"The Syrophoenician Woman" (Sermon)

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Lord's Day message from January 28th 2024 -Biblical Text: Matthew 15:21-28

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The love of God, the grace of God is extended to all people, and when we say all, we really mean everybody.
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Of course that's something that many of us know and understand, but it's not something that was understood throughout history.
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So this morning we're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 15, so let's return there.
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We're going to be covering a somewhat misunderstood story this morning. This is the account of Jesus and the
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Syro -Phoenician woman. You say, what is that? What is
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Syro -Phoenician? Well, she's called that in Mark's account,
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Mark chapter 7, but basically the Phoenicians were a people group, and that people group had sort of been absorbed or overtaken by the
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Syrians, so that's where you get the term Syro -Phoenician. Here in Matthew 15, she's simply called a woman of Canaan.
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So the thing to remember, the thing to know about this woman is she's not Jewish. Okay, so she would have been seen as outside of the grace of God.
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She was not part of God's covenant people. She was, as many
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Jews would have called her, they would have said, this woman is a dog. Okay, God's grace is not for dogs.
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It's for God's people, the nation of Israel, but then when you look at the story, she encounters
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Jesus, and it almost seems like Jesus calls her a dog, and that seems out of character that Jesus would do that, and there's some question, is he doing that?
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Well, like I said, this is a really misunderstood story, so let's look at it and see what the
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Lord is trying to teach us. Matthew 15, 21 through 28, says,
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Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
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And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to him, saying,
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Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely demon -possessed.
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But he answered her, not a word. And his disciples came and urged him, saying,
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Send her away, for she cries out to us. But Jesus answered and said,
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I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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Then she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said,
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It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs, or the little dogs, if you're using the
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New King James Version. So you can see already why some people scratched their heads about this.
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So he answers, It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.
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And she said, Yes, Lord. Yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
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Then Jesus answered and said to her, O woman, great is your faith.
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Let it be to you as you desire. And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
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And may the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his word. Okay, so going through the
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Gospels, it's really helpful, indeed essential to know the character of Jesus and what he would do.
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Jesus would offer and counter people, and he would do things and say things in order to test them, yes, but to try to draw out a profession of faith.
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So Jesus knows the heart, and he knew what to say to bring out that confession. And it's very important for people in Bible times and people today to actually confess with their mouth, and to express their beliefs.
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And we need to say these things openly. Sometimes Jesus did this for that person's sake, so that they could realize the faith they had.
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Sometimes, other times, Jesus would do these things to prove a point to onlookers.
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And I think here he's doing both. One of the most difficult things back then, and maybe even today, but one of the most difficult things back then for a
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Jewish person to get over was the fact that God loves all people.
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We really take that for granted, I think, most of us who are in the church today, been brought up in the church, or just been brought up in the
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United States. We hear that all the time, that God is God of all people.
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God so loved the world. Jesus died for Jews. He died for Gentiles. He died for men, women, slave -free.
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And of course, we know this because this is what the Bible tells us, right? You can make a note of this verse.
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Some of you have it memorized, I'm sure. Galatians 3 .28. Paul says, for there is neither
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Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
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So it doesn't really matter whether or not you're Jewish or a Gentile or whoever you are.
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God's love, his grace is extended for all, right? Anyone can be a child of God.
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And so we understand that, but back then this was a controversial thing. If you read the book of Acts, the disciples were going, preaching the gospel, and they really didn't get that much opposition from the
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Jews until they said the Gentiles can be saved too. And then they lost their minds.
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And that's the mindset Jesus has to slowly teach his disciples.
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Hey, you need to get over that. Of course, they didn't want to get over that, but it took time. So that's kind of what's going on here.
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But yeah, as far as this idea that God's love is extended to all people, do you ever wonder why you see so many statements like this in the
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Bible? It emphasizes that Jesus died for all. How many times do you see that?
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He died for all, or God so loved the world.
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All these statements about the world. Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, but not for our sins only, but for what?
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Yeah, the sins of the whole world. That message keeps getting reinforced all throughout the
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New Testament. And it's not so much all as in every human being, although, you know, that's a discussion we can have.
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The main point there in these statements is, yeah, it's for everybody, not just the
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Jews. So Jesus, he didn't just come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jesus came to be the
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Savior of all men. So that's one of the main lessons of this story.
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The Syrophoenician woman, she would have been seen as, yeah, a dog, a foreigner.
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She's outside of Israel. That means she's outside of God's grace. So in verse 22, she has this problem.
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She approaches Jesus and it says that she cried out to him. And you probably know this, but in the
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Bible, when it uses the term cry, it doesn't mean what we mean by crying. What we mean by crying, that's the word wept in the
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Bible. So the word cry in the Bible means to yell. So she's yelling out to Jesus, and she's probably, it looks like she encountered his disciples first.
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So she's probably yelling out to Jesus because they're preventing her from getting to him.
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And they're like, Jesus, she's bothering us. Tell her to go away. But she's shouting out to Jesus from a distance probably, saying, have mercy on me,
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O Lord, son of David, my daughter is severely demon -possessed.
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Here's the first surprising detail that we see in this story. Verse 23, Jesus answers her how?
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He doesn't. It's like he's ignoring her, right? For the casual reader of the
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Bible, let's say somebody's never picked up a Bible before. They open it up. This is the first passage they read.
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People are gonna walk away thinking that Jesus is just being rude. That's what a lot of people, that's probably what a lot of people still think, even after reading a lot of the
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Bible. And I guess, I'll just speak for myself here, because I try, I think all
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Christians should have this mindset, but I'll speak for myself. I try not to assume the worst, especially when it comes to what
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Jesus says and does. Sometimes it's true Jesus will respond in a surprising way.
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It might seem rude on the surface, but I just resolve it in my mind.
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If there's a problem with something Jesus said or did, or I take issue with it, the problem's with me, not him.
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So I just give Jesus the benefit of the doubt, although not everyone does. But at this time, you know, or at the same time,
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I don't want to do damage control either. I don't want to read something that Jesus says and try to, well, that's not really what he said.
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I don't need to do damage control for God. If Jesus says something, that's what he said, and he had a reason for it.
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So we need to be careful about how we explain away the text of Scripture.
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I mean, let the Word of God speak for itself, but at the same time, don't assign the worst motives to God.
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You don't want to be found doing that, right? Amen? The Christian knows better than that, I think. So if there's something here that we're misunderstanding, and like I said, this is a maybe a troubling, confusing passage.
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Yeah, the problem's with the reader, not with Jesus. But you still, you think to yourself, well, that's not how
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I would have done it. If a woman is in need, she comes to me. I wouldn't ignore her like this.
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It's really hard to compare ourselves to Jesus, though, right? Jesus could read the heart.
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Jesus knew all the details. Jesus knew what was gonna happen before it happened. So if you or I didn't respond, you might think it's impolite.
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That's not what is happening here. Jesus is trying to draw out of her a profession of faith.
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Jesus is trying to get her to understand something, and He's trying to teach
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His disciples something at the same time. So Jesus knows what He's doing, all right? This isn't Jesus being rude.
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I mean, I think of all the passages. Remember when Jesus, His mother came to Him, and He said, who is my mother, and who are my brothers?
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A lot of people think it's Jesus being rude or disrespectful to His mother, right? Or woman, you know,
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He responds to His mother like that. Woman, and people think Jesus did not violate the fifth commandment and treat
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His mother in a disrespectful way. So again, just understanding if you think something is
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Jesus being rude, that's not what's happening. Now His disciples, on the other hand, that's another story.
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I mean, they are pretty clearly annoyed at her, and in verse 23, when she approaches
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Jesus, they're like, yeah, just get her out of here. We don't want to deal with this woman. Send her away, for she cries out to us.
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It's like their attitude is, you know, we have nothing for you. We want nothing to do with you.
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Get lost. Jesus, He's our Messiah, so why are you even talking to us?
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That's kind of how His disciples were. Now, were they wrong to treat her that way? I mean,
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I think they were, but still, that type of thing, you can't be too hard on them. I mean, this is, they were a product of their times.
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That's the way most of the Jews were, and there was something in Scripture in the Old Testament that they were to keep separate from the
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Gentiles. So it's not like there wasn't any biblical basis for it in their mind. Okay, with all of that said, look at verse 24.
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So Jesus is trying to make a point.
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He acknowledges the woman finally, or at least He responds, and He says,
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I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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So this was His mission. Going back to the beginning, when we first started going through Matthew, it begins with the genealogy.
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Remember, Jesus is traced back to the patriarchs, to David. Jesus is the king of the
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Jews, but He's also king of kings, but He came as Israel's Messiah. His first message was, repent, for the kingdom of God was at hand.
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The kingdom, so He's Israel's king. He came for them. All of this is in a context, right?
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The Old Testament context. I know a lot of people, they pick up a Bible, they start reading the
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New Testament, and the Old Testament really isn't in the forefront of their mind. But really, you can't even have a new covenant without an old covenant.
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So you have to consider the context. Jesus came for the nation of Israel.
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He came to the Jews. Remember, He came to His own, but His own did not receive
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Him. He came as a fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, if you will.
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So when Jesus finally shows up, yes, He is coming to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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Jesus didn't come to people living on the other side of the earth, did He? He didn't come to the
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Romans. He came for Israel. So that much is true. And the
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Jews knew this very well. They were special in the sense that when the
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Messiah came, He came. He came for us. So this is, but this at the same time is a real problem in their thinking because they just thought, hey, you know, because we're
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God's chosen nation, we're God's people, we're the greatest. And that led them to look down on others.
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We sort of know what this is like a little bit. Okay. Why? Because we're
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Americans, right? We're the greatest. I mean, can I get an amen here? No, but this is the way
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Americans are. This, I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying this is the way many of us were brought up.
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We're Americans. This is the greatest country on earth, right? This is what you were taught in school.
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And this is the climate. America is probably the greatest country that has ever existed in world history.
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So in that sense, I think we know the mindset a little bit.
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Like we are the greatest. That's been the typical attitude.
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Now, it's true things haven't been going so well lately, you know, and we're not as proud maybe as we once were.
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We don't need to get into all the reasons for that. But still, that mindset, we're the greatest.
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Israel, that's the way they think. We're the greatest. Now, I don't think that's wrong in one sense because like, have you ever given a
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Mother's Day card to the world's greatest mother? You know, my kids bought me a shirt that says number one dad or something.
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There's something right about thinking that your parents or your family or your whatever is the best.
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I mean, we should feel that way in a sense. The problem though with the
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Israelites of this day, that grace that was given to them to become the apple of God's eye, that grace really turned into pride.
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And then the pride led to prejudice. So if you weren't Jewish, yeah, you're scum, you're a dog, we don't want anything to do with you.
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So that was the problem that had to be overcome. So, the Syro -Phoenician woman, because she wasn't
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Jewish, she was looked down upon. The disciples, they didn't want to deal with her. And even up until right now,
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Jesus, it seems, barely wants to deal with her. Or that's the impression that someone might get.
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He's been giving her the silent treatment, the statement about Israel. Is he even really talking to her or not?
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Is he ignoring her? It's hard to tell. So, is this difficult for you, reading this?
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Have you ever read this and thought that, yeah, this seems strange the way Jesus is approaching it?
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Yeah? Yes? Okay. Some people, unfortunately, this is a common thing when people read this passage and other passages like that.
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We know that when the Bible teaches and we sang the song when we were younger, you know, red, yellow, black, or white, they're precious in a sight.
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We know that God loves all people. But, unfortunately, we live in a day and age where a lot of churches, maybe some of the bigger denominations, there's good people mixed up in these churches.
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But I've seen, as far as the message, the Syro -Phoenician woman,
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I mean, I've seen sermons. I've seen messages, whether it be on Twitter or YouTube or Facebook, where a minister of the gospel supposedly will say some of the most outrageous things or even blasphemous things against Jesus because of this story.
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And that's why I say it's one of the most misunderstood stories in all of the Bible. I heard just in the past month there are some people who will say that Jesus, because he treated her like this and because of what he said,
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Jesus was actually, and I hate to even say this, but they say that Jesus was, yeah, prejudiced.
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He was racist. He was this or that. And it's hard for me to imagine a minister saying that about the
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Lord. But I bring it up because we live in a day and age where, honestly, if that type of thing was preached, you know, in Western Massachusetts, I wouldn't be surprised.
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This is the attitude a lot of people have. Going through the Gospel of Matthew, I've been trying to teach and reinforce the idea that Jesus is not only
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Israel's King, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He is God in the flesh.
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So when we say that Jesus is God's Son, that's to be taken literally.
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He's literally the Son of God. Jesus is divine. He never sinned.
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Because he is God, he never sinned. That's why we can sort of have that mindset from the beginning that Jesus is not doing anything wrong because that's just assumed.
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Because he's God and God doesn't do anything wrong. A lot of people don't run on that assumption or that mindset.
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A lot of the churches today, they believe that Jesus was Son of God in a general sense because we're all children of God.
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Or they say that Jesus was an enlightened man but not divine.
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So because he's just a man, even an enlightened man, Jesus can and did make mistakes.
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This is being preached and probably the majority of churches in Massachusetts, the majority of churches
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I would say have a low view of Jesus that he isn't actually divine.
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Maybe it's not more than half but it's a large number. So I've heard all of that to say this.
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I've heard the Reverend Dr. Jane Doe or I'm just making up names. I don't want to call anyone out specifically.
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I forget. But Reverend Dr. Sally Smith, she said Jesus was racist and he had to get over his prejudice.
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That is not, just to be clear, that is not true. That is not what's happening here.
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Jesus is trying to do what's best for this woman.
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We just read to the end, does he heal her daughter? Does he love her? Does he really view her as a dog?
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No, of course not. That's absurd. Yet at the same time, let's read what
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Jesus said again. Okay, so verse 25, after all this she came and she worshipped him saying,
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Lord, Lord help me. And certainly Jesus would not turn away someone seeking him like that, someone in need.
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And yet in verse 26 he says, it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
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Okay, and by dogs he means not specifically her, but the
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Gentiles as a whole. But then again, she is a Gentile, right? So isn't, is
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Jesus calling her a dog? On the surface it might appear that way.
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Okay, so that's one potential problem or thing we have to address. Now to help explain what's happening here, let me read statements in verse, the statement of verse 26 again, because most translations have
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Jesus saying dog. Does your translation say dog? Most do, but the
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New King James Version changes it slightly. Okay, so verse 26, from the
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New King James, I'll emphasize the word, he answered and said again, it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to what?
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See, it's not the dogs, it's the little dogs. That totally changes everything, right?
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Well some of you aren't convinced that it changes everything, but it actually does. Some commentators, many will say that by using this word for dog in Greek, it's kounarion, and it's not the standard word for dog, which is kouon.
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The standard word for dog, that was a straight -up insult, like this mangy mutt or this, you know, what this wolf, a dog that will tear you into pieces.
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I mean that is an idea the Jews had towards Gentiles, and it was a straight -up insult. But Jesus doesn't call her kouon.
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He doesn't call her a dog in that sense. He's using the term little dog, which was like a pet.
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Now it's true, Jews didn't have dogs as pets, even little dogs, but many people did. And some of you have a little dog, right?
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I always thought if you're gonna get a dog, you might as well get like a real dog, the big ones. But some people have the little ones, and it's like a cat, the size of a cat, but anyways.
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It does potentially change the meaning, okay? Because this is, yeah, it's a cute little dog like a pet.
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And we saw what she said, that even the little dogs eat crumbs from the master's table. Some of you do that too.
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You take the dogs there, and you give the dog food, and it's a wonderful thing. So that's one potential explanation of why it's not really an insult.
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The other explanation is that Jesus is contrasting the disciples view with his own view.
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That yes, he's bringing it up, the fact that Gentiles are regarded as dog. Not because that's what he believes, but that's what they believe, right?
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That's what his disciples, or that's what most Jews believe. So he's bringing that up to, yeah, that's the way it is, but I want to help you.
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So it may be a contrast that isn't really how Jesus views it, and I would argue it's not how he views her.
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He does not actually view her as a dog in the derogatory sense.
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But again, this is the whole problem, this is the whole point of the message here, is that God's love is for the dogs, if you will.
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God's love is for everybody, even the people that maybe are looked down on in the world.
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Take what, you know, from society to society, from time to time, there are certain people, certain types of people that are looked down upon.
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They're almost seen as subhuman, and the message of God is, God loves everybody.
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Jesus is the Savior of all. So that's what he's trying to get through to his disciples. Do you remember when
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James and John wanted to call fire down from heaven upon the Samaritans? Well, I don't know if they called the
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Samaritans dogs or not, but if they all died, they wouldn't have cared. Did Jesus care about the
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Samaritans? Yes, he did. Are there people today that are despised and treated poorly, even maybe by professing
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Christians? Yeah, I assume that happens. Does Jesus care about those people? Yes, he does.
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So if that's the lesson. So Jesus, long story short, he is testing her.
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Look at verse 27. So he says this statement about the little dogs, and she said,
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Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
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And it's then that Jesus answered and said to her, Oh woman, great is your faith.
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Let it be to you as you desire. So kind of the takeaway here, his disciples, remember originally they're like, get her out of here, she's bothering us.
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And then Jesus does this wonderful thing for her, and he prayed. Who gets praised? The disciples,
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Peter and James and John, or the woman? The woman gets praised. Great is her faith.
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And that's the message. God loves all people, and sometimes even disciples of Christ.
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You know, even we sometimes get it wrong. Sometimes we have our own blind spots.
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Something happened to us in our life where we don't like this person, or we don't like these types of people, or whatever it is.
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And you know, those things are real. You know, I'm just saying it happens. A lot of people deal with that kind of thing, but it's something that we have to get over if that is a problem.
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Because according to the scripture, Jesus loves even the dogs.
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But they're not really dogs. This Syrophoenician woman is now a child of who?
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She's a child of God, just like anyone else. Amen? Let's close in prayer.
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Heavenly Father, if there is anyone here today, or even me, if there's any person, whether it's an individual or a group of people,
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Lord, that I dislike, and it's unjust, it's wrong the way I look at it,
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I pray that your Holy Spirit, along with your Word, would overcome that.
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And Lord, we need to realize that we are not worthy of your love. We are not worthy of your grace.
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But you sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sin. You sent him to die for our sin.
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All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. And that's everybody. Red, yellow, black, or white, male, female, free, slave,
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American, Chinese, Russian, whatever it is, Lord. Jesus is the
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Savior of all men. And I just pray if there's someone here this morning, or watching online, or listening on radio, if they have never placed their trust in Jesus, that they would finally be overwhelmed by his unending love.