Audio Transcript
A story in Matthew’s Gospel stops readers cold. You read it, and then pause and ask, “Wait, did I just read what I thought I just read?” The story is about a Canaanite woman, a mother — a desperate mother who begs Jesus to save the life of her demon-possessed daughter, a daughter sick beyond the reach of all other help. She has one hope: Jesus. And Jesus, the emblem of love, ignores her at first — or so it seems. And then later, when he does approach her, he seems to insinuate that she is in the category of a dog, an unclean, dirty animal. Today on Ask Pastor John: Why did Jesus call her a dog?
Yolisa is asking: “Hi, Pastor John, my name is Yolisa, writing from South Africa. I’ve been reading Matthew 15:21–28 over and over again, kind of stuck there because of how troubled I am by Jesus referring to this poor Canaanite woman as a dog. What did he mean by this? Surely, we are not to speak of people from other nations and cultures like animals. So, how should we understand his words in light of his love and compassion for so many?”
Let’s read the story. It’s not very long; I think everybody would benefit from just having it real fresh.
Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman [in other words: not a Jew, a Gentile] 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 [in other words: for the Jews, not her].” 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! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:21–28)
Jesus’s Mission to Jews (and Gentiles)
Now, there are four things — at least — that Matthew wants us to know from this story. I’ll mention all four, and I’ll come back to the main one that Yolisa is concerned about.
1. Israel First
First, when Jesus came as a Jewish Messiah into the world, his first focus was on Israel, not the nations. He came to call Israel to repentance. Matthew 15:24: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In Matthew 10:5 it says, “These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles.’”
“She was totally free from a spirit of entitlement. I think it’s one of the greatest marks of humble faith.”
Only when there was a decisive rejection of Jesus by his own people did he turn to the nations and say, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). And when he heals the Gentile centurion, just like he’s going to heal this Canaanite woman, he foretells this change in focus — amazing, world-changing change in focus. He says, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness” (Matthew 8:11–12).
So, that’s the first thing: Matthew wants us to see Jesus’s ministry was focused, at the beginning, almost entirely upon the Jewish people.
2. Unclean Gentiles
Second, he puts this woman in the category of Gentile dogs. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26). Leviticus 11:27 had declared dogs unclean: “All that walk on their paws, among the animals that go on all fours, are unclean to you.” That’s how the Jews looked on the Gentiles: unclean. We see that in Acts 10:28, where Peter said, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation.” In other words, Jews kept their distance from those who do not believe or keep the laws of unclean and clean, so it was not uncommon for Gentiles to be called dogs.
Paul was playing off this custom when he himself called the Jewish Judaizers in Philippi dogs — in order to say, “They’re the ones, the Jews are the ones who are unclean, not the Gentile Christians” (see Philippians 3:2). So, Paul was building off that same common use of language. We’ll come back to this.
3. Great Faith
Third, Matthew makes much in the story of the amazing faith of this woman. “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire” (Matthew 15:28). And what made her faith great? I see at least three things.
First, she calls him “Lord” and “Son of David.” In other words, she submits herself to his authority, and she puts herself as a Gentile under his Jewish kingship: “Son of David.”
Second, she perseveres through three rebuffs. At the beginning, he didn’t say a word to her. Second, the disciples say, “Send her away.” Third, the Lord himself says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” And nothing would stop her. She believed he would do this. She kept after him.
And the third thing that made her faith great was her humility. This is probably the most outstanding thing, and I think it’s what Jesus focuses on. She was totally free from a spirit of entitlement. I think it’s one of the greatest marks of humble faith. Even when he put her off as one of the Gentile dogs, she said, “Yes, Lord.” She said, “Yes.”
“Because of her faith, Jesus can see that she’s not an unclean dog. She is a child of God.”
I think that’s the high point of the story for Jesus. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). She had nothing in herself to defend. She was totally submitted to the word of Jesus. “If you say so, I am a Gentile dog.” And then she essentially says, “I’m not asking to be treated like one of the children. I only want what dogs get — a crumb, just a crumb — because a crumb from you is better than a banquet elsewhere.” This is great faith. It was irresistible to Jesus.
4. Heir of Promise
Then fourth, Matthew wants us to see that faith in Jesus, not Jewishness, makes a person a child of God instead of an unclean outsider. Because of her faith, Jesus can see that she’s not an unclean dog. She is a child of God. Faith in Jesus makes a person a true Jew — that’s the way Paul put it (Romans 2:28–29) — an heir of the promises (Romans 9:6–8).
Welcomed by Faith
Let’s go back now to the second point that Yolisa is concerned about. How are we supposed to think about Jesus putting her in the category of unclean Gentile dogs?
I think Yolisa’s biblical instincts are right. Jesus does warn against calling anyone, for example, a fool in Matthew 5:22. Calling someone a fool puts you in danger of hellfire, he says, let alone a dog. Paul warns us against filthiness of language or foolish talk or crude joking (Ephesians 5:4). And he sets a very high standard for our mouths in Ephesians 4:29 when he says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for [upbuilding], as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (That was my wife’s favorite verse when we had four sons at home who didn’t always talk that way to each other.) What a great standard for us.
Jesus gave grace to this woman. He knew where she was going, so we should be very slow, I think, to take Jesus’s word here, “dogs,” as permission for us to use dehumanizing language toward others. We don’t know the way Jesus was thinking here. We can’t get inside his head.
My guess is that Jesus could see faith in this woman from the beginning, and he was simply testing her to give her an opportunity to show her amazing faith. The fact that she was still a Canaanite when she became a child of God — she didn’t cease to be a Canaanite; her ethnicity remained the same — and the fact that it remained the same shows he was not using an ethnic slur. Otherwise, she’d still be a dog. He was positioning her outside the family of God first and then welcoming her inside because of her great faith.
