"O woman, great is your faith!"

My son's fiance is a brand new believer.  What delights me is that she is devouring the Word.  She is also keeping me in the Word by asking me lots of questions!  Today she sent me an email and wanted to know why Jesus told a Gentile woman that He was sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  The account is in Matthew 15.  I'm sure to Mai Huong it seemed like Jesus was not very compassionate to this woman at first.  When she cried out to the Lord for mercy because her daughter was severely demon-possessed the Lord ignored her request.  He did not answer her a word.  His disciples were annoyed by her crying out after them and came to Jesus and urged Him to send her away.  He answers by saying that He was sent except to the lost sheep of Israel.  This time the woman ignored what the Lord said and came close to Him and bowed down and worshiped Him saying, "Lord, help me!"  This time He answers her but again with words that do not seem to show a lot of compassion.  He tells her that is is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the family's pet dog.  In essence He was calling her a dog and she knew it.  Jesus was saying that the lost sheep of Israel must be fed first, must be given spiritual food first.  The Lord is testing her faith at this point.  He was drawing it out.

It was God's plan from the very beginning to include Gentiles as His sheep (see John 10:16), but His plan was to send the Savior to Israel and then through Israel the world would be reached.  (Mt. 28:19, 20)  Obviously in His plan some Gentiles would come to faith as He was preaching to Israel.  After Jesus tells the woman that it is not normal to feed the family pet before feeding the children, she agrees with the Lord, she continues in her persistence and says basically that she is willing to settle for the crumbs that fall when the children are fed.  She demonstrated great faith and the Lord rewards it by healing her daughter.

Jesus priority was to the lost sheep of Israel, but the crumbs of the gospel did fall from His table and fed this humble woman who hungered for the Bread of Life.

Now I get to write Mai Huong and explain to her why Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me Satan!"  And I'm so thankful she is one of His sheep...