I tend to see more of God in Jesus and not so much His humanity. I’ll study this a little more and remember His humanity, yet without sin. Thanks for your response.
Perhaps since the woman was all too aware of how the Jews viewed her by the usage of “dog”, His goal was for her to see what her true worth was to Him, as He granted her answer and spoke to her about how her faith in Him mattered.
That’s a possibility. For me, I resonate more with the notion that Jesus was human enough to grow and expand and be effected by relating to others as much as he effected. And it inspires me to do the same...allowing my ideas to change as a result of encountering God in “outsiders”.
The last story is priceless - Lot - Pilate - Thief on the cross - they all have at least one thing in common. They were all humans whom God loved.
In regards to the Syrophoenician woman, I think when Jesus said, “. . . It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”, I think He was speaking with sarcasm towards the Pharisees, since they referred to Gentiles as dogs. Prior to this encounter, Jesus had just been responding to the Pharisees and Scribes in their attempts to accuse Jesus and His Disciples from not following Jewish traditions. He was showing that a gentile woman knew Him better and trusted Him more than the Jewish leaders, and He granted her request.
Hmm...that could be a way to read it, however I struggle to see it that way. Both the Mark 7 & Matthew 15 accounts specify that Jesus has left the company of the Pharisees and is trying to get away. The only ones in his company when he speaks those words are the woman and his disciples. So it feels like a stretch to impose sarcasm directed at Pharisees on what he says.
In Matthew’s account he actually ignores her. To me, this appears to be an inner struggle for him where he’s wrestling with his own cultural conditioning and prejudice...between what he feels he OUGHT to do and what he actually WANTS to do. When she kneels before him and speaks with such audacity as to assert that she too is deserving of God’s provision, he seems genuinely surprised and moved by her faith. She expands his understanding of his path in the same way that his mother urged him to perform the miracle at the Cana wedding before he thought he “ought” to. I personally LOVE the stories of women influencing him in this way.
I do think, however, that the Gospel writers placing these two scenes so close to each other, first with his rebuke of the Pharisees and second his own overcoming of prejudice, that they were highlighting the same theme: it’s human hearts that matter and not external observances or bloodlines.
I tend to see more of God in Jesus and not so much His humanity. I’ll study this a little more and remember His humanity, yet without sin. Thanks for your response.
Perhaps since the woman was all too aware of how the Jews viewed her by the usage of “dog”, His goal was for her to see what her true worth was to Him, as He granted her answer and spoke to her about how her faith in Him mattered.
That’s a possibility. For me, I resonate more with the notion that Jesus was human enough to grow and expand and be effected by relating to others as much as he effected. And it inspires me to do the same...allowing my ideas to change as a result of encountering God in “outsiders”.
The last story is priceless - Lot - Pilate - Thief on the cross - they all have at least one thing in common. They were all humans whom God loved.
In regards to the Syrophoenician woman, I think when Jesus said, “. . . It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”, I think He was speaking with sarcasm towards the Pharisees, since they referred to Gentiles as dogs. Prior to this encounter, Jesus had just been responding to the Pharisees and Scribes in their attempts to accuse Jesus and His Disciples from not following Jewish traditions. He was showing that a gentile woman knew Him better and trusted Him more than the Jewish leaders, and He granted her request.
Hmm...that could be a way to read it, however I struggle to see it that way. Both the Mark 7 & Matthew 15 accounts specify that Jesus has left the company of the Pharisees and is trying to get away. The only ones in his company when he speaks those words are the woman and his disciples. So it feels like a stretch to impose sarcasm directed at Pharisees on what he says.
In Matthew’s account he actually ignores her. To me, this appears to be an inner struggle for him where he’s wrestling with his own cultural conditioning and prejudice...between what he feels he OUGHT to do and what he actually WANTS to do. When she kneels before him and speaks with such audacity as to assert that she too is deserving of God’s provision, he seems genuinely surprised and moved by her faith. She expands his understanding of his path in the same way that his mother urged him to perform the miracle at the Cana wedding before he thought he “ought” to. I personally LOVE the stories of women influencing him in this way.
I do think, however, that the Gospel writers placing these two scenes so close to each other, first with his rebuke of the Pharisees and second his own overcoming of prejudice, that they were highlighting the same theme: it’s human hearts that matter and not external observances or bloodlines.