You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.
Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, did you know that for generations, the Jews used to call the Gentiles dogs? Yeah, like not man's best friend, but scavengers, garbage eaters. Yeah. Well, you think Jesus would ever use that phrase with the Gentile?
Well, he did, but it's not quite like you think. Let's find out how today on More Than Ink. Well, hello, this is Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're so glad you joined us on More Than Ink. And we are going through the book of Matthew and really, and today, today, we come to one of our most favorite people. Well, for me in the entire world. Well, she is a favorite. I would put her in my top 10 list, but you obviously do. I think the world of this woman.
So we've come to just do a wonderful spot in Matthew and now you tell me what you think when we're done, when we do this. Wait, are you talking to them or to me? To you. Oh.
Yeah, you gotta change your mind. But anyway, why don't you catch us up to what just happened before this. We're in chapter 15. Okay, so this passage is going to start, Jesus went away from there. Well, what had just happened before was this confrontation with the Pharisees who over tradition and over washing their hands traditionally and appropriately and according to this overburden of rabbinic instruction as to how precisely to do that in the most righteous manner. And Jesus had exposed their hypocrisy. And then he makes this huge, huge statement about the disciples even being lacking in understanding. He said, don't you get it? The things that come out of the mouth are what defile the man, not anything you can eat, nothing you put in defiles you.
It's what comes out of your mouth. And so it's interesting then that after this discussion about the traditions being more important than God's word itself, then Matthew says, and so he just went away from there. Where he goes is outside of Israel.
This is what's interesting because we know as we've come up to this, you know, Jesus has been having what I call crowd control problems because his ministry in Galilee is so productive and it's attracting so many people that he's having a hard time just being able to rest. So at this point, when I look at this story that starts today, we're going to go off to a very far place. It looks like it's kind of the beginning of Jesus moving away from the Galilee area and going into more Gentile areas. Well, it looks like all of chapter 15 takes place in Gentile areas.
Yeah, yeah. So this is not only in order to do crowd control, but also to spread the gospel into faraway places. And today we're going so far away it's going to take Jesus at least two days to walk there.
Okay. Well, and you just said to spread the gospel in faraway places. It's about that. Certainly he's going to Galilee of the Gentiles, according to Isaiah 9, but he's also teaching the 12. Oh, sure he is. And he's very specifically about being in the Gentile regions and how to relate to Gentiles.
So that really caught my attention this time through. And it's going to become quite apparent. Well, we've talked all around it. We're actually going to walk all the way up to the Lebanon coast.
If you've heard of Lebanon in the news, it's on the Mediterranean coast, north of Israel. And that's where we're going. He's going to travel over 50 miles and climb over a mountain range.
1500 feet in elevation. It's a long ways to go. So let's find out why he's going there and who he's going to meet. If you're following, we're in chapter 15 verse 21.
Starting in 21. Here we go. And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David.
My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him saying, send her away for she's crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and knelt before him saying, Lord, help me. And he answered, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And she said, yes, Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered her, Oh, woman, great is your faith.
Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. Yeah. Oh, my goodness, there is so much in this.
There's just way too much in this to talk about. So we're up in Tyre and Sidon, which is like I said, on the Lebanese coast, and we meet a woman who's not a Jew. She's not Israeli.
In fact, in Mark's gospel, he uses a different ethnic term for her. But here they use this very specific, very hated ethnic term from Israel's history, Canaanite. Yeah. And these are the people that the Israelites were pushed out of the land and left Egypt. And who they should have destroyed.
They should have destroyed. Yeah. So when you see Canaanite, think arch enemies. Despised.
Yeah. Not just a Gentile, but a despised Gentile. And on top of that, a despised Gentile woman. And she comes into the region and she says, and this is surprising, have mercy on me, O Lord. Son of David.
Son of David. Yeah. In a way, she's saying she knows who Jesus is when the apostles are still trying to figure it out.
Now that ought to attract our attention. Yeah. And here we have a Canaanite woman using this clearly messianic title. Yes.
Yes. So let me just launch into something here and get on my soapbox for using your concordance. Because I thought, okay, how many times do we run across the term Son of David in the Gospel of Matthew? And I was surprised. I should have remembered seven times throughout the whole Gospel.
But it's interesting who, right? Matthew starts right out of the box saying, this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. The Son of David, right.
Right. So he's setting it up saying, this is the Gospel of the Messiah, the one by this title. And then besides this event, we have the crowds questioning Jesus. Is this the Son of David in chapter 12? But in chapters nine and in 20, we have blind men calling out, oh, Son of David.
The irony is thick here. There's really interesting irony here that it's blind men and a Canaanite woman who say, you are the Son of David. And the Jews were constantly saying, ah, is he or isn't he?
That's right. The Jewish followers, they're just kind of putting it together right now. And to be specific, Son of David, you know, David was the king of Israel about 1,000 BC or so. But it was very clear at that time and God did it, said, you know, this is a man after God's own heart. And David himself was kind of a type of the coming Messiah. And so he said that the one who really will be the Messiah will come from your line. And sure enough, Jesus in the flesh is a direct descendant of David. So when you say Son of David, you're saying the coming king, the promised anointed king, the Messiah.
There's just no dispute about that title. This is the guy who's been promised from the entire Old Testament. So why does Jesus not say anything to her? Isn't that interesting? This is what makes this a very fascinating passage.
It really is. So in fact, and she's becoming something of a pest and he's not stopping her. That's what's interesting because his disciples say, look, send her away. She's crying out after her. So just the fact that she's crying out is really bugging them. And why Jesus is not taking some proactive action to fix this, they don't know. They don't know why he's ignoring her. Their response is, send her away.
Get rid of her. Banish the problem. Exactly. And that set me thinking today. You know, did Jesus ever send anybody away who came to him calling out, Oh Lord, Son of David. Not needy.
So this is clearly some kind of interesting ploy that unfolds in a second. I was interested by the send her away thing because it also, it implies the fact that they're saying, send her away. Don't just dismiss her, but say basically fix what she's asking for and let's move on. Because I went, I looked at this word and it's used for Simeon. Remember when Simeon's waiting for the Messiah to come as a baby? Well it says, now I can depart basically. He says, you're letting your servant depart in peace because it got fulfilled. So really what they're implying here is do what she asks and let her go because she's screaming it. Why are you ignoring her? Okay, poof.
She's fixed. Why aren't you doing that? So it really strongly implies not to dismiss her out of hand, but to just do what she says so she'll go away. That's what it's saying right here. Well so they don't, the apostles don't know why Jesus is being silent. So he answers and he says, and this is a head scratcher for them.
I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Well then what are we doing up here in Tyre? Exactly. That's where some smart aleck disciples should say, why didn't we walk two days to get here then? Why are we here if we're not going to do anything?
Why are we here? Yeah. But what he says is absolutely true and the Messiah, Jesus as the Savior isn't meant just for Israel but for the Jews first and then the Gentiles together. So what he's saying is really true at this stage of the ministry, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So he says that to her.
The apostles don't have a snappy comeback to that. They're wondering where this is going and then she actually comes to worship. She came, she now performs saying, Lord, help me. And by the way, if you're looking for a model prayer, this is it, Lord, help me. Just help me. And he doesn't say help her, his daughter.
He says, help me. So it's really nice because you see as a mother. She doesn't say that. Yeah, she doesn't say that.
I'm sorry. Yeah, she doesn't say that. So she's really embodied the entire problem of her daughter and herself, Lord, help me.
Help me. And then he answers, well, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. This is a nice kind of tease out that's going that Jesus is doing here. It's a fascinating conversation because the disciples are thinking of her as a dog. Right, because that's the nickname for the Gentiles. That's what they would call a Canaanite, yeah. Except in this particular case, Jesus does a nice thing with that word dog. You know about this?
Go tell us. Well, when you look, previously, I think it was back in Matthew 7, we talked about pearl before swine, don't cast your pearl before swine. And in the same way, don't give to dogs, what is holy. It's a different word. Those dogs were talking more like jackals, these roving dogs. This is not someone's pet.
The wild, dangerous ones. But this one, he takes that same word and he puts eon at the end, which makes it small. So it's a small dog, which means it's probably likely he's talking about a puppy or a pet. So this is really a pet. And you can see that too in the end of 27, he says the master's table, well this is a household pet.
Right. So even though she is technically a dog, from the Jews' perspective, she's a puppy dog. She's a pet dog. So it's a really wonderfully kind of hidden, endearing way for him to recognize her status in Israel is as a dog, but she's like a beloved little puppy. Which explains her answer.
It really does. When she says, and yep, the household puppies get to eat the crumbs that fall from them. Right. And so you don't, when you have food that's hard won, it's hard to do.
You give it to your kids first, and then what falls from that, then you give it to the pets. So I mean, it just tells us she's tracking him. Right.
This is a great interaction. She and Jesus are having this subtext conversation and the disciples are just irritated by the whole thing. Yeah, and this very witty response from her, she's saying, you're right, I don't deserve anything.
Right. I know I only deserve what falls on the ground that's not, I don't deserve anything. But even still, I know that something about you is the King of Kings and is the Messiah. There is some benefit coming my way.
Deal with Israel first, but you know, I'm looking for crumbs. So, so she's not presumptive in terms of what she's asking, which I think is just fascinating. She's very humble. She loves her daughter and she's stating the obvious and she says, whatever falls crumbs, I'll take that. I mean, it's just, it's just wonderful. It's just wonderful. And then Jesus, I can always see Jesus smiling right here, like he's had his back turned towards her the whole time.
And then he smiles and he says to her, oh woman, great is your faith, be it done for you as you desire. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, because this is, you know, with the exception of the centurion we saw in chapter eight. Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. These are the only two people where Jesus commands their faith and neither one of them is a Jew.
That's right. The only two people that Jesus says your faith is great. Conversely, in Matthew, we have him repeatedly saying to the disciples, why have you so little? Little faith. Your faith is puny.
That is the phrase of the day all through this section of Matthew, but not these two, not these two. So in fact, he says to her, your faith is the word pistis in Greek and then he puts in front of it, megas, megas. We know what that means, mega. You have mega faith.
It's big. You have big faith. So the question I always asked for years as I looked at this is what makes her faith big? What is faith? If you look at what she just did with Jesus and say, ah, well, that's what makes faith.
Faith right there. And it really comes down to the central idea we just talked about, that she knows who Jesus is and she's willing to trust him and be at his mercy for whatever reason. Well, yeah, she humbles herself. She humbles herself. She comes and kneels before him and I think that's significant because the Jews were relating to him on the basis of, well, you don't deserve our attention until you prove yourself.
Right, right, right. She just comes and kneels humbly before the Lord. She knew who he was.
She knew who he was. Faith is an informed faith. It's a faith that is informed about who Jesus is and then when you embrace the fact of who Jesus is, like Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, you need to believe who I am.
Once you embrace that, well, then you have faith and you trust and you put yourself in his hands. And that whole picture, that whole process right there of starting with understanding and finishing with trust, that's what faith is. Well, and she also persisted even in the face of what might appear initially as a rejection from Jesus, which it was not, and she knew it wasn't, but a rejection from his disciples.
Right, right. They're saying, get rid of her. And she had no reason to think that Jesus wasn't going to reject her. And at that point, she draws nearer and kneels. So there's a beautiful pattern in this story.
Yeah, there really is. And I guess the point is, what's so remarkable about this is we have a woman who's not a Jew. She's a Canaanite.
She's a historical enemy of the Jews. Somehow she knows that Jesus is this promised Messiah. And somehow, and we don't know how, somehow she knows that even though she's outside of the nation of Israel, still there's blessing that can be coming from this King of Kings to the Gentiles.
And even that, the whole unfolding of the idea of the blessing of Jesus to the Gentiles is something in Acts that still takes the early church, you know, many chapters to get over that idea. So she's got this all nailed together. How she's got this figured out, we don't know, but clearly the Spirit of God has given her an understanding that brings her to submission and humility at the feet of Jesus. And he says, check this out. This is faith.
Megas pistis. Yeah, this is faith. And her daughter was healed instantly, woo hoo. So you know, this is the beginning of this tour in Gentile areas. The Gentile tour. That's what I call it.
And I mentioned it before, Isaiah 9-1 talks about Galilee of the Gentiles, to whom the light will come, right? So we need to press on. Let's press on.
Because there's something huge still coming. That's right. So shall I read? Go ahead. Verse 29.
29. Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. But we probably need to understand that he's walking from down from the north and then around to the east. Around the edge to the east. Around the edge of Galilee. And Mark makes that clear in his gospel because he says he's aiming for the area of the Decapolis, which is on the east side.
Everything on the east side. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the cripples, the mute, and many others. And they put them at his feet and he healed them. Oh, that's interesting. So that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking and the blind seeing, and they glorified the God of Israel. That's a clue right there.
That's a big clue. That's not a way that Jesus was referred to in the New Testament. It only appears in one other place, which is in Luke 1. But 200 times in the Old Testament is the God of Israel. This is a Gentile point of view.
This is what a Gentile would say. And we read this passage and go, yeah, big deal. He's been healing people for a long time in Matthew, you know, which we're just not that impressed by this. But they've been hearing about it. But they've never seen it till now.
And they've never participated. And we find out in a minute that he's been with them for three days. Yes, yes.
He's been hanging out with them for three days. So this response, although it looks like all the other healings we've had, is so brand new because now we're talking about Gentiles discovering this. And they just are just blown away and they glorify the God of Israel, the God of Israel. And again, Isaiah talks about the one in whom the Gentiles will hope. Yes. Right. So that, again, take your concordance and look that up. Where do you find the term Gentiles in the Old Testament?
You'll find it in Isaiah, talking about the Galilee of the Gentiles and the Gentiles hoping in Israel's Messiah. Right. By the way, too, we're in the general area where Jesus went across the boat and went to that guy who had the demon called Legion, we're in that realm.
And we know that he was left behind to tell people about Jesus. Right. So there was some expectation. They may be putting two and two together here.
Yeah, exactly. You want to move on? Oh, we have to.
Thirty-two. Because, go ahead. I'll read from here.
Okay. So then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd because, hey, they've been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I'm unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.
Unlike the disciples who are ready to send away everybody, right? So the disciples said to him, well, where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd? Wait, we've been here before. We've been here before.
This sounds like an instant replay. And Jesus said to them, well, how many loaves do you have? And they said, well, seven.
Okay, that's different. And a few small fish. So directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish and having given thanks, he broke them, gave them to his disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
And those who ate were 4,000 men besides the women and children. And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan or Magdala on the other side. Right. He's going back to the Jewish territory. Back to the other side.
You're going to the west side again. Yeah. So this is not a replay of the feeding the 5,000.
It is not. I mean, it's kind of a replay, but in the Gentile area. Well, the pattern is the same. Even the conversation plays out in a very similar way.
But there are some significant differences. One that I just mentioned was Jesus has been hanging out with these people for three whole days. And healing the right and left. They were bringing people and laying them at his feet. And he's been actively ministering among these non-Jews.
Yes, yes. So that's different, the 4,000 versus 5,000 is different. I mean, there's... The amount of the food that they bring and the amount that they pick up is different. This is kind of an instant replay, but completely different in a different place in the different places of the Gentiles. So Jesus is doing for them what he previously had done for the 5,000 in the Jewish side.
So there really is no distinction between the Jews and Gentiles. The blessing from Jesus, even when it comes from food, is the same. Yeah, exactly. And his activity is the same.
He blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples who give it to the people. Yeah, yeah. Same thing again. Same thing, but different. I wonder if they recoiled at all from feeding Gentiles. I always think they have. I think this was such a foreign thing for them.
This just feels wrong, just so wrong. And yet there's another significant difference here. Last time, if you remember, they picked up 12 baskets full of leftovers. So that's one for each of them.
Jesus said, look, you all got a part in this, right? And here they pick up seven. Seven.
It's like, this is the last time you're going to see this happen. This is the period on the sentence, right? Seven times. Seven large baskets, it's complete.
Yeah, yeah. And by the way, just as a trivia piece, the word baskets here is different from the baskets before. It's really odd.
And this word baskets is really more of a Gentile idea for baskets. So it's just different. It's just a different event. People have criticized and said, well, this is the feeding of the 5,000 all over again. Well, it is, but it's not. It's the same event, but in Gentile area.
Yeah. And again, I think because we said this last time with the 5,000, so much of that event was designed to change the apostles in a significant way. And I think here, as they're doing this with all these Gentiles, that's where they're changing right here. Well, yeah, he's been taking them on this Gentile territory tour, essentially, and he went specifically to heal a woman whose child was demon possessed.
He healed in messianic predicted ways among the Gentiles. And here he feeds the Gentiles in exactly the same way he had fed the Jews. So no distinction. There's no distinction. And I think it's not lost on Matthew anyway, when Jesus says, I'm not willing to send them away hungry.
Right? Because the apostles had said to him, send her away previously. He says, no, I'm not sending anybody away. You give them something to eat. I'm not sending the woman away.
I'm not sending the crowds away. Let's meet their needs, which is just a brand new idea for the apostles thinking of the Gentiles. The Gentiles? Jesus is here to meet their needs?
Yeah. This is an immense investment in their understanding that Jesus, as a savior, has come to bring his blessing to the Gentiles as well. Well, he comes for everybody to the Jews first, because he comes through the Jewish nation, but to everyone. To everyone. And if you hearken all the way back to Genesis, God says to Abraham, you're going to be a blessing to all the nations. All the nations.
All the nations. And that's exactly what we're seeing happen here for the very first time. And I think it's blowing the minds of the apostles.
Yeah. If you think about it, you know, what has he demonstrated to them? Healing from demon oppression, freedom from darkness, healing all of those physical things, crippling, lame, blind, all of those things that were unhealable in that day, and feeding the provision that only comes through the son of David, the son of the father. So it's just so beautiful. Yeah, it's a great scene.
I want to mention something in passing out that there's a cool idea. Alfred Edersheim, who's a commentator from the 19th century, he looks at the three years of Jesus' ministry and he says, Jesus did ministry for a while and then always capped it off with a meal. So like, so he talks about the fact that the feeding of the 5,000 capped off the year of the big ministry, the Galilean ministry. And then this, the feeding of the 4,000, in a way sort of capped off the Gentile ministry. And then it's going to be about less than a year he's going to be in Jerusalem and going to be crucified. And the Lord's Supper caps it off there. Isn't that interesting? And in all of those three meals, we're told very specifically, he took the bread, he blessed it, and he broke it.
So Edersheim says at the end of all these year-long stages, he always finishes with the meal. I know, isn't that an interesting idea? And you know what? After the resurrection, when he was at the inn with the travelers on the way to Emmaus, that's when he was revealed to them when he took the bread, blessed it, and broke it, and their eyes were opened and they saw him.
Yeah, it's just a great observation. Well look, we're out of time, but next time we're going to move into chapter 16. We're going to get in hot water with a little bit of Pharisee stuff again. We're back in the Jewish territory and the Pharisees have been watching for this. And they've been waiting for him to come back across the lake, and he comes back across the lake.
Because they weren't going over there. That's right. That's important. However, next time, not only will we be talking about Pharisees, but we're going to go again very far outside of the normal realm, way to the north, and an amazing statement and realization is going to be made up there in a place called Caesarea Philippi. So you're not going to miss that because it's really a turning point for not only Peter, but all the apostles.
I think it finally gels and we'll see it happen next time. So we're going to be going into chapter 16. If you want to read ahead with us, you can check it out.
You can see why it is the Pharisees have this burr under their saddle and they're going to engage Jesus once again before we get to one of the most famous sections in all of the gospels. So I'm Jim and I'm Dorothy and we're glad you're with us and we hope you're discovering that in these pages, there's more than just ink on a page, we're looking at God's word itself in our lives. So come with us next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note.
Remember the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Are you awake enough? I'm awake enough.
I am perky. This has been a production of Main Street Church of rhythm city.
