Reading the Bible Together

Passage for the Day                            

 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

27 ”Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. 
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

Points of interest:

·         ‘the region of Tyre and Sidon’—like the region of the Gerasenes from yesterday’s passage, Tyre and Sidon are nearby Gentile cities. 

·         ‘A Canaanite woman from that vicinity’—you may remember that the Canaanites were the nation the Israelites destroyed and drove out to take possession of the Promised Land.

·         ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me’—this is a strange thing for the woman to call Jesus.  I don’t think David would have been a king the Canaanites usually remembered fondly.  Somehow, though, this Canaanite woman sees Jesus as Isaiah’s ‘shoot from Jesse,’ and she celebrates this second coming of David.

·         ‘take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs’—‘dogs’ was a common ethnic slur the Jews of Jesus’ time used for Gentiles.  To put it mildly, it’s disturbing to hear Jesus using a racial slur.  It may have something to do with Jesus’ intriguing practice of speaking in riddles (called ‘parables’) to test people’s trust and interest.  Perhaps Jesus is giving this woman a—very difficult, I must say—parable.

·         ‘Even the dogs eat the crumbs’—the woman passes the test with flying colors.  She takes Jesus’ parable, and makes it her own. 

·         ‘you have great faith!’—she does indeed have great faith; she’s willing to take the crumbs from Jesus, because she knows that just the crumbs will be enough.  Jesus’ opinion of her—or at least the words he uses about her—radically change.  His attention is shifted from her ethnicity to something he finds far more important: her faith.

·         ‘Great crowds came to him’—from Mark’s version of this same story, we know that Jesus is still in a Gentile area.  Apparently, the Canaanite woman is not alone.  Many of these ‘foreigners’ want what Jesus has to offer.

·         ‘they praised the God of Israel’—they may not be the ‘lost sheep of Israel’ but they recognize and honor Israel’s God.

·         ‘I do not want to send them away hungry’—Jesus’ tune has radically changed.  He goes from saying, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread,’ to, ‘I do not want to send them away hungry.’  The Canaanite woman’s faith not only leads to her daughter’s healing, but to a huge outpouring of generosity toward her entire people.

·         ‘They all ate and were satisfied’—this reminds me of the ‘feast of rich foods for all peoples’ from Isaiah 25 (March 17^th).

·         ‘the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over’—indeed, just as the Canaanite woman said, the crumbs are more than enough.

Taking it home:

·         For you:  Is there an area of your life in which you feel particularly under-resourced?  Where what you have doesn’t seem to line up anywhere close with what is needed, like the disciples when they realized all they had to work with was 7 loaves of bread and 2 fish? Take a moment to take stock of what you do have and ask God to multiply it—whether it be your time, energy, sleep, patience, creativity or financial resources.  Ask that what you have would, by God’s power, turn out to be more than enough.

·         For your six: While it definitely took some persistence on the Caananite woman’s part, it’s noteworthy that in the end her request is granted. Let’s embrace the persistent spirit of the Caananite woman, sending some extra prayers God’s way on behalf of our six.  Let’s ask that God would in fact grant our six any of their smallest requests, and that he would respond to any hopes or words that they have ever lifted up to him.

·         For America:  If feeding several thousand people is just a nonchalant afternoon activity for Jesus, what’s to stop us from believing that over 40 days God could move miraculously among several hundreds of thousands of people in America? Ask God that lots and lots (and lots) of people in America would come to him—that they would form crowds around him and all feel like they ‘ate and were satisfied’. 

³³ They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

³⁴ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵ Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. ³⁷ I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. ³⁸ I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

³⁹ “Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would ^[b] do what Abraham did. ⁴⁰ As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. ⁴¹ You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. ⁴³ Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. ⁴⁴ You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! ⁴⁶ Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

More Than Conquerors

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Righteous Branch

¹ “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. ² Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the LORD. ³ “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. ⁴ I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the LORD.

⁵ “The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
a King who will reign wisely
and do what is just and right in the land.

⁶ In his days Judah will be saved
and Israel will live in safety.
This is the name by which he will be called:
The LORD Our Righteous Savior.

⁷ “So then, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when people will no longer say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ ⁸ but they will say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ Then they will live in their own land.”

For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A psalm of Asaph. A song.

¹ We praise you, God,
we praise you, for your Name is near;
people tell of your wonderful deeds.

² You say, “I choose the appointed time;
it is I who judge with equity.

³ When the earth and all its people quake,
it is I who hold its pillars firm.

⁴ To the arrogant I say, ‘Boast no more,’
and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horns.

⁵ Do not lift your horns against heaven;
do not speak with outstretched neck.’”

⁶ No one from the east or the west
or from the desert can exalt themselves.

⁷ It is God who judges:
He brings one down, he exalts another.

⁸ In the hand of the LORD is a cup
full of foaming wine mixed with spices;
he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth
drink it down to its very dregs.

⁹ As for me, I will declare this forever;
I will sing praise to the God of Jacob,

¹⁰ who says, “I will cut off the horns of all the wicked,
but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.”