biblestudy: Matthew (Part Twenty)
Matthew 15:1-31
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 24-Feb-82; Sermon #BS-MA20; 59 minutes
Description: (show)
Let us go to Matthew 15. This chapter can be divided into four big chunks. As for a title, I think that what I would suggest here would be, "Clean and unclean" and also, "The feeding of the 4,000."
The first chunk is going to take nine verses:
Matthew 15:1-9 Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”—then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
It has probably escaped you, I think that it escapes most people anyway, that this is probably the most important strictly religious clash that Jesus had. It seems innocuous enough to you and me, but for the time and circumstance, the things that Jesus said in these first 20 or 21 verses were revolutionary.
The question that was raised to Him by the Pharisees was no unimportant issue at all. I want you to notice in verse 1. They came all the way from Jerusalem to ask this question. Now He was up in Galilee. Jerusalem was about 50 miles away. They walked up there or they rode a camel or they rode a donkey, but they came a long way to ask one question. It is possible that they asked more questions, but God here, using an economy of words, has gleaned from it the single most important question that they asked. Because this little section right here shows more clearly than any other portion of the Bible, except possibly Mark the seventh chapter, the distinction between the religion of Jesus and Judaism.
Look what they asked Him. "Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." Now, this was not a minor question and it was a question on which there could be no compromise on either side. It was one of those things where either one of them was right or the other was right. There was no middle ground.
Now, you are going to see here that Jesus did not directly answer their question. And I think to do so probably would have just inspired more argument and other questions. But what He did give them is certainly sufficient for you and me to understand the frailty of the system of worship that they had come up with.
The issue is clean and unclean. Now for you and me, if we say clean and unclean, we almost invariably think of food—of meat. But the question involved much broader issues than just clean and unclean meat. Clean and unclean meat was involved to a degree but it was not really the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter was ceremonial defilement. That is the key word, ceremonial defilement.
God said in several different places back in the Old Testament (notably in Leviticus and Numbers), that certain actions could render a person unclean. Some of these things would be to come in contact with a dead body. If someone did that, then he was unclean until he went through ritual washings and was cleansed. Usually a period of time had to pass, usually considered to be the end of the day or sunset. And just before sunset, the person would wash, go through the ritual, and then he would be clean. At other times, it says that a woman having her menstrual period that she was unclean. But if you touch somebody who was a leper, you were unclean or the leper himself was unclean. And of course, there were things like unclean meat.
Now, do you realize that that is not even in question here? Not one of those things is really in question. And this is a fundamental mistake of Protestantism. I want you to notice that what is in question is the tradition of the elders. Does it not state that? It does. It states that the tradition of the elders is in question. Now, what was the tradition of the elders? It was not God's Word, that is clearly stated. If it was the Scripture, then either Jesus or the Pharisees would have said something about the Scripture, but they did not except to show that the Scripture was being rejected in favor of the tradition of the elders.
The tradition of the elders was what is known today as the oral law and the oral law is a body of law that is built up around the Bible. It was something that was apart from the written Word. The written Word is the Old Testament. The oral law were interpretations of the Scripture, interpretations by mostly priests, carnal-minded priests. Now, this was never recorded until roughly about 200 years after Jesus. The Mishna, as we know it today, began to be assembled; and there actually became two written works, and out of that grew the Talmud, which is a commentary on both the Mishna and the Bible as well.
But what is in argument or whatever, the crux of the situation is this oral law. Now, these were, as I said, interpretations of the Scriptures that were passed by word of mouth from generation to generation, from scribe to scribe, from priest to priest. Father would tell son and then grandson and then great grandson and right on down. And each one of these interpretations was made in order to clarify, they felt, a specific situation that was not directly covered by God's Word, that is, by the written Word.
Now, what happened was that about roughly about 200 years before Christ, the Pharisees succeeded in getting the Sadducees and the other religious political parties in Jerusalem to concede that the oral law was of the same value as the written Word. And by this means, they actually effectively gained control of the political and religious life of Jerusalem. The Sadducees, the other major party that was involved in the life of Christ, were more conservative and tended to be more often correct scripturally as we would look at it than the Pharisees were.
However, the Sadducees were wealthy. By and large they were wealthy businessmen, they were tradesmen of some kind or another, merchantmen, and they were disliked by the great body of common people simply because they were wealthy. And because they were wealthy, then their religious opinions were held in prejudice by the common people and therefore looked down upon even though they were more often correct than the Pharisees were. The Pharisees would equate today politically to the Democratic Party, if I can put it that way, because they tended to be for the common man. That was their approach. However, they were stricter in their interpretations than the Sadducees were. Now because they tended to represent the common man, they had wrested away most of the power in Palestine. And so their opinions were held by the masses in more favor than the Sadducees were.
Now the Pharisees were the ones that adhered to the oral law. The Sadducees tended to discount it, to disregard it altogether really, in most cases, and they tried to stick to the written Word of God. However, they were outvoted all the time. By outvoted, I mean, in the Sanhedrin. They tended to be overwhelmed by the number of Pharisees that were represented there. So that is why there are so many confrontations in Jesus' New Testament ministry here with the Pharisees, far more than there were with the Sadducees. The Pharisees had the power.
What occurred was this: once they got the concession from the Sadducees that the oral law was equivalent to or as great as the written Word of God, then they actually began to multiply the decisions, the interpretations that were made to cover specific areas, and they elevated each one of those decisions to the level, as we are going to see, of the commandments.
Most of the decisions involve ceremonial cleanliness. Their passion in life was to be clean. They intended it to be clean spiritually, but they carried it of course, to be clean physically. They were very concerned about being defiled ceremonially by coming in contact with a defiling agent. Now, what they did was make up all kinds of regulations that had nothing at all to do with what God wrote. And defilement was something that they were constantly terrified of. For example, all Gentiles were defiled. It did not matter who they were, how clean they were, what they had just come from doing. I mean, they could have just come from taking a bath, but if they were a Gentile, they were defiled, and to come in contact with them would defile the person who came in contact with the Gentile.
But you see, they did not stop there. If you touched a person who came in contact with a Gentile, you are also defiled, you see, even though you were now second hand. And really, theoretically, there was no end to the defilement. And this is a true statement. They eventually got to the place where they were defiled by the dust raised by a Gentile walking past them.
Do you know what the word Pharisee means? It means separatist, somebody who is separated. And it is thought that the etymology of the word is derogatory, that very likely the Sadducees called them that because of their behavior. They just wanted to be clean from any kind of defilement. This is why they accused Jesus of eating with publicans and sinners. Now, even if Jesus did not touch them, He was defiled because He was eating in their presence or for taking up the same food. Even though He may not have touched them if He dipped into the same bowl as they did to get out some soup or whatever, because they also dipped their spoon in it He was defiled. That is the way they thought.
And so this transference of defilement was something that really, as I said, theoretically had no end to it. It all depended on the individual. And so they fanatically tried to abstain from any kind of defilement at all.
Now, the issue that is raised here is a matter of ceremonial cleanliness. How come Your disciples do not wash their hands before they eat? This had nothing to do with one washing his hands normally before eating a meal. It was a ceremonial cleanliness that they were concerned about and to wash one's hands in a common way was not good enough. It had to be done according to the prescribed rules. I kid you not. It had to be done according to the prescribed rules.
And so, let us just say that you came in from working in your yard and you have been working in the dirt and let us say that you came in contact with something that would defile you. Maybe a worm or something. I am just making this part up. Let us say the worm got on your hands. For you to come in the house, grab a bar of soap, turn on the faucet and wash your hands, take a towel and dry your hands off, would not render you ceremonially clean.
Believe it or not, their law called for this. That in order for your hands to be ceremonially clean, you have to use at least one and a half eggshells of water. I am not kidding you. You had to hold your hands with the fingers pointed upward. The water had to be poured by somebody who was already clean. The water touched your hand, you could then rub your hands like this but you could never put your hands down. They had to be up and the water, because it has now touched your hand, your ceremony unclean hand, had to run onto the ground, off your wrists and elbows. If you put your hands down and that water ran back down on your fingers. Too bad, buddy, you had to start all over again.
Now, that was not the end of it. After the first one and a half eggshells, you got a second one. This time you had to hold your fingers down, wash your hands with the water, and let the water run off the end of your fingertips. I guess you were allowed to shake your hand. But you were not allowed to touch a towel. You had to dry your hands by rubbing them together because if you touched a piece of cloth, that cloth might be defiled and your hands would be dirty and you had to start all over again. I am not kidding you. Believe it or not, the really strict Pharisees would repeat that ritual between courses of the meal just in case the dish, the bowl, and eating utensil, or the person that was serving them was also in some way defiled.
That seems silly to you and me. But you know, there are people on earth today who practice things that are not a whole lot different than that. In India, there are Hindus in the caste system where they practice saying things that are not too much different than the Jews did. I read once of a man, a Hindu man who converted to Christianity, he was of a very high caste, and when his own father would get news that his son was coming home to visit the family, he would hire thugs to keep him out of the house lest he defile it just by entering in to talk with his mother.
You see what they had done. Their efforts were sincere; they were deceived, there is no doubt. But their efforts, their thinking, was sincere. They were trying in all of their sincerity anything that they could physically muster to try to keep themselves pure and clean. You know that would be impossible. You see what they did? They went to an extreme.
Now, the Protestants today have gone to the other extreme. They have thrown the baby out with the bath water and they say there is no law. Really, the law of God is not even in question here. It is the tradition of the elders that is in question. But the average person attending a Baptist church, a Methodist church, a Presbyterian church, reads that and he thinks the law of God is involved. The law of God is not involved at all. They think it is involved because God had a few things to say about ceremonial cleanliness back in the Old Testament. So what they do is they throw out the whole law.
In fact, in preparing for this Bible study, here was this eminent scholar who did the same thing. He said that Jesus did away with all the laws regarding clean and unclean in the Old Testament. Jesus did nothing of the kind! That was not even in question, but there are a lot of sincere Protestants who believe that the law of God has done away. In fact, when Mr. Nieto and I were at this house on Sunday, the woman who invited us said that she has been taught that you do not go by the Old Testament. That was almost the first thing that came out of her mouth. It was within 15 minutes or so of our being there that she raised this question. Now, she is sincere and I am sure that the pastor in her Baptist church is sincere too—sincerely deceived.
And so today we live in an era when men have gone to the opposite extreme and they think they have done away with the law of God. At any rate, that is the issue that is involved here.
Now, the concept that the Pharisees had causes two problems. First of all, it divided people, it made the Pharisee so that he constantly shied away from other people because of his fear of defilement. And so he lived in fear of contamination. And secondly, the concept itself became a religion. That was their religion and to them it was matters of life and death. It was not God they were worshipping, it was their rules that they idolized and their religion became nothing more than trying to keep their regulations.
You know, you cannot do good to your neighbor when you are afraid he is going to contaminate you. There is no way that you can love him if you are fearful of defilement. They missed the whole purpose of God's laws regarding clean and unclean and they made their body of law a religion in itself.
As I said earlier, Jesus did not directly answer their question. What He did is He showed the result of their reasoning by just taking one principle out of their interpretations and applying it to an extreme. Now, this extreme very likely happened on occasion. I do not know whether it happened all the time. I rather doubt that. But it is an example of the extreme that was possible with the kind of reasoning that they were using.
He said in verse 5 that, "Whoever shall say to his father or his mother, 'Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God.'" What He is talking here is a little bit clearer in Mark 7 because it leaves one of the words untranslated. The word is Corban. Corban has two meanings to it and both of them are proper. The one meaning is that it is dedicated and the situation was like this:
According to the interpretation that the scribes and Pharisees had come up with was, if for some reason, let us say a son, decided that his parents were unworthy to receive any help from him. The reason might be religious, the reason he might consider moral, that his parents were immoral or his parents were defiled, were not worthy of the name or whatever. And his parents appealed to him for help, that he could say that his money was Corban. That is, to say that it was dedicated to the Temple. And then the priest who might be called to make a decision in such a case (if you look back in the Old Testament, you will find that it was the priest that got appointed to make decisions regarding civil affairs, that is, disputes between neighbors, disputes between relatives, you know, father and son or whatever, and that the priest was supposed to make a decision based upon the law of God). Well the scribes and the Pharisees in their interpretation would hold that money that was Corban, that is, dedicated to the Temple was therefore beyond the control of the contributor. And they would then deny it to the father and mother because it now belonged to the Temple. And since the Temple was holy, the money was now holy. It could not be used for an unholy purpose. See, that was their reasoning.
The other meaning of the word Corban is, it was used in oaths, you know an oath that one would take before God, before a court, or whatever. And in this case, the ruling that the scribes made was this: Let us say, again, a son decided that his parents were unworthy of help; maybe in a fit of anger he decided that they were unworthy of help. And he made a oath that he would never help his parents. In a fit of anger, in a fit of passion, he says, "I'll never help you! If that's the way you're going to be, I'll never help you." Well, a couple of days later, the guy repents. He gets remorseful. He decides that what he did was in a fit of anger and that he really should not have spoken so hastily.
Well, it was an already established opinion by their supreme court. You see, the Sanhedrin was dominated by the scribes and the Pharisees and was the law of the land, that if a person made an oath like that based upon Numbers 30:2, where it talks about oaths, they interpreted that that kind of an oath was irrevocable. In other words, the scribes and Pharisees said in effect that there was no such thing as a foolish, reckless oath. And so then they would deny the money, they would not permit the man to repent. So actually, by their decision, they were condemning the person to breaking a greater commandment, which was to honor your father and mother.
Now, that is what the crux of this matter is. That, in effect, Jesus is saying that the Pharisees made mountains out of molehills. And they ignored the mountains, which were the commandments of God, and elevated their own law to be the equal of the law of God. And so Judaism, which was dominated at this time by the scribes and Pharisees, became nothing more than a religion of rule keeping. And we will see that a little bit more as we go on here.
So to them, you see, to serve God was to observe rituals. And so to eat with unwashed hands was put on the same rank as adultery. Now you try to figure that one out and you will understand the mind of a Pharisee, but that is exactly what occurred. You can read even back in I Peter where he makes mention of the traditions that have been handed down. And even when Peter wrote that book in 68 AD, people were still being affected by it because people were constantly being converted and coming into the church and they had to unlearn all that mess, all that rigmarole of ritualism and ceremony that that they had learned.
Let us go on to verse 10.
Matthew 15:10-11 When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, "Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."
Now right away people conclude that He is talking about clean and unclean foods—meats. But He is not, as the context very clearly shows.
Matthew 15:12 Then His disciples came and said to Him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?"
You better believe they were offended, because He just blasted the very foundation of their faith which involved ceremonial defilement.
Matthew 15:13-14 But He answered and said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into the ditch."
That is a startling statement to many people. A lot of do-gooders are out to save everybody. Jesus was not trying to save everybody. He says, let them go. If that is the way they want to live, let them go. We are not here to convert everybody. That is what He is saying. If God is not working with them, we are not going to bother with them. We are not going to worry about them. That is what He is saying. We are witness to them, we will treat them nicely, we will answer their questions according to God's Word, but we are not going to be overly concerned about whether we offend them.
You know, God is not concerned about whether you offend your neighbor because you obey Him. A lot of you think that you should worry about offending your neighbor. You should not worry about that at all. You better worry about God. Then on the other hand, God says you better be concerned about offending your brother. That is another thing altogether.
Matthew 15:15-20 Then Peter answered and said to Him, "Explain this parable to us." So Jesus said, "Do you not yet understand [Almost as if He was amazed. "You mean, you haven't gotten it yet, Peter?"] that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."
Back in verse 11, He says, "Not that which goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." and people jump to the conclusion He is talking about Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. But verse 20 shows otherwise. He is talking about dirt going into a person's mouth, not food—dirt—and that your body is equipped to be able to handle a certain amount of defilement from dirt. But for you to touch a Gentile or for you to have a little bit of dust on your hand, it is no big deal. That is the meaning of that.
Now, here we see even more clearly the difference between Judaism and the religion of Jesus—the religion of God. And also I might say, Protestantism and the truth. Because like I said earlier, the Protestants, by and large, believe that the law is done away and a lot of their assumptions are based on this section here or a misinterpretation of the section. And I hope that I have shown you very clearly that the law of God is not even involved. It is not in question. It is not the subject; ceremonial defilement is the subject. The tradition of the elders is the subject. Judaism is the subject.
I do not know whether you have access or not for any of you who like to do a little bit of heavy reading, but long ago, Ernest Martin wrote a series on "Is Judaism the Religion of Moses?" where he made a lot of comparisons between Judaism and the religion that God gave to Moses. If you can get a hold of that it is very interesting. I think he did that probably way back about 1961, '62, '63 in that area there. But there might be some old timers around here who still have that. There is a lot of interesting material there.
Their whole system had to do, then, with ritual cleanliness. Now, on the other hand, Jesus identified His religion with the state of a person's heart or the state of a person's mind, however you want to put it. And Jesus said, "If you want to be ritually clean, you're going to end up in the ditch."
Now, how would you like to wash your hands many times a day, using a certain prescribed amount of water, holding your hands in a certain way one time and then another way another time, and not being able to use a towel, you have to use your hands to dry one another off? Now, they had many other like customs that involved, I am sure, large periods of time throughout the day. How would you like to be involved in a religion like that? It seems hard, does it not?
You know what? It is not near as hard as what we are involved in! That kind of a religion is easy compared to what we are involved in. What we are involved in, brethren, is so difficult that even God cannot create it by Himself! Even God cannot create it by giving the word by divine fiat. The character that He is striving to build requires long periods of time and it requires the willing cooperation of you and me in order to build it.
The kind of character that God is building or creating within us is built through sacrifice. It is much more difficult to love the unlovable than it is to wash your hands. It is awfully more difficult, infinitely more difficult to love your enemy, sacrifice your time, your energy, your comfort, your pleasures, your money, than it is to keep clean. Now, you think about that a while and you will realize that it is more difficult to do what we are doing. That is an easy religion by comparison.
Because do you know what? These people could go through all of those rituals and be absolutely, abominably filthy, dirty in their hearts, because that is exactly what they were. They were hypocrites because inside their heart was black as the ace of spades. They could wash their hands and hate the man that was standing right next to them who might just happen to have a different color of skin or have a name that sounds differently, that was not Hebrew. Or even be a Hebrew, but come from a different caste and be a publican. You see, a sinner.
See, that kind of religion does not change a person's thinking, it does not change his mind, it does not change his heart at all. That is what is wrong with it. Now, we could fall into the same kind of a trap. We could go through doing the things even that are required of God—going to Sabbath services, we could come to Bible study, we can tithe, and we could equate those things with going through the ritual that the Pharisees had to go through if we just look upon those things as being religion. Now, we have to look upon those things as a means to an end. That is all they are. Keeping the Sabbath and attending services is a means of education so that you will be equipped to love your neighbor, so that you will know what to do in given situations, so that you will have the principles by which to make judgments. The same with Bible study. Tithing is designed by God to teach you to be unselfish, to teach you to be giving, to give you the opportunity to give to your neighbor in a way that is really helpful.
Now, you could use all of those things and not get the point and not see them as a means to an end, not the end in themselves. God is trying to educate you and me, and I hope that you are taking advantage so that you are able to make the kind of decisions in your life that are going to cause you to yield to God and produce the character that He wants.
Now, we look forward to the ruling in the Kingdom of God. But if we are not educated, how can we rule? We have nothing to give. And so Bible study, Sabbath services, our own private Bible study, prayer, every single one of them really is a means of education, a tool to produce an end. And the end is to give us the attitudes, the heart, and the frame of mind; the information, the knowledge, the understanding to work with to make the proper decisions. So we could very easily fall into the same trap.
That is why Mr. Armstrong will not draw lines. He will not tell you that your skirt has to be a certain length, that your hair has to be a certain length. See, that is what the Jews did. They started setting standards all over the place. Rather than God's law being the standard, they began to interpret and specify in certain areas and the first thing you know, you were not religious unless, see. You were not right, you were not clean.
Again, the religion of Jesus Christ has to do with loving relationships. First of all, with God and secondly, with your neighbor. And that neighbor might be your mate. It might be your own children. It might be the person next door, the man you work for. It might be the governor. It might be the president because they are all our neighbors. So that is what God is concerned about.
I saw a very interesting comment. Actually, it was a comment on a cartoon, a religious cartoon. I do not know exactly what the picture was, but I do know what the caption said, and the caption said this, "How in the world are we going to have this brave new world with the same old people?" You cannot. If you are in Christ Jesus, you are a new creation. God is creating new people. He is not after Pharisees, He is after gods. And so we have got to come to that point.
One more thing that I wanted to add here. God is very concerned about motive and the motivation of the Pharisee to be clean was wrong. There is nothing wrong, of course, with being clean, but they were going about doing it by a physical means. And when I say motive, I am talking here about the intent behind the act. This has very much to do with the religion of Jesus Christ. And sometimes I know that you get frustrated and feel guilty or whatever because you did not do as good of a job at something that might have involved spiritual principles, that might have involved loving your mates, loving your children, loving your neighbor, or whatever.
But do not get overly concerned about God being upset because He is not any more upset than you would be with your child who is trying to do a good job, but they do a child's job. You see, they do something and you, looking at it, know that you could do it quicker and better, more efficiently with less dirt, less mess, and everything. Now, you see, you are looking at that child through the eyes of maturity and experience.
Let us say the kid is doing a good work. He is making his bed. Now you have made beds all your life. And when you make a bed that spread on the top is on there without a wrinkle, is it not. Sure. It is on there without a wrinkle. Your kid makes the bed and the pillows are crooked, one side of the bedspread is touching the floor, the other one is on top of the mattress. You know what I mean? He tried, his intent was good. Now you are not upset. You know he could do better. So what do you do? You correct him. Hopefully, you correct him in love and gradually he begins to do it like you do.
Well, it is the same way with God. When you attempt to do acts of love, you are not going to do them very well in comparison to the way God would do them. But because He is so concerned about your intent, He is willing to patiently work with you to help you to do it better and better. That is what growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ is, growing in experience with Him.
Actually, with this other method, the method the Pharisees used, one could actually be doing "good," a ritual goodness by going through all of the regulations, and be producing nothing more than a proud self-righteousness, which would take that person further away from God than ever before, because the intent was all wrong. They were just trying to do good by doing regulations and that is the wrong approach.
There is an interesting psalm on this principle. Psalm 103, where it says that God remembers that we are but dust. That is what He is talking about.
[audience member asking a question that is unintelligible]
Let us go on verse 21.
Matthew 15:21-28 Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed." But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, "Send her away, for she cries after us." But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." And then she came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" But He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." And she said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
It is very interesting because now it says, if you look in verse 21, that He was in the area of Tyre and Sidon. That was northwest of Galilee and so a trip of roughly about 50 miles on foot. So a little bit of time occurred between verses 20 and 21. Why He left the area of Galilee is open to question. It is likely (this is an assumption) that He wanted to get a little bit of R and R and to get away from the people in Galilee and sort of gird up His loins, and also teach the disciples before going to Jerusalem, because we are getting very close now to the final events in His life. We are within about six to eight months of His crucifixion, even though we are in only in chapter 15 and there are 28 chapters.
So we are getting near the end of His ministry and it is highly likely that He went out of Israel and into a Gentile area. Remember earlier that He had told the apostles (this is in Matthew 10) to go not but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And He reiterated here in verse 24 that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And He is reminding that he is a minister to Israel.
Now, there is an interesting lesson here. First of all, we know that He did not refuse to heal the woman's child. Even though His ministry was not to the Gentiles, He was nonetheless merciful to them, to her. And we are going to see He was merciful to more Gentiles in just a little wee bit. But this woman already had knowledge of Him. She knew who He was and so evidently the word had already circulated up into that area regarding this miracle worker who was down in the area of Palestine. Now, she evidently believed. How deep her faith was, I do not know, but apparently it was pretty good. Considering her lack of conversion, it was pretty good.
Jesus at first ignored her, appeared to pay no attention to her. The disciples thought she was a nuisance and wanted to chase her away. Now, when she made her request, Jesus continued to put her off. He did not immediately respond but actually tested her by telling her that He was not sent to the Gentiles and then He used what many consider to be a derogatory statement in calling her, or Gentiles, dogs.
Well, the commentaries on that are divided. They all agree that He did not use the normal term that a Jew would use as an epithet. You see, the Jews did not like dogs. As a people, to them a dog was almost like a pig. It was a scavenger and the only use they have for a dog at all was for shepherding. And they actually have very strict laws regarding dogs in the city because they did not like them as a people; considered them to be a dirty, foul, unclean animal. And so it was very common for a Jew to call somebody that they did not like a dog. It was equivalent to us using some four letter words.
Here, though, Jesus did not use that word. Everybody agrees that he uses the word for a puppy, a household pet, but it was still a cliché and it was somewhat of a put down. Now, I do not mean that he was calling her a dirty dog. I do not mean that at all, but He was using a cliché here to continue to test her to see whether she really did believe Him. And of course she did, and I think He really appreciated she had a quick mind and a lot of wit. There is a bit of humor in that as well. And not only that, she was a humble person. There was no doubt about it that she accepted His admonishment or rebuke in a good attitude and said, "Yes Lord. But even the dogs get the crumbs." And He was apparently tremendously pleased, and of course, her daughter was healed then immediately.
Now there is a lesson there for you and me. Jesus was God in the flesh and we see by the actions of Jesus the way God will react. If you make a request to God, He is going to test you to see whether or not you really believe Him. He may even give you some correction to see whether or not you really believe it, to see whether you are going to be humble enough to take some rebuke or some admonishment or to be refused of your request for a while. But you know what? If, like this woman, you can come up with good reasons why you should have this healing or whatever it is that you are after, He will give it. You see, she persisted, she asked Him and came back with good reasons. Do you reason with God? You ought to. You ought to tell Him, I would like to have such and such and so and so and this is why, and just list them. Now it may take you months to come up with a lot of good reasons, but He wants you to persist and come back, coming back to Him and showing Him that your thinking has progressed, that it is growing, that it is getting more complete and that you are continuing to pile on reasons why He ought to give you this thing or to give somebody else this thing.
God is trying to create adults, you see, people in His image. He wants people who are able to logically come to conclusions that are right. And prayer is a wonderful means of doing that, of reasoning with Him. And that is what that woman did. Bang! He responded just like that. Just give Him good reasons and not that you just want it just because you want it. That is the kind of thing that He will probably turn down. "Oh well, you're just a spoiled kid. You just want it because you want it, that's all."
We can learn from these the way God will react, and that is the way He will react. You know very well He does not give you everything you ask for. Not only that, He almost never gives you anything you ask for right away. What He is probably waiting for is for us to grow up and really give Him good reasons why we had to have that thing.
Beginning in verse 29,
Matthew 15:29-31 Jesus departed from there, skirted the Sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain and sat down there. And great multitudes came to Him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them. So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.
I am going to just conclude with these words. Here we have the healing of the 4,000. Now, if you put this chapter together with Mark the seventh chapter, you will find that Jesus left Galilee, He went up to Tyre and Sidon, then He came across the northern part of the land of Israel, across the north of the Sea of Galilee, and came into the area of Decapolis. Now, Decapolis means ten cities. It is on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.
Now, for Him to have walked that journey would have probably taken in the neighborhood of about four or five months to do all the things that are recorded here. They figured that it took Him about four or five months. Now, remember when we were going through Matthew 14 and the feeding of the 5,000, we remarked there that they sat down on the grass. Well, the very fact that they sat down on the grass indicates that it was probably spring time because if it had not been spring time, the grass would have been burned up by the sun and would have turned brown.
Here in this account in Matthew the 15th chapter, they sat down on the ground, which indicates that it was later in the year. And we do not have two accounts of the same thing. Matthew 14 is the feeding of the 5,000. Matthew 15 is the feeding of the 4,000.
In addition to that, the one took place in Galilee on the western side. This one took place in Galilee or Decapolis on the eastern side. On the western side, the people who were fed were probably Galileans. On the eastern side, because the area was Decapolis, they were probably Gentiles. And so the conclusion is that Jesus continued to speak to Gentiles after He left the area of Galilee, went up to Tyre and Sidon, cut through what is today Syria (Lebanon and Syria), came across down near Damascus and then down to the Greek cities of Decapolis, and then fed the 4,000 there who were probably Gentiles.
And that ended Jesus' very brief ministry to the Gentiles. In chapter 15, He is going to begin to slowly make His way to Judea and Jerusalem.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
