7:25,26
One of the people who came to him was a woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. The woman fell at Jesus’ feet and begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her little daughter. The woman was Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. In saying she was Greek, Mark may simply mean that she spoke Greek and was culturally Greek. The key point is that she was not Jewish.
7:27
How we interpret Jesus’ words seems to depend very much on our presuppositions. If one wants to take a hostile approach, one can take them as being harsh and dismissive. But one can take a different approach and assume that Jesus is drawing faith out of the woman. We must also remember that the cultural situation was very different. The phrase “toss it to the dogs” is using a derogatory phrase and some today would accuse Jesus of hate speech! However, there are ways in which our society has lost its marbles. Jesus is saying that His mission was first to Israel. Note that “first” does imply that there is a “second”! The woman would know that “dogs” was a way in which Jews sometimes referred to Gentiles.
No comments:
Post a Comment