I think it’s hard for us to understand the heart and mind of someone like Peter in Acts 10. If you remember, Peter is praying, when the Lord gives him a vision of something like a sheet coming down filled with all kind of animals, reptiles, and birds, and Peter is told to kill and eat them. Of course, Peter responds, “By no means” since he’s committed to eat nothing that the Old Testament Scripture labels as “unclean.” But then the Lord answers, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:15). And this ultimately becomes an indication to Peter that the Lord is bringing Gentiles to faith as well as Jews.
Now, the reason I think it’s hard for us to put ourselves in Peter’s shoes is because probably as long as we’ve been exposed to the Bible, we’ve been exposed to the Great Commission. We know that the Lord has commanded us to make disciples from all nations. We know that our goal is to proclaim the gospel as the hope of salvation to all men, indiscriminately, Jew and Gentile alike. To think that a Gentile is somehow beyond the hope of salvation feels as strange to us as someone claiming that women are beyond the hope of salvation, or men with brown hair, or something like that. We have no category for that kind of thought.
However, when you consider Peter’s background, you understand the struggle. When God chose Abraham and raised up a people from him, he was distinguishing this people from all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord would say of Israel though the prophet Amos in Amos 3:2, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” So many of their laws were about distinguishing them from other nations. Their males were circumcised, they ate and didn’t eat particular foods, and worshiped a particular way in a particular place, all unlike the nations around them.
Now, yes, Israel should have been a light to the nations so that they might see the glory of God through the worship and obedience of his people and come to know the one true God, though they failed in this task miserably. And there were occasions when non-Jews came to be part of God’s people in the Old Testament. We can think of Rahab, for example, who was from Jericho. But she also became a Jew for all intents and purposes. And the same is true of Ruth the Moabite, who marries Boaz.
And there were clear warnings in the Old Testament not to take on the practices of the foreign nations. Jews weren’t to go take wives of the pagan nations, lest they begin to follow their false gods. Again, the Gentiles were an unclean people, separated from the Lord, “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” in the words of Ephesians 2:12.
And now Peter is told to go to the Gentile, Cornelius, and preach the gospel to them, not requiring them to adopt Jewish food laws, with no mention of circumcision, simply calling on him to place his faith in Christ and receive forgiveness of sins. In fact, Peter even begins the conversation with Cornelius saying, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28).
So, how do we get from this place where there would have been no thought of a Gentile being one of God’s people apart from accepting circumcision and practicing the food laws to our day where we know that all men may come to know the Lord, and they must simply repent of their sins and place their faith in the crucified and risen Lord, Jesus Christ? Well, the Lord made clear multiple places in the Old Testament that his ultimate intent was to save people from all nations (think, for example, of Genesis 22:18. And obviously Acts 10 and the vision to Peter was a huge event leading to this understanding. Acts 15, where the church met and officially recognized that nothing was required of Gentiles to become part of God’s people except that they believe in the gospel, was a big moment. But one of the key moments that strongly points us toward the Lord’s purpose to save people from all nations is found in Matthew 15:21-39. In fact, I think that the main point of these three stories is to show us that the mission of our Lord is to bring people from all nations to himself so that they might know the blessings of his saving work.
Now, I want to show you why I think that’s the main point of the text this morning. So, let me lay out how I want to approach this. First, I want to show you several things in the text that I think support this being the main lesson we’re to get from the text. Second, I’m going to take some time to deal with verses 21-28 where Jesus has an odd conversation with a Canaanite women where he seems very insulting to her since this is both a difficult text and, I think, the main text in this section. And, finally, I’ll end with a brief word of application.
And the reason I want to do this is because this is how the text makes most sense to me. So, first, let’s consider:
First, all three episodes in 15:21-39 (Jesus’ dealing with the Canaanite woman, the healings, and the feeding of the four thousand) take place in Tyre and Sidon, which were known as two of the most pagan cities in the Old Testament.
Remember earlier in this gospel when Jesus was denouncing these unrepentant cities: Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum? Jesus illustrated how evil they were by saying that if he’d done the works in some cities mentioned in the Old Testament as being really, really evil, they would have repented. He mentions Sodom, and he mentions Tyre and Sidon. Now, I don’t think I need to remind most of you of the evil of Sodom in the OT, which the Lord judged with fire. Well, right alongside of Sodom and Gomorrah for picturing wicked pagan Gentiles would have been Tyre and Sidon. And now, that’s exactly where Jesus is going in our text. Any reader familiar with the Old Testament would have thought, “Good grief, he’s really in pagan Gentile territory there.”
Second, the first person he encounters in Tyre and Sidon is a woman whom Matthew mentions as being “a Canaanite woman from that region” (v. 22).
Now, if you’ve read the OT, you might miss that Tyre and Sidon are held up a representative of wicked cities, but it’s quite hard to miss how the Canaanites are pictured in the OT. The Canaanites were the enemies of God’s people. When the spies went into the land to spy out the people they were to go in and conquer, those people were the Canaanites. Again, they epitomized the enemies of the Lord’s people. So, to this point we have a Canaanite woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon. It doesn’t get much better than that if you want to represent a pagan Gentile separated from God’s people. In Mark’s parallel account, Mark even specifically notes “Now the woman was a Gentile” (Mark 7:26), just in case you missed it.
Third, in the section that simply reports Jesus’ healing miracles among the Gentiles, Matthew notes in verse 31 that those who witnessed the miracles “glorified the God of Israel.”
This phrase “the God of Israel” is never used in regards to Jewish responses to Jesus. It is a clear note that Matthew is giving us, reminding us that these are Gentiles that Jesus is ministering to, people outside of the people of God.
Fourth, both Matthew and Mark include the confrontation about unclean foods right before grouping these three episodes together.
That is to say, both Matthew and Mark put together Jesus’ dealing with this Canaanite woman, followed by a story of healing, followed by Jesus feeding the four thousand. But they also both put right before these events this section where Jesus makes clear that all foods are now clean to eat. Now, you could argue that it’s because Mark wrote his gospel and Matthew was following him. And I think Matthew probably did have Mark’s gospel to draw from. However, at a number of places he groups different stories in different places, combines them with other stories, etc. But on this occasion, these events are all grouped together and all come right after Jesus makes clear that the food laws, which strongly separated Jews from Gentiles, were now no longer binding.
So, it’s as if he eliminates one of the biggest things that kept the Gentiles outside of God’s people, the food laws (which happens to be the very thing he uses in Acts 10 to show Peter that he is to go to the Gentiles with the gospel), right before our section, dealing with Gentiles.
Fifth, the repetition of the stories in verses 29-31 and 32-39 only make sense if you see them as showing that Jesus is doing the same thing with Gentiles that he did earlier with Jews.
What I mean is that in chapter 14 Matthew has just shared with us a story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and then a brief summary of him healing many people (14:13-21 and 34-36). Now, among the Gentiles in chapter 15, we have a brief summary of Jesus healing many people (15:29-31) and a story of Jesus feeding the 4,000 (vv. 32-39).
Now, I think this repetition only makes sense if you’re supposed to see that Jesus is providing a similar blessing among the Gentiles that he’s done among the Jews. Otherwise, it’s just the repetition of a story that is strangely a bit less impressive than the first (feeding 4,000 when he’s just fed 5,000 and taking up seven basketsful of leftovers when he’d taken up twelve basketsful in the prior miracle). I even think the mention of the number of baskets of leftovers hints at this. The twelve would have reminded you of the twelve tribes of Israel, pictured with the twelve apostles. Now, there are seven, which is a number of completion or wholeness, I think symbolizing that Jesus’ ministry will be sufficient for all people whom he has come to save.
So, all these elements, I believe, serve to show us that Matthew is stressing that Jesus is ministering among the Gentiles (even the most outcast Gentiles), bringing them the same kinds of blessing that he has done among the Jews. Again, I think this shows us that the main point of this section is that the mission of our Lord is to bring people from all nations to himself so that they might know the blessings of his saving work.
But I want to look at one particular story a bit more closely, this encounter between the Canaanite woman and Jesus.
In verses 21-28, as I’ve already noted, we find a story that makes us uncomfortable with Jesus. Thus far, he’s been the one who has shown compassion on the outcast when those around him had none. Therefore, his response to this Canaanite woman feels shocking and out of place.
Matthew tells us that this Canaanite woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon came to Jesus crying out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon” (v. 23). Now, this is a legitimate need. Her daughter is oppressed by a demon, which we can see in the gospels means that the demon seems to be able to take a certain level of control of the individual. By that, I mean of your mind and even body. And in this case, it’s this woman’s daughter. Can you feel the weight of this situation and the pain the mother must feel as she helplessly watches her daughter being tormented?
Moreover, as this Gentile woman calls Jesus, “O Lord, Son of David,” she’s acknowledges that she considers him the promised Messiah who would come from David’s line. So, she’s had some measure of education just to be able to acknowledge who Jesus is.
However, we are told, “He did not answer her a word” (v. 23). Jesus ignores this woman in her time of great need for her daughter. And the disciples, seeing that Jesus is ignoring this woman begin to beg him just to make her go away. Apparently they understand that this desperate woman, continually crying out as a mother who loves her daughter, simply isn’t going to go away until Jesus makes clear to her that there is no hope of him helping her and sends her away.
And Jesus answers his disciples, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24). Now, what does that mean? Well, in the OT when judgment fell on Israel from the Lord, the Lord pictured Israel as sheep, who when judgment fell, were scattered all over the earth. However, the Lord promised, for example in Ezekiel 34:11-12, “Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out . . . and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered.” So, Jesus is saying here to his disciples that his mission is to come and bring redemption to Israelites, the Jews. That is, he is coming to save his own people, the Jews.
However, even if the woman overhears this answer, it does not stop her. We are told that she comes to Jesus, kneels before him, and says, “Lord, help me” (v. 26). And if we’re thinking at this point that we’re about to see Jesus’ compassion on display, then his answer is more than a little shocking to us. He answers her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (v. 26).
So, just to make sure we’re tracking, Jesus recognizes that this woman is not an Israelite but a Gentile. His mission is to come and save the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and she is not of the house of Israel. And now he speaks of the Jews as children and Gentiles, represented by this woman, as dogs. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “If I’ve been given bread to go and feed children, should I instead give that bread to the dogs under the table?”
But Jesus’ strong words aren’t enough to deter this woman. It’s not as if she feels offended and, therefore, leaves. Rather, she acknowledges her place. She clearly notes that she is in no place of entitlement or deserves Jesus’ powerful work. She answers, “Yes, Lord [i.e. I’m on board with your analogy which pictures me, as a Gentile, as a dog), yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (v. 27).
That is, even though I know I’ve got no claim to your grace and am only a lowly Gentile, I know you are full of enough power and grace that there is enough for even a lowly, undeserving, dog like me to benefit. And Jesus answers, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire” (v. 28), which is the only time in Matthew when we read of one’s faith being “great.” And Matthew tells us, “And her daughter was healed instantly” (v. 28).
Ok, so the question is, “Why?” isn’t it? Why, if Jesus knows that he’s actually coming to save people from every nation, Jew and Gentile, is he seemingly so resistant to this woman? Why does he push so hard to show that she is an outsider, again, as Paul says, “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12)? And why does he push so hard back against her request when, in the end, he’s actually going to grant it?
I think there is one answer to all of these questions and it is simply that Jesus responds this way because he wants to make this episode a big deal. He wants it to stand out and not go unnoticed. Imagine, for example, that this text simply read that a woman whose daughter was oppressed by a demon came up to Jesus saying, “Son of David, have mercy on me and heal my daughter,” and Jesus had compassion on her, spoke, and her daughter was healed instantly. What would we say about this text? How would I preach it?
I’d probably be tempted to preach it by saying, “Here’s another reminder of Jesus’ compassion, even to outcasts. And here’s another reminder of his power over Satan.” And we would move on. This woman would be a minor footnote. But instead, we read this text having to come face-to-face with the reality that Jesus’ mission to gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel is expanding, and he’s gathering sheep that are not of the house of Israel. In fact, Jesus says this explicitly in John 10:16, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”
Yes, Jesus came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In the words of John 1:11, “He came to his own.” However, as John 1 continues, “And his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
That’s what this text strongly makes us stop and see. By pressing so hard against this woman’s request, he draws out of her what we need to see, that the saving mission of Christ is made available to Gentiles, that we can eat of the bread that he brings. In fact, I think the feeding of the 4,000 that follows is a picture of the reality that is communicated in the encounter with the Canaanite woman and Jesus is literally providing bread for a Gentile crowd, just as he had for a Jewish group of 5,000 earlier. His saving work is sufficient for more than simply the house of Israel.
This is why Matthew gives us the story of Jesus declaring all foods clean, something absolutely necessary to break down the dividing walls between Jews and Gentiles, then gives us this powerful episode of this Canaanite woman from Tyre and Sidon receiving grace from Jesus, and then gives us two stories that sound just like what we read about Jesus doing among the Jews now being done among the Gentiles. He’s making an unmistakably clear and powerful point, namely, that the mission of our Lord is to bring people from all nations to himself so that they might know the blessings of his saving work, something he’ll make even more explicit in the final words of this gospel (Matthew 28:18-20).
Let me then mention two things that we need to do in response to this powerful truth given to us in Matthew 15:21-39:
First, realize that we are saved by the sheer, undeserved grace of our Lord and worship and give thanks to God because of it.
If any text reminds us of this truth, especially as Gentiles, it’s this one, isn’t it? It’s not as if any Jew has a right to salvation either. After all, the Lord said that just because they’re biological descendants of Abraham means nothing. He could raise up descendants from Abraham out of rocks if he wanted. But for us, this is even more true. If Jews have no claim to salvation, we have even less than that. John 1:12 says, as we read earlier, “but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” but then verse 13 reminds us that we were born “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
That is, our salvation is entirely of his sovereign and merciful grace. And we need to meditate on that, let it sink in, and give thanks and praise to God.
Second, as a church, we must remember and not lose sight of our mission. It is to continue Jesus’ mission. It is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that Christ commands. We do this through taking the gospel to all peoples, bringing them into local churches, and planting churches where there is need for new churches that will continue that mission. And in doing so, we’re merely continuing what the Lord himself has done, gathering his sheep who will hear his voice even as we preach the gospel.
Therefore, let’s come to the table, give thanks, and declare once more that by faith we have heard and received the word of Christ. Amen.