About this episode
Get every episode summarized
Each time Ask Pastor John publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Hosts & guests
Transcript ready
162 searchable segments. Every word is indexed and playable.
Full transcript
Ask Pastor John — Why Did Jesus Call Her a Dog?. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Well, there's a story in Matthew's gospel that stops readers cold. You read it and then you pause and you ask and you're like, wait a minute, did I just read what I think I thought I read? And go back and reread it. It's a story about a canine woman, a canine woman, a mother, a very desperate mother, a desperate mother who begs Jesus to save the life of her demon possessed daughter, a daughter that is sick beyond the reach of all other help. She has one hope. It's Jesus. And Jesus, the emblem of love, ignores her first. 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 Aspastor John, why did Jesus call her a dog? Yolisa is asking the question, high pastor John, my name is Yolisa writing from South Africa. I've been reading Matthew 15, 21 to 28 over and over again, kind of stuck there because
of how troubled I am by Jesus referring to this poor canine woman as a dog. What did he mean by this? Surely we are not to speak of other people from other nations and cultures like animals. So how should we understand his words in light of his love and his compassion for so many? Let's read this 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 canine night 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. When 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 law sheep of the house of Israel. In other words, 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 dogs. She said, yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. Then Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith. Let it be done as you desire and her daughter was healed instantly. Now, there are four things, at least, that Matthew wants us to know from this story. I mentioned all four and now come back to the main one that Elysa is concerned about. 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.
Verse 24, I was sent only to the law sheep of the house of Israel. In Matthew 10, 5, he says, these 12 Jesus sent out, instructing them, go nowhere among the Gentiles. Only when there was a decisive rejection of Jesus by his own people, did he turn to the nations and say, go make disciples of all the nations in the world. And when he healed the Gentile, Centurion, just like he's going to heal this camellite woman, he foretells this change in focus, amazing world changing, change in focus. He says, I tell you, is this Matthew 8. 11. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline a table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into outer darkness. So that's the first thing Matthew wants us to see. Jesus ministry was focused at the beginning almost entirely upon the Jewish people.
In the second, he puts this woman in the category of Gentile dogs. It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Leviticus 1127 had declared dogs unclean. As what it says, all that walk on their paws among the animals that go on all fours are unclean for you. That's how the Jews looked on the Gentiles. Unclean. We see that in Acts 1028 where Peter said, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate 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 judoizers in
Philippi dogs in order to say, they're the ones. The Jews are the ones who are unclean, not the Gentile Christians. So Paul was building off that same common use of language. We'll come back to this. Third, Matthew makes much of in this in the store. Matthew makes much of the amazing faith of this woman. Oh woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you desire. And what made her faith great? I see at least three things. 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.
And third, the Lord himself says, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to dogs and nothing would stop her. She believed he would do this to kept after him. And the third thing that met 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. 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. 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.
Let's go from there. 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 for me, you, is better than a banquet elsewhere. This is great faith. It was irresistible to Jesus. Then fourth, Matthew wants us to say that faith in Jesus, not Jewishness, makes a person a child of God, instead of an unclean outsider. As 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, as though we Paul put it, an heir of the promises. So let's go back now to the second point that Eulisa is concerned about. How are we supposed to think about Jesus putting her in the category of unclean Gentile
dogs? I think Eulisa'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 filthedness of language or foolish talk or crude joking. And he sets a very high standard for our mouths in Ephesians 429, when he says, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as his good for up building as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. That was my wife's favorite verse. We had four songs at home. We always talked 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' word here, dogs, as a 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 canonite when she became a child of God, she didn't cease to be a canonite. 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. Jesus was giving the sister a chance to voice her faith in a way that could be recorded for all of us, all Gentiles, all of us, who would later read the story and be encouraged
by it. It's not a racial slur, and this is not just a power encounter with the demon. This was a test. Jesus was first positioning her outside the family of God first and then welcoming her inside because of her great faith. What a great plot twist to shine the spotlight on the faith of this woman where outsiders become children of God. That is beautiful. Thank you, Pastor John. Thanks for joining us today. If you have an interesting Bible question to ask Pastor John, find a link to email us and find our complete episode archive at the same place, askpastorjohn.com. Next up, daily vigilance for lifelong productivity, daily vigilance for lifelong productivity. I'm Tony Rinky. See you on Monday for that on Labor Day, National Holiday for us here in the States. We'll see you then.
More episodes
