Come In Faith, Believing

William (Bill) E. Gordon, Baptist pastor and author has this to say about the breadth of faith:

“Atheists have faith — faith that there is no God, no place of everlasting punishment in the hereafter. Animals possess faith; they display the utmost faith in their masters, as do children in their parents. Sick people display tremendous faith. They go to a doctor who took courses in school with names they may not even be able to pronounce correctly much less understand. He gives them a prescription they cannot read. They take the prescription to a pharmacist they may not have even seen before. He gives them medicine they do not understand that costs an arm and a leg. All this is done in trusting, sincere faith.

But faith by itself does not save anyone. It is the object of our faith that saves us. That’s why the object of saving faith must be Jesus Christ.”

I. INTRODUCTION

1. There is a character in the Gospels that Jesus once described with four immortal words: You have great faith (Matthew's version 15:21-28). She was a Canaanite woman who came from the country to the north of Palestine, a country hostile to the Jews. She was presumably married and had at least one child; but that is all we know about her. We do not know whether she was a good woman or a bad woman. We do not know her name. All we know of her is that in a single encounter with Jesus, he lauds her with these four words: You have great faith.

2. Four words make her immortal. We trust these words as true because the expert on faith spoke them. Jesus searched for faith, as a gem collector would fine jewels. He did not always find it in his disciples. On no occasion that we know did he ever say of Peter, James, and John: You have great faith. More often the words he spoke were: You of little faith.

3. On only one other occasion Jesus praised a person for their faith; that was a Roman soldier stationed in Capernaum. Interestingly, in both instances, this great faith is found in a Gentile.

4. The educated religious elite of Jesus' day opposed him, his disciples trusted but could not understand him, but a Canaanite woman recognizes and trusts him with her daughter’s life.

[What four words would Jesus use to describe you? OYBT Mark 7 as we discover the characteristics in this woman that may have caused Jesus to praise her in this way . . .]

II. THE SETTING (7:1-23)

1. The Pharisees and some teachers of the law challenge Jesus with a question concerning ritual cleanness. It seems that the disciples did not wash their hands (ceremonially, not hygienically) before eating, as tradition demanded. This meant the disciples were eating with “unclean hands.”

2. Jesus calls them hypocrites: they adhere to the traditions of the elders, but their hearts are far from God. They go through the rituals, but have no relationship with the very God with whom they claim covenantal unity.

3. Immediately following this interaction, Jesus and the twelve retreat to the (Gentile) territory of Tyre, were he and the disciples hope to rest. Mark tells us that Jesus wanted his presence to remain a secret, but in the next verse (25), a woman comes to see him.

4. She is Syrophoenician. She lives in the territory formerly known as Syria, currently under Phoenician rule. She is a born Greek, and has a daughter who is demon-possessed. This girl is in grave danger, and her mother comes to the house where Jesus is staying and falls at his feet, begging him to drive the demon from her child (26).

III. JESUS’ RESPONSE (7:27)

1. Jesus responds: first, let the children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children’s food and toss it to their dogs. These are harsh words. We might think Jesus’ response is rude, and even ask, “what kind of a response is that to this woman’s pain? He is dismissive, uninterested and arrogant! That’s not the Jesus I know . . .” and you would be right.

A. Now, the question is, if Jesus is not all those things (and he isn’t), how should we understand his words to her? I’m glad you asked . . .

B. Scholars and commentators have long argued that the children represent Israel, as the children of God, and that the dogs represent the Gentiles; dogs was a derogatory name for Gentiles sometimes used by first century Jews. There may, however, be some problems with this argument.

(i) First, it is unlikely that Jesus would call someone by such a demeaning name.

(ii) Second, the word dog in this verse is in the diminutive tense, referring to a “little dog”, meaning a domestic animal (pet), not the wild scavenger on the streets (which is what the derogatory form of the word meant).