Perhaps you can see where someone might jump to the wrong conclusion about Jesus after reading this passage. But I would urge caution. Careful study often yields aspects of a passage that the casual reader misses. There is more going on here than appears on the surface.

It isn’t the passage I would lead with in a study with someone unfamiliar with Scripture. That’s because at first reading it sounds like Jesus was uncaring and insensitive to a woman in a desperate condition. It looks like Jesus at first ignored her then cruelly called her a dog.

If you don’t recognize the story that I’m referring to, you’ll find it in Matthew chapter 15. It’s the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman in the district of Tyre and Sidon. Please turn there with me in your Bibles. We’ll look at verses 21-28.

Perhaps you can see where someone might jump to the wrong conclusion about Jesus after reading this passage. But I would urge caution. Careful study often yields aspects of a passage that the casual reader misses. There is more going on here than appears on the surface.

Before we get into the truths this passage holds for us let me set you up with a better understanding of the circumstances that form the backdrop of this story.

During His ministry Jesus was constantly pushing His twelve chosen men to grow in their faith. His plan was that after He departed from this earth His apostles would carry His message to the rest of the world. It was critical that they be men who had real experience with faith – that their lives be truly changed when they took over His work. An example of this pushing them to grow in their faith can be seen in the chapter immediately preceding this text. In Matthew 14 we read about the feeding of the 5000. The multitudes had pursued Jesus far from the city on foot and they were hungry. He decided to feed them. Had He only been interested in feeding them He could have just performed the miracle without involving His twelve disciples. Instead, when a couple of the disciples suggested to Him that the hour was late and that He should send the people away to return to their homes to get food, He said, "They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!"(1) Thus we see Him pushing the situation beyond mere interaction with the crowd. He is pushing His men into an impossible situation where they could learn more about Him and grow in their faith. My point is that Jesus often did this and knowing it can help us better understand the stories we read.

In this case, as usual, the disciples missed His point. Their response was, "We have here only five loaves and two fish."(2) This would not feed 5000 people! Thus the stage was set to challenge their faith and make them grow. Several things were happening simultaneously, then. Jesus fed the people by miracle, which solved the immediate problem and affected their faith. He also showed the disciples His power, which affected their faith.

Again, what I am pointing out here is that, this purpose of training the twelve was always there, affecting the gospel writers’ stories – even when it isn’t immediately evident to the casual reader. I tell you this because it has a large bearing on our text about the Canaanite woman. More was going on than just the interaction between the Lord and the Canaanite woman.

In fact, this preparation of the twelve that factors into so many of the stories we read about Him is clearly stated later in His prayer to His Father on the night of His betrayal. In John 17:4 Jesus said as He prayed to God, "I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do." And what was the work that He accomplished that the Father sent Him to do? Two verses later we read the answer. "I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world."

What was Jesus’ stated accomplishment then? In essence He said, "I accomplished My mission. I prepared the twelve for their mission!" It doesn’t say, "I helped many people who were in desperate conditions" (though Jesus did that.) It doesn't say, "I taught thousands who were deceived" (though He did that, too.) It doesn’t say, "I confronted the false teachers among the people, (though He did that as well.)

It says, "I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world."

To miss this is to miss the meaning of some of the stories in the gospels – like this story of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman.

I’ve divided these verses into three parts, based on the principle characters. We’ll look at the woman’s desperation, the disciples’ disgust, and the Lord’s direction.

Verses 21 and 22 of our text tell us that she was a Canaanite woman from the district of Tyre and Sidon. This was Gentile territory and this was a Gentile woman. In fact, it appears that this was the only time in Jesus’ entire ministry that He ventured outside the land of the Jews and into Gentile territory – a fact that fits well with His words in verse 24: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." I’ll say more about that in a few moments.

Verse 22 holds the reason this woman came to Jesus. She said, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."

How this demonic possession came about, how she knew it, what the symptoms were that drove this desperate mother to cross the cultural barrier that existed in that day between Jew and Gentile, we are left only to speculate. But she was desperate to find a cure.

It is often true that it takes a desperate situation to make us grow our faith. Had this woman never faced this hopeless situation regarding her daughter, she probably would never have known the Lord. I haven’t time to develop it here but this is also true with us. We seldom grow in our faith unless we encounter situations that look hopeless. The smooth, trouble free lives most of us would like to have simply don’t make us grow. Those who are facing tough times in your lives would do well to learn and remember this. Just as Jesus said and did things in this passage to move His disciples and this woman along in their faith, He will also do in our lives. Our response to them, as we shall see here, will be either to grow or to shrink back and say, "No. It is enough. I cannot trust God in this area. I quit."

Perhaps this mother had already tried many things to resolve her daughter’s problem before she came to Jesus. We aren’t given that information, but seeing her desperation makes it seem very likely. But whatever might have been the case before this, somehow she had heard of this One that some said was the Jewish Messiah. He could heal people.

She did acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, by the way. Did you pick that up? She called him "Son of David" – a designation reserved for the Messiah that the Jews expected. In fact, she did it more readily than many of the Jews of her day. This is one of the great ironies of the gospels. As John would later write in John 1:11: "He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him." If you want to see this Jewish rejection in action, you need look no further than the verses immediately preceding this text. He told them the truth about their condition and for it they hated Him. It was such rejection from "His own" that caused Him to withdraw briefly into the land of the Gentiles on this occasion.

His own people rejected Him, but not this woman. She came to Him readily confessing His identity.

This is what would happen as Christianity spread around the world. The Jews would be given the opportunity first. Some would accept, but because of their hard hearts, many would reject Him. The messengers would then turn to the Gentiles who received Him gladly.(3)

OK. It’s time for us to deal with Jesus’ treatment of this woman. She said, "Have mercy on me, Son of David!" But according to verse 23, "He did not answer her a word." That sounds so cold and heartless when we first read it. But hang on. Don’t jump to conclusions until all the data is in. We need to look next at:

What was the response of Peter, James, John, Matthew, Philip, Bartholomew, and the others of the twelve?

Verse 23 says, "His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she is shouting out after us.’"

They were obviously annoyed by the presence of this Gentile woman and maybe even repulsed by her. After all, they were Jewish men and Jews had nothing to do with Gentiles! "Why don’t you send this disgusting woman away, Jesus?"

I suggest to you that what we are seeing in this passage rather than Jesus’ cruel treatment of a woman in need is Matthew’s report on how Jesus used this occasion to stretch the faith of His men. Remember, He was preparing them to carry on His ministry. They would soon turn to the Gentiles. At the end of their preparation He would tell them, as recorded in Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." But they weren’t ready to do that yet. Their faith and understanding needed to be stretched and Jesus was at work here doing just that.

To Jesus’ disciples at this point the Gentiles were as disgusting as the wild dogs that roamed the land, feeding on garbage and dead things. In fact, you may know that this is what the Jews called Gentiles. They called them "dogs." Getting His men beyond this reckoning to understand that God also cared deeply for the rest of the world was going to be difficult. If you know the New Testament, you know that as late as Acts 10, in the case where Peter was sent to the home of the Gentile soldier, Cornelius, there was still resistance. Peter captured the mood of Jew/Gentile enmity in Acts 10:28 where he said to those in the household of Cornelius, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him…." In that case Peter went anyway, albeit reluctantly. Our text here was years before that. There was yet a mountain of prejudice that needed to be broken down before these men could preach the gospel to "every creature." At this point, the assumed ugliness of this passage could be most attributed to the twelve.

"But what of Jesus’ words?" you ask. "Didn’t He, too, call this woman a dog? Wouldn’t this line Him up with the Jewish bigots of His day?"

Let’s move on now to:

The first thing to look at in Jesus’ response is the fact that He ignored this woman at first. Some would say He did this because He too was disgusted with her presence and wanted her to just go away. To that I would simply reply that if He so despised this woman, why did He ultimately grant her request to heal her daughter? It wasn’t disgust that held Jesus back from speaking. I suggest that the reason for His holding back was that He wanted His disciples to step up to the plate and express the typical Jewish prejudice that He knew they held so that it could be challenged. And it didn’t take them long to get it out, did it? "Send her away, for she is shouting out after us." There is no concern in that for the plight of this woman and her daughter. Just, "Tell her to leave!"

For a moment, to up the ante before He nuked their bigotry, He played along. He said in verse 24, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," I can imagine the disciples’ response to that. "Right on! He’s proving our Jewish superiority. He wants nothing to do with this woman, either. Jesus’ you’re as fully orthodox as we expected."

Perhaps I should clarify here that while I’m depicting Jesus as playing along with their bigotry, what He said was true. God’s plan was to go only to the Jews first.(4) Not to the Jews exclusively, as the disciples thought, but to the Jews first.

Upon these words of Jesus, disgusting as it probably was to the disciples, this bold and brazen woman actually continued, going so far as to bow before Him and beg, "Lord, help me!" At that point I can imagine the disciples, schooled in disdain for the Gentiles, recoiling from the scene. "Why don’t you get rid of this woman, Lord?"

Then came the words of Jesus in verse 26 that perhaps at first seemed to validate their prejudice: "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

Yes, Jesus implies that He considered this woman a dog. But wait just a moment. Any validation that the disciples felt for their Jewish bigotry must have fizzled when they stopped long enough to realize what Jesus had actually said. You see, the word He used for "dogs" was not the standard one the Jews used to refer to the Gentiles. The word they used was kuon. It was the word that referred to the packs of wild dogs that roamed ancient civilizations – those pronounced unclean by the Law of Moses. The word Jesus used here was kunarion. It meant "little dog" or even "puppy." To this woman it was a familiar, perhaps even endearing term. Outside of the Jews, who didn’t keep dogs, it described the little house dogs that people kept with their families.

"You’re saying that Jesus actually called this woman a puppy?"

That’s precisely what I’m saying. If you find yourself surprised and puzzled by this, you probably aren’t half as puzzled as Jesus’ disciples were. Such a phrase would have spun their Jewish arrogance and prejudice around with whiplash force. It was a play on words designed, I think, to do just that to the disciples. The degree to which they picked up on it I don’t know, but the woman got it very quickly. Perhaps she had a twinkle in her eye when she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs [kunarion – little dogs, puppies] feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

A couple of things stand out in her response. First, she picked up Jesus’ subtle play on words and reflected them right back to Him. She was no stranger to Jewish prejudice. Anyone living near the Jews would know of it. But then she turned it into something that is at once cleaver and also revealed the great honor that she had for Jesus. "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master’s table." Let me paraphrase that: "Yes, Lord, but in our homes even the little puppies get to clean up the crumbs after the family is done with them."

She was not presumptuously circumventing His planned preference to the Jews first. She was simply saying that even after caring for the Jews, He was powerful enough to have crumbs left over that could help her. Furthermore, and I hope you caught it, she recognized Him as the Master, in charge of the table. She put Jesus into a position that the Jews were unwilling to put Him.

It is no wonder that Jesus said, "O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish."

Here was a woman who recognized something that even Jesus’ closest disciples didn’t yet recognize. He was powerful enough to reach out to the Gentiles – so powerful that even the crumbs falling from His table were sufficient to do the job!

Far then from being a passage that calls Jesus’ compassion into question, these verses are actually a powerful testimony of His great concern. He was preparing His men to reach out to the whole world!

Let me make a couple of quick applications of this and we’ll be done.

Firstly, don’t be too quick to read through a passage of the New Testament and put the worst possible spin on a perceived difficulty. As I’ve shown you here and many times before, with some study, the perceived problems usually disappear, and often once we comprehend, such passages thought to be the most difficult actually enhance our understanding of our Great Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, as we have seen Jesus dealing with this woman and His disciples to challenge and deepen their faith, to push it ahead and make it grow, so He will do to us today. If you are a believer in Him, then know that He is going to stretch you. He is going to challenge you. He is going to even upset you at times. He may throw some obstacles in your way as He prods you to grow. Remember, He ignored this woman at first. Would she turn away or did she have enough faith to continue? He may ignore your prayers at first to see if you really believe. This process isn’t always comfortable. It can seem disappointing. You might wonder if it is really worth it. This wondering is really the shaking out and testing of your faith. He wants you to decide whether you will go against your feelings and trust Him or simply wimp out and quit.

This woman hit a real snag when Jesus ignored her. He seemed to take the side of the Jewish bigotry of the day. Had she become exasperated at that point and quit, her daughter would probably have died in her demon possession. But she showed her faith. She persisted. She wasn’t about to give up. She knew Jesus could help her. She stubbornly held to who He was. This is what you and I must do. We cannot control the things He allows to come into our lives to challenge our faith. But that doesn’t mean we are helpless. We can stubbornly continue to believe that He knows what He is doing and that He has the ultimate answer to our problem.

Such are the tests of faith. Will you pass or will you fail?

My first ministry was in another state. Not long after I arrived there I was preaching and I told an imaginary story of a man who was marginal in his faith. He often stayed home from church if there was even half of a trumped up reason. As a result, I said as I told this imaginary story, he ignored his wife and his children who begged Him to join them in attendance at the church. Then one day he suddenly died of a heart attack.

Little did I know as I told this story that a man was present in our assembly that morning whose situation fit the details of my made-up story almost to the letter. He was offended at my story and suddenly stood up and stormed out of the meeting. When we were finished his wife informed me of what had happened and why her husband had left. He thought someone had told me about him so I could embarrass him publicly. Nothing could have been further from the truth, so I went to see him at his home. He was hot! At first he refused to even let me in. I persisted. Finally his wife came to the door and let me in. He wouldn’t even look at me as I sat there and tried to explain what had happened and that my story wasn’t really about him. He refused to believe me and held to his offense. He vowed never to return to the church again and he asked me to leave.

I moved from that place so I don’t know what this man ultimately did, though I have often wondered. I suggest to you that sometimes God brings such things into our lives to shake out and test our faith. For the woman it was Jesus’ initial treatment of her. In the case of this man it was a perceived offense that was totally innocent on my part. Both had to choose whether they would get beyond it and continue to trust the Lord or whether he would use it as an off ramp from the freeway of faith.

When something like this happens to you, what will you do? I suggest that you look to the actions of this woman who persisted and received what she needed.

Finally, what will you do with this Jesus whom we continue to present here before you? As you see these stories of His life, what do you do with them? Will you come to Him in faith or will you turn away?

1. Matthew 14:15
2. Matthew 14:17
3. Acts 13:46; 18:6; 28:24-28
4. Matthew 10:5-6; Acts 13:46

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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