prejudice

February 26, 2026 –  Double Vision – Two Centurions — Acts #31

David Chupp Acts , ,

February 26, 2026 –  Double Vision – Two Centurions — Acts #31
Acts 10:1-8

Double vision is an odd thing.  I only experienced it once after a car accident when my jeep rolled several times and ended up upside down on the road.  I had a bit of a concussion and was hanging upside down by the seatbelt.  By the way, if that ever happens, do not release the seatbelt without bracing for the fall on your head.   But I was disoriented for a bit and saw double for just a few minutes.  It is an odd feeling.  

This morning, as we continue in Acts 10, we have a story about a Roman centurion.   But I see not one but two centurions here.  Because this story is tied to another centurion’s story in scripture, and the story of the first centurion is found in Matthew 8.

Matthew 8:5-9 (NIV)  When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.

Centurions were the backbone of the Roman army, the equivalent of our highest-ranking non-commissioned officers, commanding 80 men.  (It originally was 100 men, thus the name (century =100), but the Romans later reduced the squad to 80 for efficiency.  And what makes this centurion unique is that he recognized Jesus’ authority.  This happens right after the Sermon on the Mount.  And remember that one of the things that most impressed people in Jesus’ sermon was this:

Matthew 7:28-29  And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Jesus said many good things in the Sermon on the Mount, but what most impressed people was the manner in which he spoke, for he spoke with authority.  He didn’t sound like a commentator or a teacher giving an opinion; he sounded like the author.  

Jesus speaks with authority about the scriptures because they are his scriptures.  And he is trying to correct their misinterpretations of His scriptures.  Several times in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you.”  What He is doing is telling them that they need a correct understanding.   And he has the authority to give the interpretation.  Jesus has come to correct what people got wrong about His word.

Then what is the first thing that happens when Jesus walks down the mountain after the sermon?

Matthew 8:1-4 “When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.””

He has just astounded them by his authority over scripture.  And now he shows them he has authority over disease.  He will later show his disciples that he has authority over the wind and waves by calming the sea.  Just as Jesus had authority over the scriptures because they are his, he has authority over the world because it is his as well.  He created it.

So this centurion comes to Jesus and recognizes his authority. Then Jesus volunteers to go to the centurion’s home. Most translations have this as a statement by Jesus: “I will come and heal him.”  But the NIV has Jesus asking, “Shall I come and heal him?”  Greek scholars agree that this indeed should be a question, and it is worded in such a way as to emphasize the “I” — Shall I come?  Because this would be very surprising.  Jews in Jesus’ day did not go into the home of a Gentile, much less a Roman soldier.  The original idea behind this was to avoid ritual impurity from food or utensils, but it had morphed into more of a racial prejudice.  They were the enemy, and they were unclean.  No one would enter his home, certainly not a prophet or holy man. 

Then the centurion reveals his belief in Jesus’ authority.  He is convinced that Jesus is the owner of this world and all that is in it.  He can will for something to happen, and it will happen. But let’s look at Jesus’ response:

Matthew 8:10  When Jesus heard this, he was amazed…

First of all, Jesus was amazed.  Matthew uses this Greek word many times to explain how people, again and again, were amazed by what Jesus did or said.  But this is the only time he uses it to show that Jesus is amazed by somebody.  What left Jesus amazed?

Matthew 8:10-12   When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jesus is amazed by the centurion’s faith.  This man is convinced beyond any doubt that Jesus has authority over everything, including sickness.  Jesus recognizes that this centurion’s faith is on a completely different level from that of his disciples or any Jewish person he has met.  This didn’t sit well with the crowd.  Jesus points out this Gentile, this Roman soldier of all people, he has more faith than any Jew?   Why, Jesus, he is not Jewish!  He can’t even be part of the faithful!  He is an unclean Gentile!  How can you say that?  But Jesus doesn’t stop there.

Jesus speaks of something his listeners knew well, the great Messianic banquet, when God gathers all his faithful together in the last days for a great feast.  The true faithful are invited, and others are left out.    And every Jewish person there believed the same thing.  The Jews would be invited, but the Gentiles would be left out. They will all dine with God and their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.   And here is Jesus saying that foreigners will come from all over (the east and the west) to sit at the table, many of them.  This is a radical statement.

Peter and the others are standing here listening to this.  Do they understand what he is saying?  No, and this is very important, they didn’t get it at all at this point.  Jesus is not speaking in riddles.  It is stated very clearly.  Still, they did not comprehend.   Because this is counter to everything they have been taught their whole life about these unclean Gentiles.    

Jesus tried to tell them.  And he tries to tell them later.  It is in his Great Commission.  And you all know the Great Commission.  But do you remember how it begins?

Matthew 28:18-20   Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…

Oh, did you see that…. all authority has been given to me.   He is trying to get them to see what the centurion in Capernaum in Matthew 8 knew.  I have all authority.  I created the world, I am the Torah. I am the Word of God. I am the Son of God.   Keep reading….

Matthew 28:18-20   Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all of the Jews, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit….

No, that is not what he said. But listen, that was still what they thought.  Even after Jesus’ encounter with the first centurion, they still think God is only for the Jews.  But Jesus said this:

Matthew 28:18-20   Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.   
Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Go and make disciples of all nations.   Jews and Gentiles.  Greeks and Romans.  Americans and Iraqis.  No one is off limits.  The Gospel is for everyone.  There is no one so unclean that they can not be my disciple.  But they still didn’t get it…

So this encounter with the centurion is the first time Jesus shows that He is here for all people.   Jesus will concentrate his time on earth with the Jews as predicted in the scriptures, but he is very clear that it is not the end but the beginning.  As Paul stated it:  

Romans 1:16  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

There is salvation for everyone who believes.  “Jews first and then Gentiles.”  But again, at the time Jesus gives the Great Commission and then ascends to heaven, and even 10 years later in Acts 10, Peter and the other disciples don’t get it.   They are still thinking “Jew only, not Gentile.”

How will God pierce their prejudice and finally teach them this lesson?

That is why we have the story of the other centurion.  So we return to Acts 10.  Last week, we discussed Peter’s travels along the coast and through the plain of Sharon, including the towns of Lydda and Joppa.   The action in today’s story takes place in Caesarea.

Many cities in the times of Roman Emperors were named “Caesarea” as a way to honor the emperor, Caesar.   If you want to get in good with the new emperor, build a big city and put his name on it.   There were two major cities in Israel with that name.  Caesarea Philippi was located north of the Sea of Galilee, and was where Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  But we are speaking today of Caesarea Maritima, or Caesarea “by the sea.”  This city was built by Herod the (not-so) Great between 22 and 19 BC, and he named it after Caesar Augustus.   It became the administrative and military capital of the Roman province of Judea.   This is where Pilate and other Roman officials stayed.

Acts 10:1-8   At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.

Cornelius is described as a “devout man.”  He and all of his household are worshipping Yehovah, the God of Israel, but they have not converted to Judaism.  The common name for people who worship but don’t convert to Judaism is “God-fearer.”  He was generous to the poor and prayed continually, meaning he kept the Jewish order of prayer throughout the day, reciting the Shema 2-3 times a day and maintaining regular prayer times.  Two of the regular prayer times coincided with the Tamid offering in the Temple at 9 am and 3 pm, and then there was an evening prayer time, typically after sundown.  But he had not become a full proselyte, which required formal questioning and circumcision.  So the Jews in Jerusalem would have considered him pagan.  Like the centurion in Matthew 8, no Jew would ever enter his home.

But that attitude didn’t stop Jesus from entering the centurion’s home in Matthew 8.  And it didn’t stop God from being willing to send a messenger from his throne room to Cornelius’ home.

Acts 10:3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.”

It was the 9th hour of the day, that is, 9 hours from daybreak, so about 3 pm.  And Cornelius is in his regular prayer time, the same time all devout Jews gathered to pray.  And God sends him a message in the form of a vision.  An angel who calls his name.  And he reacts the same way everyone reacts to one of God’s messengers.

Acts 10:4  “And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

The language the messenger uses to address Cornelius speaks of his donations to the poor and his prayers, as if they were the smoke of a burnt offering ascending to God. Have you thought about this?  We bring offerings in the form of money to God, but have you stopped to consider that our prayers, devotion, praise, and good deeds are also offerings to the Father?

After the Jerusalem temple was destroyed and they could no longer do animal sacrifices, Jews today consider their prayers, their giving of alms, and their praise as acceptable sacrifices instead. This thought is seen throughout the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments.

Psalm 50:23 “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
Hebrews 13:15 “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”

Paul said it this way:

Romans 12:1  “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Our devotion to God, what we say, what we do, our whole life is a living sacrifice.

So the messenger tells Cornelius that God sees his devotion as an acceptable sacrifice.  Can you imagine how Cornelius felt?  He has been worshipping the God of the Jews for some time, but the Jews who claim this God do not in any way see Cornelius as acceptable.  The Jews do not accept him, but God does accept him.  This is good news!

And then the messenger says:

Acts 10:5-8 “And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter.   He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.  ” When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.”

Cornelius is to send for Simon Peter to come to his house.  He has heard of Peter.  He is a Jew.  And he was also one of Jesus’ 12 disciples.   What could this mean?   Will Peter come to the house of a Gentile?  Even if God has accepted Cornelius, does that mean Peter will?  And if God’s messenger asked him to send for one of Jesus’ disciples, does that mean that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, as some people say?

What do you think?  Will Peter ignore the Jewish ban on entering a Gentile’s home?  Will Peter accept an unclean Gentile Roman Soldier?  We will discuss this next week, but I am going to let you know now.   Peter will end up coming.  But it is going to take something really big for God to convince Peter that it is okay to visit Cornelius.  God is going to have to do something dramatic to change Peter’s prejudice against the Gentile world.  It will take something big to end Peter’s racism.   You see, the prejudices that you were raised with die hard, because you don’t even realize those things you learned were racist.  You were just told that is how it was.  And you accepted it.  Many of us here were raised in an area of the country that embraced racism for many years.  And it took a lot to break us out of thought patterns that were embedded deep within us.  

Peter was taught all his life that Gentiles were ceremonially unclean.  There was no hope for them unless they converted to Judaism.  They ate unclean food and did unclean things.  And if you went around them, you would also be unclean.  But that wasn’t God’s teaching.  That was man’s perversion of God’s teaching.   God never said an entire people group was unclean.  But Peter learned these things as part of the tradition of his faith.  Not scripture, but tradition.  Jesus told the Pharisees:

Mark 7:8 “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

We cannot accept things just because tradition says so.  We have to put everything to the test of scripture.  I am reminded of a discussion I had with a friend back in 2015.  We had been discussing the doctrine of Original Sin in our Bible Study, and it turned into a several-month-long email discussion with others.  

So we exchanged emails for months discussing scripture as it pertains to this doctrine, and I learned a lot from our discussions.  But at one point, one of my friends in the discussion said to me, “You just frighten me because you’re really smart and apparently read everything ever published. But you’re also a bit of an iconoclast, which makes me nervous.”   While I appreciated his compliment, I have to admit I had to look up the word ‘iconoclast’ to make sure I understood what he meant.  

According to Google, an iconoclast is “a person who attacks or challenges cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, or widely accepted practices, often viewing them as superstitious or erroneous. The term originates from the Greek words for “image” and “breaker,” historically referring to those who destroyed religious icons.  A sacred image breaker, challenging cherished traditional beliefs.”

Well, once I knew what it meant, I thanked my friend for the compliment.  Yes, I told him, I feel the responsibility to challenge all traditional beliefs in light of the scripture God gave us.  I told him that the best compliment I had ever received was that it was exactly what I saw Jesus doing with the religious leaders of His day, challenging all their traditions in light of scripture.  

When I was young, I read a tract that someone left in our mailbox from the KKK that used scripture to say how people of dark skin color were cursed by God.   I bet some of you saw it too.  God, please forgive them for this perversion of your word.  Racism runs deep in my part of the country.  Who is acceptable and who is not.  That is what is at stake here in Acts 10.   Do you have to be Jewish to worship God?  Do you have to be Jewish to encounter Jesus?

Peter’s answer on the day that Cornelius got his vision would have been, “Yes, you do.”   But God will deal with Peter, and next week we will talk about Peter’s vision and why it is so critical to Jesus’ movement in Acts.   But for now, consider these two centurions.  They are not random characters. 

The centurion in Matthew 8 is a prophecy.  Cornelius in Acts 10 is the reality, the fulfillment of that prophecy.  The first shows that Gentiles can have faith.  The second shows that Gentiles are fully welcomed into the family of God.  God did not change His plan; He revealed it progressively. Together, these two centurions reveal that from the beginning, God’s plan was never limited to one nation.  The gospel was always meant for the world.   As God told the children of Israel after they passed through the Sea, 

Exodus 19:4-6   You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

A kingdom of priests to take the message of the one true God to all the nations.  But they held the gospel too close.  They kept it to themselves.  They said, ” You must become like us to share in our God.  You must become Jewish.”  It is no different than the mistake made by early missionaries to the Native Americans here, who forced them to become like us to worship our God.  You must wear our clothes, follow our customs and traditions, and sing our hymns to worship our God.   

God does not want us to become like someone else.
He wants us to become like Him.

But the nation of Israel never accepted the role of priests to the world.  They were priests only to each other.  So God comes in the form of a Jew who is not bound by the tradition of isolationism.  Jesus comes as a son of Abraham who will be the priest to the nations, and lead a group of his brother Jews to become priests to the nations.

Oh, they came reluctantly, but they came.  It took many years to convince them.  God has to shock Peter; he has to basically hit him on the head to wake him up to the truth that he tried to explain way back in Matthew 8 with the first centurion.  And don’t think Peter totally understands it yet in Acts 10.  We will see how he still does not completely buy in.  But he eventually does.  And when Peter finally understands, he goes 100%

For it is Peter, just another Jew who hated the Romans; Peter, who at one time would not dare consider entering a Roman house; who at one time felt they were not worthy to worship his God.  It is Peter who ends up going to Rome to lead as many Romans as he can to Jesus.  And from Rome, he writes a letter to the Gentile church in Asia Minor.  And he gives them the same charge that God gave his ancestors thousands of years ago:

1 Peter 2:9-10    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter has finally understood what God said back in Exodus.  And now he preaches that same message to the Gentile followers of Jesus in Asia Minor.   Once you were not a chosen people of God, but now you are the chosen people; in fact, all people are chosen by God, and we are a nation of priests whose job it is to spread the name of Yehovah to everyone, for no one is unclean.

September 22, 27 A.D.  –  The Woman Who Would Not Give Up —   The Year of the Lord’s Favor #53

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , , , , , , ,

Week 32 ———  The Woman Who Would Not Give Up
Matthew 15:22-28      Mark 7:24-30

Several weeks ago, Jesus fed the largest crowd recorded in his ministry (5000 men plus women and children). Last week, he taught on the Bread of Life and spoke for the first time to a crowd plainly of eternal life resurrection on the last day because that evening began the Day of Trumpets. I told you then that we were at a turning point in his ministry.

His popularity was at its highest after the feeding of the 5000.  It was so popular that John tells us the people wanted to force him to be king.  And Jesus is king, but not the kind of king they think.  So he withdrew (John 6:14-15).  The next day, the crowd finds him again.  They want him to repeat the bread miracle.  But Jesus tells him he is the Bread of Life.  They cannot understand what he is saying because their mind is stuck on earthly things.  And that brings us to one of the saddest verses in the Bible:

John 6:66  After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

But God granted understanding to Simon Peter:

John 6:66-69  So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”   Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 

That evening, the new moon is visible, and it is the Day of Trumpets, which is a required day of rest.  (So both Saturday and Sunday were Sabbath rests that week.)  A group of Pharisees from Jerusalem had been waiting for Jesus to return to Capernaum.  On the Day of Trumpets, they confront Jesus because he and his disciples don’t wash their hands the way the Rabbis had instructed them to keep ritually pure.  (Note that this was not a law from scripture, but something the rabbis added and Jesus found unnecessary.)  It would be like you visiting a church one Sunday, and one of the church elders comes to you and fusses at you because you didn’t wear a jacket and tie.  “Everyone here wears a suit to church.  Next time you come, dress correctly.”    Jesus was all about rules, but only God’s rules.  He had no trouble ignoring their traditions that seemed more important to them than God’s rules.  And this was not a friendly discussion but a confrontation.  The disciples realized that contradicting these authorities could be a problem, and they asked Jesus:

Matthew 15:12  Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

Jesus answered by telling the disciples that the Pharisees were ‘blind guides’ and challenging their whole concept of purity.  

The following day, Jesus and the disciples traveled north out of Galilee, out of Jewish territory, into Syria, the region controlled by the two large cities, Tyre and Sidon. These were very wealthy coastal cities, profiting from their position in the spice trade.  They controlled the region of Syria north of Galilee, and it was not Jewish.1

Now, the people in Syria had already heard about Jesus.  As Matthew noted just before the sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 4:24-25   So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them.

 So, some of the people from Syria had already come south to Galilee, blended in with the crowds around Jesus, and found healing. But now, Jesus goes there.

Matthew 15:21-28   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 is 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 is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus enters the southernmost part of this region, and his disciples are likely thinking he is leaving to have some time away from the crowds and the religious leaders who are becoming increasingly antagonistic to him. But Jesus has a hidden agenda.  He doesn’t seek out anyone, but a woman whose child was possessed by a demon hears that Jesus is in the area, so she comes to ask for healing for her child.  The fact that she is not Jewish is much emphasized in the Scriptures.  Matthew (writing to a Jewish audience) describes her as a “Canaanite woman,” using a term that recalls the Old Testament history of Canaanites being the enemy whose worship of idols was a persistent threat to the proper worship of the Israelites.  That the Messiah of Israel would bring healing to a Canaanite, of all people, would be a shocking statement to Matthew’s readers that Jesus’ ministry is for all people.  Matthew furthers the shock value of the story, recording that the pagan woman then addresses Jesus as the “Son of David,” a Jewish messianic title.  

This is an odd Bible story. You probably won’t get it in Vacation Bible School, so we must examine it more closely.

Mark adds the detail that Jesus is trying to escape notice from the people. 

Mark 7:24   And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.   And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 

He is not there to minister.  He doesn’t seek out anyone, but a woman whose child was possessed by a demon hears that Jesus is in the area, so she comes to ask for healing for her child.  Both Mark and Matthew emphasize the fact that she is not Jewish.  Mark says, “Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth” (Mark 7:26).   Matthew (writing to a Jewish audience) describes her as a “Canaanite woman,” using a term that recalls the Old Testament history of Canaanites being the enemy whose worship of idols was a persistent threat to the proper worship of the Israelites.  This was a derogatory term.  That the Messiah of Israel would bring healing to a Canaanite, of all people, would be a shocking statement to Matthew’s readers.  Matthew furthers the shock value of the story, recording that the pagan woman then addresses Jesus as the “Son of David,” a Jewish messianic title.

She “comes out” of her village to seek out Jesus, leaving her daughter at home.  She begs for mercy.  How would you expect Jesus to respond to this woman desperate for healing for her daughter?   Jesus does not even respond to her at all.  But she is persistent, and she will not be turned aside.  Eventually, the disciples ask Jesus to send her away “for she is crying out after us.”  They begged Jesus to heal her daughter so she would leave.  But Jesus responds:

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

We have heard Jesus use that phrase before, when he was sending out the 12.

Matthew 10:5-7   These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

So Jesus ignored this woman’s request for help because she is a Gentile?  He has healed some Gentiles before.  What is going on?  Still, she doesn’t give up.2

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
And then Jesus replies:  “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Whoa, Jesus.  That sounds bad, even in our culture, where we love dogs and some treat them like children.  But in the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, dogs are not pets. They are scavengers, a nuisance, unclean animals. It is definitely a derogatory reference.   The disciples were not surprised at all when Jesus said this.  They probably were thinking the same thing.  What is Jesus doing?

But this woman won’t let that comment slow her down. She is a mother with a sick child.  She will not be dismissed so easily.  “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”  She embraces the derogatory comment and continues to make her case.  Somehow, this Gentile woman has got it into her head that Jesus is her Messiah also.

After his death and resurrection, Jesus told the disciples to go into all the world.  His ministry will be for all, not just the Jews.  But this woman begs Jesus to take that future hope for the Gentiles to be part of God’s kingdom and make it happen now.  

And suddenly, everything changes.  

Jesus turned and said, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” Her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus has a crucial lesson to teach these disciples.  But this lesson is so contrary to their thinking that he knows he will have to take extreme measures to teach it.  He has emphasized several times that his mission was first to the Jews, which is just what was foretold in Scripture. Jesus is being faithful to the story of the Bible.

Once, there was only one nation in the world, but they rebelled against God, building a tower they hoped would rise to heaven.  So, God divides them into many nations.  And God chooses one man from all the nations to be the way he will restore the world.  This man, Abraham, will be the “father of many nations,” and his family will be the means of redemption for all.  His people are rescued from slavery in Egypt,

After deliverance from Egypt, God tells the children of Israel they are to be a kingdom of priests to carry his message through the world.  But they fail to follow God and be that kingdom of priests. So God chooses a king to lead the people in justice, mercy, and obedience, but David fails also.  Then God promises that one day, a king will come from the house of David who will succeed in keeping God’s covenant and be the leader that will bring all nations together under God.  And that king is Jesus.

Isaiah had predicted a time when all nations would come to the house of the God of Jacob.

Isaiah 2:2-4   It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

“I ain’t gonna study war no more.” the old spiritual song says.  Why? Because all the nations will one day be united under Jesus.  There will be no more war.  But this is all in the future.  First, Jesus must come and reach out to the lost sheep of Israel.  He plans to take his gospel to the rest of the world, but all in due order.  Jesus has to fulfill a covenant promise to Abraham.  How many disciples are there?  How many tribes of Israel were there?  Jesus is rebuilding the house of Israel so that they will finally become the kingdom of priests. Are these 12 ready to fulfill that mission?  Unfortunately, not yet. 

Like us, the disciples are slow learners.  Something drilled into you from your childhood is difficult to shake off.  Many of my generation grew up in families where racism was the norm.  Some of my friends have struggled to shake off those old prejudices and hate.  Changing your mind often takes a real-life experience with someone who surprises you by not meeting your negative expectations.  When people found out we were adopting a biracial girl, some people thought we were crazy.  But they watched this girl grow up, and they grew to love her.  Those same people who were so against our adoption would now fight anyone who made a racial statement around our girl.  

Racism is removed through relationships.

We have seen that in our churches who minister to our homeless community.  As part of our program, we encourage churches to sit at the dinner table and have discussions with our ‘neighbors without homes.’  This helps in two ways.  Our church members discover that our ‘neighbors without homes’ are real people with real problems.  They lose many of their prejudices and become more interested in helping.  Secondly, our neighbors, many of whom have had poor encounters with churches, meet church people who care about them.  Conversations around a table go a long way to remove their memories of bad experiences with people who see them as worthless.

Prejudice is overcome through experience.

So, what happened in Syria with this woman is a critical step in God’s plan.  I think God set Jesus up.  God sent Jesus and the disciples walking about 16 miles to this region in Syria, and Mark tells us Jesus doesn’t want to be seen.  But God makes sure this woman with a sick child finds out Jesus is there.  God is using her as the catalyst to begin Jesus’ ministry to the Gentiles.  They walk 16 miles from home, encounter this persistent mother, and the next morning, get up and start walking 20 miles back south.  Something profound has happened.  Look at where Jesus goes.  This time, he doesn’t return to his home base in Capernaum but goes further west to the Decapolis, an area of the Gentiles.   Here, Jesus will test his disciples to see if they learned anything from his interaction with the Gentile woman the previous day.

Jesus and the disciples have been here before.  It was where they landed in the boat after the stormy night when Jesus calmed the seas.  They encountered the demoniac, and Jesus sent the demons into the pigs that hurled themselves into the sea.  After losing about 2000 pigs, the people did not favor Jesus staying around.  So they insisted he leave.  The former demoniac asked to go with Jesus, but Jesus said:

Mark 5:19-20   “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”  And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

Now, I like the ESV translation, but they missed it here.  “Go home to your friends…”  This man didn’t have any friends.  He was the scary, strong man who lived in the graveyard and busted out of chains when they tried to restrain him.   That Greek literally says, “Go home to yours.”    The NIV gets it right: “Go home to your people.”

Jesus is saying: “Don’t come with me; I’m going back to the Jewish side of the lake; you go witness to your people, the Gentiles.”

The last time he was in the Decapolis, just a little over a month ago, Jesus was there only a few hours and was kicked out of the country.   Wait until you see what happens this time…

Peter will not understand this concept of the expansion of the Kingdom to the Gentiles until Acts 10, and it will take a vision of a sheet from heaven and a devout Roman soldier to convince him.  The tradition that God was for the Jews alone ran very deep in the psyche of all the Jews.  Jesus will take extreme measures with this woman to begin the lesson.  He demonstrates their own racism in how he initially treats her.  Sometimes, we can see things in others we cannot see in ourselves.

Jesus is being very intentional. He began his ministry only to the Jews but, as predicted in the scriptures, will eventually expand his kingdom to everyone. In Matthew 28, he tells the disciple, “Go into all the world…”   And we are at a turning point.  He makes this journey into Syria and will go to the Decapolis, another primary Gentile territory, and then up to Caesarea Philippi all in the next week.  He will test the disciples to see if they have learned the lesson to have compassion for the nations.  (And they will fail.)

Like us, the disciples are slow learners.  Something drilled into you from your childhood is difficult to shake off.  Many of my generation grew up in families where racism was the norm.  Some of my friends have struggled to shake off those old prejudices and hate.  Changing your mind often takes a real-life experience with someone who surprises you by not meeting your negative expectations.  We have seen that in our churches who minister to our homeless community.  As part of our program, we encourage churches to sit at the dinner table and have honest discussions with our ‘neighbors without homes.’  This helps in two ways.  Our church members discover that our ‘neighbors without homes’ are real people with real problems.  They lose many of their prejudices and become more interested in helping.  Secondly, our neighbors meet church people who care about them.  Conversations around a table go a long way to remove their memories of bad experiences with people who see them as worthless.

Jesus has already shocked his followers by offering to go to the centurion’s home after the sermon on the mount, by touching a leper, and by ministering to a Samaritan woman.  But he is now going to push them further.  Let’s see what he does next.

  1. It is interesting to note some similarities between the visit of the prophet Elijah to this same region.  Elijah encounters a widow in Zarephath (felt to be modern-day Sarafand, a city between Tyre and Sidon.)  This is another woman whose child is healed.  It is amid a famine in the land, and God multiplied her oil and flour so that the little she had never ran out, just as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. 
  2. Don’t miss how the Bible displays this woman’s initiative in a positive light.  This is atypical of narratives about women in this day.  And this is not the only gospel story that does this.  (See also the initiative of the women with the 12 years of bleeding and the woman in the parable Jesus tells in Luke 18 of the woman who would not stop pleading with the unrighteous judge for justice.