begin in Mark 7 24, and we'll go all the way through chapter 8 verse 10. So Mark 7 24 through chapter 8 verse 10, and we're just continuing.

If you're new here, we're just going through the book of Mark, and wherever we left off last week, we are picking up this week. And so that brings us to Mark chapter 7 verses 27 through chapter 8 verse 10.

Let's begin reading verses 24 through 30, and God's word says this. And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.

But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

And he said to her, let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. But she answered him, yes Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

And he said to her, for this statement, you may go your way, the demon has left your daughter. And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone. Amen. This is the word of God. We'll pick up in verse 31 in just a few moments, but first we want to notice that Jesus is again in the realm of the Gentiles.

This time in Tyre and Sidon, this is north of Israel along the Mediterranean coast. And like we noticed before, Jesus, he doesn't go out of his way to find those who need healing, they go out of their way looking for him.

And so Jesus entered a house, he was hoping not to be seen, he didn't want anyone to know where he was, but the woman heard where he was and she went to him. And she fell down at his feet, begging him to heal her daughter who had an unclean spirit, who had a demon within her.

And now this woman, she's a Gentile, she's a Syrophoenician, meaning that she's from this region of Tyre and Sidon. Matthew's gospel tells us she was a Canaanite, and so we have a Greek speaking pagan Gentile woman seeking out Jesus and begging him to heal her daughter.

And that word begged in verse 26 has the connotation of begged and kept on begging. She was persistent. Now you're familiar with Jesus, you've read the stories in children's Bibles, you know that Jesus is kind and gentle and loving and you've already read and heard throughout the book of Mark how he has healed others with just a word.

And so that's what he does here, right? Verse 27, and he said to her, let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Now I don't know about y 'all, this doesn't strike me as a polite southern gentleman calling a woman a dog.

I mean he did soften it a bit, he didn't use the word for a mangy street dog, but a house dog, but still, he called her a dog. Why? What's going on here? Is Jesus being rude? Is Jesus being mean? Is it now okay to use a slur against someone?

I mean, what's the deal? What's going on here? I think a couple of things are at play. First, he's making a point about the order of his mission. Jesus comes to the Jews first and then the Gentiles. So in this analogy that he uses, the bread is the gospel, the children are Israel, and the dogs are Gentiles.

Jesus is making a point about the hierarchy of his mission, about the privilege of the Israelites, and about the order in which the gospel will go out, because God does all things in order. Now we'll return to this theme of the gospel going to the Gentiles, to the nations here in just a little while, but first let's see the other thing at play in Jesus' response to her.

And that is this. Jesus is testing her. He's creating a little bit of conflict in order to bring about her maturity and to build her faith. And so Jesus gives her a test with this analogy of bread. This might remind us of a story about Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 17, where in this very same geographical region, Elijah healed a woman's son, raising him from the dead.

But before he did it, he made the widow bake him some bread. Now she didn't have but a little bit of flour and a little bit of oil, and her plan was for her and her son to eat it before dying. And Elijah said to bake him a small cake of it, the last of her bread, to feed him, the Hebrew prophet, first.

And she did. And then he raised up her son and healed him. And her jar of flour, 1 Kings says, was not spent. And her jug of oil was not empty. And she and her household ate for days. You see, Elijah multiplied her bread and healed her son.

But first, she had to pass a food test. Mark Horne points out in his commentary that the Gentile woman had to put a Hebrew prophet before herself if she was going to experience the deliverance of the Lord.

And likewise, this Syrophoenician Gentile woman in Mark chapter 7 had to pass a metaphorical food test, putting the Hebrew prophet before herself if she was to experience deliverance from the Lord. You see, Jesus did not immediately heal her daughter.

He tested the woman with this analogy, with this perceived insult. And I think he did it in order to reveal her faith and also to build her faith. This reminds me of the story of Jacob in Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with God and prevails.

It reminds me of the end, last few chapters of the book of Job, where God kind of, if you read through those last few chapters, he roughs Job up a little bit verbally. Not in a way to put him in his place and to shame him, but to toughen Job up and raise him up to maturity so that he might fight well and rule well.

And Jesus gives this woman a similar test and she passes the test with flying colors. Yes, Lord. Verse 28,. But she answered him, Yes, Lord. She doesn't bristle at being called a dog. She doesn't chafe at the perceived insult.

She doesn't revile him or whine about him or run and go tattle about him to the scribes. She doesn't have a sense of entitlement that the Gentiles should actually come before the Jews. No, she humbles herself and says, Yes, Lord.

She accepts her place as a Gentile. She doesn't argue about being called a dog. She shows great humility. And then she wrestles right back. Yes, Lord. You're right. I don't dispute anything you say. Yes, Lord.

Count me with the dogs. Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. I just love this. She concedes the point while at the same time not giving an inch. She had come to this house to get healing for her daughter and she wasn't going to leave without healing for her daughter.

And so like Jacob, she wrestled with God and prevailed. And he said to her, verse 29,. For this statement you may go your way, the demon has left your daughter. And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

Now I think Jesus set the trap for himself on purpose. I think he opened the door wide open for her on purpose because he wanted to heal her daughter, but he wanted to do it in such a way that built her faith and revealed her faith.

Now there might be a lot of things that you might be going through that God could help, heal, solve with just a word. But instead of answering it immediately, he invites you to wrestle with him in prayer.

He gives you difficult circumstances that build your faith and reveal your faith. That he might raise you up to maturity. That he might strengthen you and make you ready to fight the next battle. And so from this Syrophoenician woman in Mark chapter 7, we can learn three things about prayer.

The first one is this, be humble. Humble yourself before God. God is God and you are not. God is King and you are not. God is Lord and you are not. We need to know our place. We are not entitled to anything but hell.

None of us. And so we don't get to argue with God about what he says or what he does or what circumstances he gives to us. What he allows to happen. Like this woman, instead we get to say, yes Lord. We humble ourselves.

Be humble in prayer. Second, be persistent. Be persistent in prayer. The woman, she begged and kept on begging. And she didn't get discouraged when Jesus' first answer was a perceived insult instead of an immediate yes.

She wasn't dismayed when he put her to the test. In other places in the gospels, Jesus, he told parables about the man who knocked at the door for bread late in the evening when a guest came and he kept on knocking until his neighbor answered and gave him bread.

Or the woman who knocked on the judge's door for justice. He didn't want to answer. He didn't care about the woman. But just so she would leave him alone, he answers the door. Jesus tells this parable, teaching us to be persistent in prayer.

The point being, knock and keep on knocking. Ask and keep on asking. Beg and keep on begging. And eventually you'll get an answer. So do not grow weary in doing good, including the good of making your requests known to God with thanksgiving.

Be persistent in prayer. Be humble in prayer. Be persistent in prayer. And then the third thing we can learn is to be bold in prayer. This woman, she was unafraid to make a counter-argument to Jesus.

She was unafraid to plead her case. To say, yes, you're right about that. I know my place. But what about this? And so we shouldn't be afraid to plead our case with God either. In fact, I think God wants us to.

And I root that belief in the doctrine of sonship. You see, God has adopted us as sons. We see that in Romans 8. We see that in Galatians 4. Now a common way to think about sonship is that we are God's little children.

And there's some things we can learn by perceiving us as God's little children. But the context there in Galatians 4 is the sonship of an adult son. Now an adult son joins his father's enterprise as a contributing member.

An adult son, he joins his father's enterprise, but not down in the mail room. No, when he comes of age, he's brought into the executive suite where he speaks into decisions and argues his case for why the company ought to do this and not ought to do that.

In other words, he has real input, and his father wants him to have real input, and his father expects him to have real input. Now in the Old Testament, that phrase, sons of God, refers to, in many places, angelic beings who formed what Psalm 82 calls the divine council, and in the New Covenant, believers in Christ are elevated to this position of the sons of God.

We too, through our prayers and through our corporate worship together on the Lord's Day, sit in council with God. And so you might liken it to a president and his cabinet. Cabinet members have real responsibilities.

And cabinet members, when they come in to meet with the president, they're expected to give advice and to make arguments for what the president ought to do, and I think this is a helpful metaphor for prayer for those who have been adopted as sons.

In Christ, we have access to the throne room of God the Father, and he invites us to humbly, persistently, and boldly make our case for whatever it is that we're asking him for, for whoever it is that we're interceding on behalf of.

And so it's simultaneously privilege, because we don't deserve to be there, that's why we make our case humbly. It's all of grace that we have access to God in prayer, but it's also expected. He has invested us with authority and responsibility, and he expects us to contribute.

And so this is why we can make our requests made known boldly. And we can do this because he has made us sons. And sonship is one of the themes of the next story in our passage. Let's read verses 31 through 37.

Jesus Opens the Deaf Man’s Ears and Tongue

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf, and who had a speech impediment. And they begged him to lay his hand on him, and taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, touched his tongue.

And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, Epaphtha, that is, be opened. And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear, and the mute speak. So Jesus, he's left the region of Tyre and Sidon, the northwest region, and now he's crossed the sea, and now he's down in the Decapolis region, the city of ten cities, which is down in the southwest, excuse me, southeast.

But it's also a realm of the Gentiles. Here he heals a deaf, mute man. Now for the other healings that we've read about in Mark, a lot of them, Jesus has either spoken a word, or given a simple touch in order to heal.

But here he does more. Why? Why does he stick his fingers in the man's ears? Why does he take his saliva and touch it to the man's tongue? And why does Mark record those details for us? Now maybe he was using some kind of sign language to communicate with the man who could not hear.

It's possible. Maybe he was physically demonstrating what he was going to do. But likely, there is some symbolism going on here as well. So back in Exodus chapter 21, we see there that after six years, a Hebrew slave was to be set free.

Unless he chose not to go out of his master's house. Unless the slave says, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children. I will not go out as a free man. And in that case, the master would take him to the doorpost, and take an awl, and pierce the man's ears, and the slave was brought into the master's household for good.

Now when Jesus pokes his fingers through the man's ear, his fingers are a symbolic awl, piercing his ears open. He's claiming the man for his household. He symbolically pierces the man's ears, and opens them to be able to physically hear.

The physical is always pointing to the spiritual. He's able to physically hear. And this is important because all who would become sons of God, all who would join God's household for good, must have their ears pierced by the gospel.

Because faith comes by hearing, Romans 10 tells us. And hearing by the word of Christ. His ears are opened. And it shows how God has given him faith. Then Jesus spits and puts saliva on the man's tongue.

Out of Jesus flows living waters for the healing of this man. And then Jesus looked up to heaven, sighed, and said to him, Epaphtha, that is, be opened. And the man's ears were opened, and his tongue released, and he spoke plainly.

And all who saw it were astonished, and they proclaimed, He does all things well. What a wonderful testimony about Jesus Christ. He surely does all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

This is a fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 35. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

Jesus is the Messiah who comes as Savior for Israel and as a light for the nations. And by opening the man's ears and loosening his tongue, Jesus is foreshadowing the work of making the world to hear the gospel and the nations to proclaim it.

Romans 10, 14. And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? Well, Jesus has commissioned and sent His church. And He has set our tongues free to preach Christ and Him crucified.

And He has sent His Spirit to open the ears of the lost, that the nations might stream to Him. That leads us to our next story in our passage, Mark chapter 8, verses 1 -10. Let's read. In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, He called His disciples to Him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with Me now three days and have nothing to eat.

And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. And His disciples answered Him, How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?

And He asked them, How many loaves do you have? And they said, Seven. And He directed the crowd to sit on the ground. And He took the loaves, and having given thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before the people.

And they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, He said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over seven baskets full.

And there were about four thousand people. And He sent them away. And immediately He got into the boat with His disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. Amen. This is the word of the Lord to us.

Now there are a lot of similarities between this story of the feeding of the four thousand and the feeding of the five thousand that we looked at several weeks ago. There's a hungry crowd. We have the compassion of Jesus.

We have skeptical disciples who wonder how in the world are we going to feed this many people. And then we have a miraculous feeding with bread and fish. Yet there are also differences. The number of people fed.

The number of loaves used. And the number of baskets left over. If you were here a few weeks ago, I made the case that the feeding of the five thousand was a feast for Israel. And the point I want to make today is that the feeding of the four thousand is a feast for the Gentiles, a feast for the nations.

And so we have that pattern again of Jew first and then Gentiles. Now leading up to the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus healed a daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, obviously an Israelite. And Mark preserved the Aramaic word that Jesus said when He healed her, which means little girl, I say to you arise.

And then leading up to the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus again heals a little girl. This time it's the Gentile woman's daughter who had an unclean spirit. And then He records the healing of the death man in Gentile territory.

And here again, Mark preserves for us the Aramaic word that Jesus said when He healed him. That is, be opened. We see the pattern. The numbers in this passage are also instructive. The four thousand likely refers to the four corners of the earth, representing the Gentile world.

In the first feeding, how many baskets were left over? There were twelve, representing, we said, the twelve tribes of Israel. In this feeding, there are seven baskets of leftovers, representing the nations.

Seven is a tenth of the seventy nations listed in Genesis chapter 10, the table of nations. The tithe stands as a representative of the whole. In Mark 6, Jesus fed Israel. In Mark 8, Jesus fed the nations.

By healing the death man, Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 35, we saw a few moments ago. And by throwing a feast for the Gentiles, Jesus fulfills, at least partially, Isaiah 25. And it points to the fulfillment of Jesus' mission.

I read part of this passage last week as making a different point, but I want you to hear the whole thing in context of a feast for the nations. Isaiah 25, On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined, and He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of His people He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Behold, this is our God.

We have waited for Him that He might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation. Jesus feeding the Gentiles. The feast for 4 ,000 is a partial fulfillment of Isaiah 25.

And it points to the fulfillment of His mission. It points us to the marriage supper, marriage feast of the Lamb we read about in Revelation 19. I want you to see how this passage progresses here in Mark 7 and 8.

It starts out as crumbs for a Gentile woman. Table scraps. And then Jesus opens ears and loosens tongues so that the world may hear and proclaim that Jesus does all things well. And by the end of the passage, there is a feast for all nations with more than enough bread.

Seven baskets left over. And all of this is showing that the gospel shall go to the four corners of the earth. From Tyre and Sidon in the northwest down to the Decapolis in the southeast as Paul says it in Romans 15.

From Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum. From the river, as the Psalms say, from the river to the ends of the earth. From Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. To every tribe, tongue, people, and nation the gospel goes forth.

From crumbs to an abundant feast with seven baskets left over. You see a little leaven leavens the whole lump and the smallest seed in the garden grows up to the biggest plant. And the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Jesus came to save the world and the whole world. Every tribe, tongue, people, nation belongs to Jesus Christ. And so how do we respond to this great and glorious truth? What should we do? Well the first thing is to repent and believe the gospel for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the gospel. If you're here and you have never repented and believed the gospel the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. If you're a Christian, you've been a Christian for decades we are still repenting of our sin.

We're still trusting in Jesus. Trusting, keep on trusting. The kingdom of God is at hand. The second thing I would say is pray humbly, persistently, and boldly that God's kingdom would come. That His will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

As our Lord taught us to pray. Pray humbly, persistently, and boldly that the nations will indeed stream to Christ. That the nations will be discipled. That they will be baptized and taught to obey everything that Jesus commanded.

Pray. And then also proclaim. Proclaim. Go tell someone this week that Jesus does all things well. Tell them that God has come to set all things right. Tell them, proclaim to them that Jesus has won His kingdom through His perfect life in your place.

His sacrificial death in your place. By His glorious resurrection. That He has washed away all your sins by His blood. That He has ascended to the right hand of God the Father. And He rules the earth currently as righteous King.

And that He shall reign until He has put every enemy under His feet. The last enemy is death. Tell them, proclaim to them that He will come again to judge the living and the dead. And tell them that there are really only two categories of people in this world.

Those who are in Christ and those who are not. Those who are united by faith to Christ and those who are not. And the difference is life and death, heaven and hell. Jesus is the great host of the feast for all peoples.

And He says, come. The Spirit and the Bride say, come. And let the one who hears say, come. And let the one who is thirsty, come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. Let all who hear, come.

Prayer for Traveler’s Rest, the Church, and the Nations

Let's pray. Our Father, You are God and we are not. You are King and we are not. You are Lord and we are not. You are Creator and we are not. And so we humbly recognize our place before You. We are but dust.

And we confess that we are sinners. Yet we are also dust. That is, that You breathed in life to us and You've made us in Your image. That we might represent You and reflect You and rule on Your behalf on this earth.

And those of us who are in Christ, we're not just sinners. We are saved sinners. We are sanctified. We are made holy. Declared holy by Your Word. Because of what Jesus has done for us. And so we give You praise for that.

But we recognize who we are. We ask You to make us a bold people. And so we come before You. We plead our case for traveler's rest. That here in traveler's rest, You would receive the glory that's due Your name.

That those in this community, that they're made in Your image. That they might rightly represent You and reflect Your character and rule on Your behalf. That they might know the comfort of Christ and the Holy Spirit in this life.

And that they might know salvation from eternal wrath in the life to come. That they might be united to Your Son by faith for all time. Lord, we pray that Your people would be vindicated. We pray that godliness might prevail in our culture and in our society.

And Lord, we pray and we ask that You would act. So that all people might see that You do all things well. And we ask that You would do this because we ask it in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.