Feeding Scraps to a "Dog", Part 1

As a mom, dad, or grandparent, few things are more stressful than watching someone you love writhe in pain, especially when you can't figure out what's causing their agony. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll helps us understand the dynamics of their conversation and what it means for you and me today. In 2015 is a story about a woman whom Jesus described as a woman of great faith. Unusual words for Jesus to use, especially when they're expressed to a Gentile by one who was a Jew. Great faith.

Ever thought about what that is comprised of? Maybe you've heard the story of the tightrope walker who was walking across a gorge, deep valley below him, and on this tightrope walks all the way across and there's not a hesitation. He comes all the way to the other side and oh there's enormous applause as everybody in the group is just so impressed. He tells them I'm now going to push a wheelbarrow across to the other side. And he looks a little boy down here and he says, do you believe I can do that?

The little boy said, I do. You can do it. He says, do you believe I will do that? I do.

I think you will do it. Okay, get in the wheelbarrow. All of a sudden we realize in that simple little story that faith is not something that somebody else is engaged in. It's something we ourselves are to be doing, living out, especially if it's great faith.

Great faith. I read some time ago about a group of four nuns who worked at a local hospital and they were on their way in their car early that morning and the bad news is they ran out of gas. But the good news is they were just about 50 feet from the next service station where they could get the gas they needed to put in the tank, but they didn't even have anything to put it in. So they popped open the trunk of their car and the only thing they found was a bedpan and they thought, well, that'll hold about enough.

We could put it in the tank and that'll get us to the pump. So they get the gas, bring it back and they're pouring it in as a car is driving by with a couple in it. And the husband says to his wife, honey, that is great faith right there. No, that's an illusion. How about wishful thinking?

When you wish upon a star makes no difference who you are. No, that's wishful thinking. That isn't great faith. What if I name it and claim it and I count on God to to pay my mortgage and to bring in a pile of money because I've named it and I've claimed it? It has nothing to do with faith. That's called presumption.

And it's based on greed. What I'm going to get out of this prayer that I offer to God. Great faith is not an illusion. It is not presumption. It is not wishful thinking. It is an absolute trust in the Lord God to do what we cannot possibly do ourselves. I cannot make my rich, I should say my sick child well. I trust God to bring the healing. I can't do anything to bring it. I can't fix a situation that has me cornered and is full of impossibilities.

And the more I try to do that, the more I mess it up. Faith is trusting God to do for me, for his glory and in his time, what I cannot do for myself. Interesting setting, this story of Jesus with the Gentile woman. We read of the geography here in this 21st verse of Matthew 15.

And unless you take the time to look at a map, to see where they were and then where they went, you can't appreciate the setting. We know where they were and we see that in the 14th chapter and the 34th verse. They were at a place called Gennesaret, known today as Gennesar. It's in the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee, down in the Galilean region, the Jewish territory of that time. And we read that they left Galilee, verse 21, and they went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. When you looked at the map, you would see that's a distance of about 30, 35 miles, depending on the trail they had to take, maybe 40 miles.

That's a long walk. Mark, in a parallel passage, when you correlate Matthew 15 with Mark 7, you'll see that Mark makes the comment that Jesus wanted to get away, have a little time alone with the disciples. So they got to Tyre and they found a house, and hopefully in this remote region, there would not be a crowd that would come pressing around them. There's been a frenzy of activity in Galilee.

Jesus wants a little R&R with his disciples. What I didn't tell you is that Tyre and Sidon are Gentile areas. In fact, today, both are located in southern Lebanon. That's how far north they were.

This is the old Phoenician region up there in Tyre and Sidon. Now, I know when I say all this, it means little to a 21st century audience, especially when most of us are Gentile. We can't appreciate the difference. There was a marked difference. In our day, everyone talks about bringing everyone together for whatever reason, for whatever cause.

And if you don't, you're racially discriminating against others. In those days, Jesus came with a single mission, and he tells us what it is as we get to the story. It was to win the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Make no mistake about it. That was his initial pinpointed mission, as Paul writes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So with that in mind, when we come to a Gentile region and we find a group of Jews in a house, it's an unusual setting to say the least, but that's where they are. And that's where we find them when verse 22 of Matthew 15 tells us a Gentile woman. By the way, she's never named either here or in Mark 7. We don't know who she was.

She's called there a Syrophoenician woman. She's a Gentile. Rarely did Gentiles talk to Jews in the first century. Almost never would a woman alone talk to a Jew.

A Gentile woman talked to a Jew alone. But she overlooks all of those cultural barriers, all the norms that she was raised to observe. The reason is she has a need that is impossible. It's at home. It's her daughter who has a demon.

Look at it. A Gentile woman who lived there, meaning in that region, came to him, came to Jesus, pleading, pleading, begging. You see, it's impossible what she's living with.

Absolutely impossible for her to bring about change. Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David. She acknowledges, she acknowledges him to be Messiah. Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David, for my daughter, my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.

Kakos dimonizotai. The Greek says bad demonized, badly demonized. It means she's tortured, assaulted, tormented, horrified. Her daughter is like a rag doll in the mouth of a snarling wild dog. Who knows what the mother has been dealing with? Who knows what the daughter is enduring? It reaches the stage where the woman cannot bear it any longer. She comes through some unrevealed source that the master, that the Lord Jesus has left Galilee and is in her area and she found him because she knew what she was unable to do, he was able to handle.

She comes knowing the need is at home. Try to imagine the treacherous sea. If you've never witnessed demon activity, your education is incomplete.

When you see it, you will stare in disbelief. It is beyond words. It is so horrible. Especially Kakos dimonizotai, severely demonized.

My daughter is tormented by these demons. Interesting, verse 23, the initial response, Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. We're not told why. Oh, teachers down through the years have come up with reasons.

I'll keep it simple. I think he was simply thinking about what she was saying, pondering it, not ready to respond to her, and there may have been some reasonable reluctance since she was outside the scope of his initial calling. She's a gentile woman and so he says nothing. So she keeps on and she keeps on. She begs for mercy. She pleads. She's relentless. She is passionate.

She is determined that she is going to get him to respond. Her daughter needs to be cleansed, relieved, healed of this demonic position. Well, she goes on so long that verse 23, the disciples urged Jesus to send her away.

Tell her to go away, they said. She's bothering us with all of her begging. Remember, they too are tired. They too have been through the frenzy of ministry in Galilee. They've longed for a little break. You've all been there.

I've been there. Lord, just have her leave. Get her out. Now there is real impatience and irritation on their part.

They didn't see great faith. They saw the constancy, the persistence of a woman who will not give up on behalf of her daughter. This nagging, endless refusal to back down. She is one determined woman. And this leads to a conversation between her and Jesus. Where I think you will agree as we work through it, he begins to soften as he witnesses her, as he hears her, and as he imagines the setting.

Go there. Look at verse 24. Then Jesus said to the woman, here it is, I was sent only to help God's lost sheep, the people of Israel. That doesn't turn her away. She understands what he said. But when you have a need that is this intense, this severe, some things become for you just words. When you put yourself in this woman's sandals and you imagine what she's been living with, you can understand as she responds. By bowing down, it reads, worshipped him, in the New Living Translation, she bows down, she falls before him, and she keeps pleading, help me, help me, help me, help me, help me, help me.

That's the idea of what she's going through. And this leads to a very interesting dialogue. I don't want you to miss the emotion of it. Jesus responded, it isn't right to take food from the children. It's a reference to Israelites, to Jews, fellow Jews, and to throw the food to the dogs. Now, I know when you hear that, especially if you tend to be one who is politically correct, you're going to be offended by that.

Please, get beyond that for the next few moments. We're in the first century. We're in the Gentile territory where the master who has been sent to minister first to the lost sheep of Israel, talking with a Gentile woman, and he in a sense lets her down easily. Because the word he uses for a dog is not a wild, vicious dog that ran in packs with other dogs.

You can still find in various places when you travel over in Europe. But that's not the word that's used by Matthew. This is the word kunarion, K-U-N-A-R-I-O-N. It means a little lap dog, like the little dog in your house, okay? Your little pet.

To throw the food, the scraps, to little dogs. She takes him at his word, I love this, that doesn't even make her back down. She replied, but that's true, Lord, it's true. But even little dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their master's table.

I love this. Luther writes, isn't this a masterpiece? She catches Christ with his own words.

How can Christ get out of this? And she uses his same word and she's, I'm just a little puppy. I don't know if you get the advertisements we get, you probably do. But one we got recently is selling bedding. Different kinds of soft pillows and bedding and night clothing and things like that. And in the middle of the magazine is a little puppy sitting on this soft little bedspread. Puppy has nothing to do with the bedspread except to do what it did to me. I thought, I want the puppy, I don't want the bedspread. And a little later, that same little puppy has a ribbon around her neck. And there's a little girl playing with that little puppy. Oh, that's so cute. I told Cynthia, if they could make puppies that didn't poop, we'd have 12 to 15 of them running all over the house. In fact, the more I looked at it, I said, I'm going to get this little puppy. She said, I heard it from the other room.

No, you're not. But the little puppy is just adorable. It's a Kunarion.

It's a little, little lap dog. She says, that's all I am. But surely there is, there is mercy and grace enough for you to put a few of the scraps on the floor for me. You know, I got to stop here and talk to you ladies. It isn't fair how you know how to do that. Don't look at me like that.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. You started when you were little girls. Every dad will tell you, when I had boys, no problem. When I had little girls wrapped around my little, had me wrapped around her little finger. Just like the story David McKenna writes, long ago I learned that a creative child can always beat an adult system. Annie, our loquacious two-year-old granddaughter, don't forget, two-year-old granddaughter, wanted to get down from her high chair before finishing her meal. Her mother bargained, now Annie, don't you want to be a member of the clean plate club?

Annie goes, no. Holds up five fingers as if to say, back off mom. And her mom thought, how about just five bites? Annie held her little jelly smeared fingers up near her face, pondered for a moment, cocked her head, and blurted out, David's five, I'm not five, I'm two. Two bites mommy? That's pretty good for a two-year-old daughter. And he adds, what else could mommy do?

Annie left the table after just two bites. Reminded me of when I decided I would discipline our younger daughter. She had really been acting up, and Cynthia looked at Colleen and looked at me like, it's going to be you or me, which one of us is going to deal with this undisciplined child. I'm the dad, I can handle this.

Colleen, come here, she starts in. Oh, dad, daddy, no, not up the stairs, daddy, I'm a little girl, daddy. I promise, if I live to be 110, I will never do that again, I promise you, dad, come up the stairs. So we walk up the stairs, go in the room, close the door, and she has got all the possible excuses you can imagine. And I'm going to sit her down on my lap, and I'm going to teach her a lesson, I'm going to give her a whooping. As I said to her, you know what, honey, what you don't realize is this hurts me more than it does you. She says, oh, dad, I got a great idea, don't do it and both of us will feel a lot better. So I didn't do it. And I said, don't tell your mother.

Oh, I promise, dad, I will never tell her. That afternoon she told her, but Cynthia wasn't surprised, because there's something about the little puppy in you ladies that shows up in this dear woman who is saying, help me, help me, help me, just a few scraps for this little dog. Dr. Squindoll is teaching from Matthew chapter 15, and he assigned an intriguing title to his message, a study that continues tomorrow on insight for living, feeding scraps to a dog.

Now if you'd like to see what resources we have available for today's topic, please visit us online at insightworld.org. It's possible you identify with the desperate mother Chuck described earlier pleading with God for a miracle. Maybe you're faced with a dire medical condition or perhaps there's a relationship that's broken and your sadness has caused you to doubt God's presence. Well, Chuck wrote a helpful book on this topic. It's called Faith for the Journey, Daily Meditations on Courageous Trust in God. We believe the biblical principles in this devotional book, if applied, will lift your perspective. Supplies of this book from Chuck are limited, and so we encourage you to reach out to us right away.

To purchase a copy, look for the book called Faith for the Journey at insight.org slash offer. And then today we'd like to say thank you to all those who gave generously last month. Your voluntary gifts make it possible for us to provide these daily Bible teaching programs. And it's not too late for your gift today to have an impact throughout the remainder of the year. You can give a donation right now by calling us.

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God bless you for your many faithful years of serving our sovereign God. You are truly making a difference. We thought you'd be encouraged to hear that your gifts are having an impact. Thank you for your support of Insight for Living. And once again, here's our phone number. If you're listening in the United States, call 1-800-772-8888. Or give a donation online at insight.org. I'm Dave Spiker inviting you to join us again Tuesday when Chuck Swindoll continues this message called Feeding Scraps to a Dog.

That's next time on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Feeding Scraps to a Dog, was copyrighted in 2016 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.