Site Search via Google

Discussion 2 to Ask the Patriarch 261 & 262
The Canaanite Woman

by: JT

To contribute your own opinion to this exchange of views, please use our Contact form. This discussion has been continued.

Cat:

I may reply to your comments at more length next week - I'm running out of time right now - but I want to address one issue where you addressed something I brought up in my original response, and that is the Canaanite woman.

You wrote:

Jesus called her a dog (meaning lowly and undeserving of his approval) because she didn't believe in him even with proof thrown in her face.

Perhaps I should have provided you with the relevant reference (or my previous article on the issue) when I mentioned this woman and Jesus's comparison of her to a dog so we could be sure we were talking about the same incident. But let's go to the text in Matthew 15:

21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

I think it's pretty clear that she did believe in Jesus and in his ability to perform miracles. It's only by shaming him and convincing him she did believe (which Jesus acknowledged) that she got him to help her. And at no point did Jesus withdraw his flat assertion that he "was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Just as the 10 Commandments were specifically addressed to the Israelites, so also was the ministry of Jesus. That's what it says in the bible.

DISCUSSION 3 >

Please comment:

Please take the opportunity to share your thoughts on this article.