Exposition of Matthew (Matthew 15:21-39)

July 16, 2021 

(Jesus’ last days of earthly ministry)

Questions to be answered in this study

1. In today’s study, Jesus and His disciples travel to a new place in Gentile territory. Why do you suppose they did this?
2. What was the firm belief of the Jews that Jesus asked His disciples to abandon in today’s study?
3. Why were the Phoenicians enemies of Israel?
4. The Jews looked down on the Gentiles and called them dogs; why?
5. Are demons real, and if so, how do we know?
6. Was Jesus’ reference to Gentiles as being dogs a cruel statement?
7. How do we know that Gentiles are also included in God’s plan of salvation?
8. What was the primary lesson Jesus was teaching in the feeding of the 4,000?
9. Why did the disciples believe the Canaanite woman did not deserve mercy who came to Jesus asking Him to heal her demon processed daughter?
10. Numbers in Scripture have meanings. What is the purpose of the number 5 in feeding the 5,000 and the number 4 in feeding the 4,000?
11. Since God already knows about bad experiences before they come to us, why does He allow them to happen? 
12. Are we to try and avoid all trials? If not, what should our goal be?

Introduction

Today, in our study, Jesus and His disciples leave the Jewish side of Galilee and go to two new areas where He has never gone before. Jesus goes to these new places to teach the disciples concerning misconceptions about the kingdom ministry. Included in this study will be some old issues along with the new, which the disciples will find hard to grasp. In our last study, Jesus told His disciples to ignore the Pharisees who were hypocrites; this was hard for the disciples to accept because the Jews revered the Pharisees, and their authority was respected and feared. Again, in today’s study, Jesus is asking His disciples to abandon one of the Jew’s firm beliefs, judging a person because of their background, which was incompatible with the kingdom. 

The disciples must come face to face with this false prejudice to see the truth:

Matthew 15:21-28, “Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 22And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. 28Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

Jesus and His disciples are now in the far northern, Gentile area of Judea. It was customary of Jesus to sometimes retreat into Gentile areas to escape the large Jewish crowds for a while. This journey took Jesus and the disciples to Tyre and Sidon, which were located along the western coast of the Mediterranean Sea and were a region of the Phoenicians; today this area is Lebanon. There is a considerable amount of Jewish history stemming from this area. For one thing, Phoenicia was the home of the infamous Jezebel, the evil wife of King Ahab.

In the past, the Phoenicians were enemies of Israel. They were on the land granted to Israel, which Israel never conquered. By the time of Jesus, this was a Roman territory, specifically, the Syrian province. Mark records that Jesus went there so He could be alone with the disciples: Mark 7:24 (KJV), “And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.” Mark does not say whose house Jesus entered, just that He entered a house hoping He could get away from the roaring crowd for a while. Jesus had become quite famous across the country and could not escape the crowds for long. As always, the Gentiles soon find Jesus seeking healing from Him.

A desperate woman among the crowd caught Jesus’ attention. This Canaanite woman was crying out to Jesus to heal her daughter, who was demon processed. Matthew says, “a Canaanite woman from the region came out crying to Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter.” The Jews held the Canaanite woman’s background against her.Noah’s son Ham had a grandson, Cain, who, following the flood, settled in this region. God cursed Ham’s line in Genesis 9 and marked the Canaanites for destruction. Israel, under Joshua, was supposed to destroy them but failed to do so, and centuries later, they remained in the land. The Jewish people hated and looked down on the Canaanites as well as Gentiles in general. The Jews nick-named the Canaanites dogs. Dogs to the Jews were dirty savage animals who lived in filth.

So, this Gentile woman comes to Jesus wanting Him to heal her daughter possessed by a particular demon. In Jesus’ day, demons were a real threat, but today, they are labeled by many as superstition or myth and sometimes diagnosed as insanity. Jesus knew the reality of demons and cast them out on several occasions. Much of the insane violence today, blamed on guns, could well be explained by demon procession. Nowhere in the New Testament was a person claiming demon procession found to be false, with one exception; Jesus was falsely accused when a Pharisee lied and accused Him of being demon processed.

This woman comes with a plea to Jesus to free her daughter. Notice, Jesus did not answer her at first. He waited for her to demonstrate faith in Him. As we learned in the previous study, following His rejection by Israel as the Messiah, Jesus generally only heals those with faith in Him. Notice in verse 22 she addresses Jesus as the son of David, one of the titles of the Messiah found in the Old Testament. The knowledge of this woman was evidence that she had received insight from the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus was ignoring her, she continued to beg Jesus for the healing of her daughter. The disciples become annoyed with the woman and ask Jesus to send her away. Instead, Jesus engaged her in conversation.

The disciples shortly before had also asked Jesus to send the crowd away before the feeding of the 5,000. They still had not learned the nature of their savior or the scope of their ministry. They saw this gentile woman as a nuisance instead of an opportunity for ministry. Notice what Jesus did: He ignores His disciples’ advice and does the opposite rather than sending her away; Jesus now turns to her begins to test her further. To test her understanding of the Messiah, He makes a provocative statement: “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26But he answered and said that it is impossible to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. 27And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. 28Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

Notice first, Jesus said, in verse 24, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” God made a covenant with Israel; therefore, the Messiah was born a Jew come to save the lost sheep of Israel, but it was also God’s plan to include the Gentiles in salvation. Jesus came to offer the kingdom to Israel, which they rejected, but He also came to die for the world. The apostles would later reach out to the Gentiles at God’s command, beginning with Peter in a vision on the rooftop at Joppa. Jesus’ statement was a further test to reveal the woman’s source of knowledge if it was Devine.

After Jesus’ reply, we read in verse 25 that she bows down before Him and pleads with Him for help. In verse 26, we see Jesus going a little further as He tests her again with another provocative statement: “But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Some may consider this a cruel statement. But it was only a reflection of how the Jews felt about the Phoenicians, and this woman was aware of it and said in verse 27, “And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” At that, in verse 28, Jesus recognizes her faith in Him as genuine: “Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

This woman was a believer or became one as she talked with Jesus; otherwise, she would not have understood the analogy Jesus was using and would have been offended by being referred to as a dog and would have walked away. However, she responds by saying, “even the dogs get crumbs from the master’s table.” She acknowledges Jesus as the Jewish Messiah sent to Israel and was not offended by the description used to set her and other Gentiles apart. However, she correctly believed that the plan of salvation was anticipated by and included the Gentiles also. She was willing to receive the crumbs from the table or the leftovers of God’s love extended to all who would trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. She was not asking for that which belonged to the Jews but what belonged to the Gentiles. God’s original promise to Abraham to bring a savior also included a commitment to bless all nations by that savior. This woman knew that promise. We have that same promise today in John 3:16 (KJV): “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

In verse 28, this woman left with no doubt concerning her faith in Jesus, and Jesus acknowledges that faith and heals her daughter long distance. Mark records that the woman went home to find Jesus had freed her daughter of the demon. What do you suppose the disciple thought about this after having suggested that the woman be sent away? Will they finally be convinced concerning the nature of the ministry?

They are about to witness another great miracle in the following verses with another lesson on ministry:

Matthew 15:29-38, “And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. 30And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them: 31Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel. 32Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. ₃₃And his disciples say unto him, whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? 34And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. 35And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. 36And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 37And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. 38And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.”

If this sounds like a repeat, it is since something almost identical took place a chapter before. It is the same miracle but in a different location with different people. Jesus wants His disciples to learn a lesson they failed to understand the first time concerning the kingdom and ministry. When people need help, they are to be ministered too not sent away as the disciples suggested a couple of times before. Matthew does not tell us the location, but Mark does. Jesus went to Decapolis after leaving Tyre. There are ten Greek cities located in this area, almost entirely Gentile. So, the crowd here is made up of Gentiles instead of Jews, as was the case in the feeding of the 5,000.

The Jews treated the Gentiles with contempt and felt justified in looking down on them. So, here we have an entire mountainside of Gentiles with all types of infirmities, lame, blind, deaf, and mute, among other issues. Only one Gentile woman cried out to Jesus last time, and now thousands are calling out for healing, and they are hungry. How do you suppose the disciples felt about this? Jesus knew the disciples needed this experience because it is precisely the kind of situation they would face as leaders of the New Testament church.

As I said earlier, that Jesus generally was no longer healing the masses since His rejection by Israel as the Messiah. However, there were exceptions. When they occurred, Matthew alerts us by saying, “Jesus had compassion.” We see in verse 32 that Jesus feels compassion for the crowd and asks His disciples to feed them because they now had been there three days and nights without food and were too weak to go and search for food. Again, the disciples make the same previous mistake before agreeing to obey by asking Jesus how to feed the crowd with no food available. Indeed, by now, they should know the power of Jesus to perform miracles. Still, someone said we have seven loaves and a few fish.

Once again, Jesus gave them directions to wait on the many thousands. Once again, they received the leftovers. The lesson was, in ministry, the needs of others come first; this was something the disciples did not learn the first time. They had a love of God but didn’t recognize that “love bears all things and endures all things and it is kind, patient, does not seek its own.” Another lesson they needed to learn was, love goes beyond the Jews and reaches out to all people who call upon the name of Jesus. The disciples at this time were stuck on only ministering to the Jews. The lesson Jesus is teaching on this occasion of feeding the 4,000 was that there is a need for ministry whenever and wherever there are people of faith. Today, the church is still hung up on clicks and fellowshipping with people of the same background and financial status; many today still need to learn that same lesson.

There is no place for prejudices in any form in Christian ministry. In God’s kingdom program, every human being has the potential of being a child of God; this was a lesson the disciples had to learn before they could be effective workers in the church and kingdom of God. The disciples called the woman, who called out to Jesus in His previous miracle, a Canaanite woman indicating she was a decedent of Cain, son of Ham, and did not deserve any mercy because of God’s curse. They failed to remember that God cursed all people, which was pronounced in the Garden of Eden when sin entered the human race. That curse can only be removed by the grace of God when a person accepts Jesus and His forgiveness for sins through faith. 

Another interesting thought is, numbers in Scripture have meanings. The number 5 in the feeding of the 5,000 means grace, and the number 4 in the present miracle, the feeding of the 4,000, means world. Put them together, and you have God’s grace for the whole world. The lesson Jesus is teaching His disciples is that the gospel is for the world, not just the Jews.

Also, to keep in mind, God knows about every experience before it comes to us and uses them as lessons to teach us something about Him and His kingdom. The most effective lessons we learn in life come in trials and difficulties. However, instead of learning, we often only get stressed and worried. Maybe you are experiencing a severe hardship presently. If so, be sensitive to the vital lesson God wants to teach you. Through her daughter’s trial of the evil demon, the Gentile woman was inspired to come to Jesus.

We could avoid a lot of trials if we learned the lesson the first time. Sometimes it takes a pattern of difficulties for God to get our attention. If our eyes are on the world rather than God, we will go through many trials; sadly, many will consistently fail to get the lesson God wants to teach. This life is temporary and passing away; therefore, we are not to try and avoid trials; instead, our goal should be to allow God to prepare us for the kingdom to come through the problems we face and please the Lord by how we respond and by the way we live.