In this enlightening episode, we delve deep into the character of Jesus Christ, exploring the well-known biblical narrative of the Woman of Canaan. Often misunderstood, this passage sheds light on the persistence and humility required to attain the grace and compassion of Jesus. The discussion highlights how our preconceived images of Jesus often influence our understanding, challenging us to read the gospel with fresh eyes. From the surprising harshness of Jesus’ words to the Canaanite woman to her profound faith, this conversation invites listeners to see the deeper meaning beneath the surface of biblical texts.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Unless you just arrived from another planet and are not yet up to speed, you probably have some notion about what Jesus Christ was like. I would guess you even have some visual images of him because you’ve seen a lot of paintings on the wall here and there and magazines or what have you about Jesus. All of which are wrong, of course. You do know that. The painters will go get themselves a model, and they’ll set him down. They’ll paint his picture, and then they’ll put Jesus at the bottom of the picture, and somebody else gets a false idea about what Jesus might have been like. But I’m not really talking about visual impressions. I’m talking about your ideas of his character, his personality. What was the man like? You pick these up along the way from many, many sources. And all these sources go together to form a Jesus of the imagination, something that you have put together in your own mind as sort of a model of a man. And then when you sit down with your Bible and you actually read the gospel accounts, your imaginary Jesus is going to encounter the real man, and some adjustments are surely going to have to take place. Because every once in a while, Jesus would do something that, to people standing by and observing, seemed out of character. Sometimes, it even seemed downright offensive. There’s one incident like this that’s recorded by Matthew in his 15th chapter. Jesus has been trying to get away from the crowds. He goes away in the desert and winds up having to feed the 5,000-plus people who followed him out there. And now he says, well, if that doesn’t work, let’s try getting out of the country. So he goes off to Tyre and the seacoast around Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts and cried to him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, you son of David. My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. And apparently again and again she cried to him and said, Oh, have mercy on me. My daughter has a demon. Help me. But he answered her, Not a word. Apparently, he acted like that woman was not even there. He didn’t say, go away. He didn’t say, I’m sorry. He just ignored her. I can only believe that that was done at some price. For a man who is as compassionate as Jesus was to ignore a woman who is in such obvious mental and emotional pain is really beyond belief. But he didn’t. He didn’t say a word. His disciples finally came to him and said, Lord, get rid of this woman. She is crying after us. And he answered. He said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You know, it’s almost like he said, that’s not my job. I’m not going to do anything about this because it’s not my job. I wasn’t sent to her. I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And so here you have… have tremendous power and the ability to do all these things, and yet here on a moment where there was one more chance to heal a person, he wouldn’t do it. He said, no, I’m not sent to these people up here. I’m only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then the woman came and worshipped or did obeisance to him and said, Lord, help me. And he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. I wouldn’t think that he used the tone of voice I just used. I wouldn’t think that he meant to insult the woman. She certainly, I would think, could have taken it that way. For Jesus has just compared her poor demon-possessed daughter to a dog. And he said, it’s just not proper for me to take the children’s bread. And he means by that the children of Israel to whom he was sent, that’s the children of the household, and to give their bread to the dogs outside. Comparing the Gentiles to dogs. It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? But you might as well get used to it or deal with it because it is Jesus and he did say this. The woman, though, is a case study in herself. because she had two options at this point. She could have gotten mad and said, How dare you? How could you? How could you be so callous? How could you compare my daughter to a dog? She could have, but she didn’t. She said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. All I’m asking you for is a crumb. And Jesus said, Woman, great is your faith. I’m not sure exactly what it was he saw. I think her persistence was part of it. I think her unwillingness to take insult or umbrage at what he said was another part of it. But in the whole, he looked at her and said, This woman has a tremendous amount of faith. Be it unto you, he said, as you want. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. You know, this incident is part of a pattern. Jesus has been trying to get away by himself since John was killed. And without any real success, he tried the desert, he tried now getting out of the country and the seacoast, and next he’s going to try to get away by going up a mountainside. It didn’t work either. Jesus departed from thence and came near to the Sea of Galilee, and he went up into a mountain and sat there. And great multitudes came unto him. This time it seems like even more people than the last time. having with them those that were lame and blind and dumb and maimed and many others. And they put them down at Jesus’ feet, and he healed them. In so much that the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb, who could now speak, people who had been maimed. Now, we’re not talking about just sick people, people who had actually been hurt, maimed. To behold, they saw the lame walk and the blind be able to see, and they glorified the God of Israel.” And, well, they might. You think about the cumulative impression of a great crowd of people and one person after another who was lame and blind and deaf. All of the growing and accelerating goodwill and joy that came about as a result of all that taking place. Wouldn’t you like to experience something like that? You know, there’s no reason to assume that Jesus has changed. There’s no reason to assume that somehow he is less willing to heal people now than he was then. Oh, yeah, but if only he were here, you might say. Well, he is. Let me make a suggestion, though. When you think about praying for healing, why don’t you ask first for the healing of the inner man? That is of the spiritual cripple on the inside, the bad hip you’ve got there that you’re thinking about having a replacement on. That’s only a physical thing. You’ll be dead soon enough anyway, and then your hip will really be bad, right? But there is an inner man that is also crippled, crippled by anger, crippled by the sin of our lives that has laden us down with guilt that we can’t lay aside. Oh, yeah. I think if any of us would take the time to go before God on our knees and talk to him about that cripple inside, we’d come to realize that we’re blind and maimed and halt, sometimes deaf, and that there’s something on the inside that needs healing even more than what’s on the outside. Is your body the only thing that needs healing in your life? Is it even the most important thing? But don’t hesitate to ask for the physical things, the healing of the blind. You need them. Just don’t forget the healing of the inner man. Now, once again, here’s Jesus now on a mountaintop with a gang of people here, this time I think 4,000 men besides women and children. And they’ve been out there now for three days. And they don’t have a thing in the world to eat. And Jesus said to the disciples, I’m not going to send these people away fasting unless they pass out on the road. And his disciples, still having not really quite figured things out, says, well, how are we going to feed these people out here, this great multitude? And Jesus said, how many loaves have you got? They said, seven and a few little fishes. So he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and he gave thanks, and he broke them, and he gave them to his disciples. The disciples passed it out to the people, and they did all eat and were filled and took up of the broken meat that was left over seven baskets full. Amazing, isn’t it? Not only did he feed them, he fed them abundantly, that even with what they might have wanted to carry home with them, they still had leftover food when all was said and done. And they that did eat were four thousand men besides women and children. And he sent away the multitude and took ship, and came to the coasts of Magdala.
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I’ll be right back. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44.
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There are some people who, no matter what you do, still aren’t going to get it. Matthew, in his 16th chapter, begins to talk about some of these people. He calls them Pharisees and Sadducees who came to Jesus, it says, tempting Him and desiring Him that He would show them some kind of a sign from heaven. Sign from heaven? What in the world does it take? Blind people healed. Sick people are healed completely. Lame people are now walking. Deaf people can hear. What are you talking about? And Jesus answered and said to them, you know, when it’s evening, you say it’s going to be fair weather tomorrow because the sky is red. And then in the morning you say, well, it’s going to be foul weather today for the sky is red and lowering. It’s some sort of a version of our old saying, red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky at morning, sailors take warning. It has to do with the movement of cloud formations and red sunsets and red sunrises and whether or not the weather is coming or whether it’s not going. He said, you can look at the sky and you can tell this. Then he said, oh, you hypocrites. Now, the word hypocrite is probably a little stronger in our language than the word Jesus chose to use at this occasion, but the idea is still there. You hypocrites, you stage actors, you can discern the face of the sky, and you can’t discern the signs that are right in front of you. He says signs of the times are appointed signs. You know, you’re asking me for a sign from heaven, and I’ve got signs hanging out all over the place, and you can’t see any of these signs. What’s the matter with you? Well, they were pretending. They were actors. They were hypocrites. They were pretending that they couldn’t discern anything about Jesus from the signs and miracles they had already seen. But if they were pretending, they had seen. But they were asking for some big sign in the sky, a display of power for its own sake. And, well, you know what I really wonder? I wonder if what they are saying is, well, okay, show us a sign in the heavens so we can see and believe. On the assumption that he wouldn’t be able to do that, and then they’d have an excuse for not believing or not following or not accepting. But Jesus knew. that if they couldn’t discern who he was from what they had already seen, nothing was going to convince them. They were even pretending as they asked for it. And then he said this, A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. All right, you want a sign. There shall no sign be given to this generation except the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and he departed. He didn’t even explain. I guess they understood. Or not. He may not have cared. Now that sign you will probably recall from an earlier broadcast was that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish. Jesus said, even as that was the case, I’m going to be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Oddly enough, very few people believe that he did even that. You don’t think so? Well, when was Jesus crucified? Most people believe he was crucified on Friday, right? When do most people believe he was raised? He was raised on Sunday morning, right? That’s what most people believe. All right, let’s count it off. Friday afternoon, they got him in the grave. According to the Scriptures, right at sundown, Friday night would be one night. The next day, Saturday, would be one day. Saturday night would make two nights. And since Jesus was already risen before it was light on Sunday, that gives us, let’s see, one day and two nights. A little bit short in the day and night department, wouldn’t you say? When Jesus said that he was going to be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth? What if we’ve been wrong all along about the Friday crucifixion and the Sunday resurrection? What if the day of Jesus’ crucifixion was not a Friday, but the day before an annual Sabbath or a holy day? You know, the Bible never mentions the word Friday. I’m sure you do. And what it speaks of is that the day of Christ’s crucifixion was the day before a Sabbath. It was a preparation day. But the annual Sabbaths were Sabbaths as well, and preparation was required for all of them. And the 15th day of the first month, which was the day after Jesus’ crucifixion, was the beginning of the Feast of Passover, or rather the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was a high day. And so they wanted to get the bodies down off the stake before sundown because the Sabbath coming up was a high day. How do we know it’s Friday? Well, we really don’t, because the Scriptures just tell us that it was before a Sabbath day, which was a high day. Okay. Well, there’s a little problem in that and one for you to go back and study it. I’ll talk a little bit more about that later in the Matthew series, but why not study it for yourself? The accounts are all easy to find right toward the end of each gospel account. Just sit down and read them. Make yourself a little outline. Draw up a little chart, if you will, of the sequence of events and see what you come up with. We’ll have a talk later about that. But for now, Jesus’ disciples finally caught up with him on the other side. It turned out that they had forgotten to bring any food with them, no bread. And Jesus said to them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, Oh, it’s because we haven’t brought any bread that he’s on to us about this. When Jesus heard that, he said, Oh, it’s almost like in the modern language, give me a break. He said, Oh, ye of little faith, why are you wandering around among yourselves because you haven’t brought any bread? Don’t you remember? The five loaves of 5,000 and how many baskets you took up? Don’t you remember the seven loaves and the 4,000 and how many baskets you took up? I don’t get it, you guys. You just go on and on. Now you’re all worried about the fact that I’m upset because we don’t have any food. You ought to know by now I can handle that. How is it you didn’t understand that I spoke not to you concerning bread to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Oh, oh, oh, oh, the disciples said, I understand. They now understood that he was not telling them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the scribes and the Pharisees. Yeah, oh, I get it. Because, you see, leaven was just a little bit of leaven put in a lump of dough. You could actually set it aside for a while, and the leaven would spread throughout the dough, and the loaf would rise, and you’ve got a whole loaf of leavened bread. And what he’s saying is that the doctrine of the Pharisees is like leaven. It will spread, and it will infect. And there’s an allusion in it, related to the days of unleavened bread, in which leavening becomes a model or an image, a type, a symbol of sin. And Jesus is saying, look out for the Pharisees, and look out for their doctrine. Take a moment to listen to these words and be sure and pick up the address and phone number that we’ll be giving you in just a moment.
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I’ll be right back. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled Matthew number 26. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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It had come to the time when Jesus needed to clarify just a few things with his disciples. And so he asked them saying, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? This is in Matthew 16, verse 13. What are people saying? And they said, well, some say you’re John the Baptist. Some say Elijah, and some say Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Apparently, there was a fairly strong belief system that indicated that these prophets would come back in spirit, as John the Baptist, you know, was in the spirit and power of Elijah. Some people, including Herod, thought that Jesus was John the Baptist resurrected. He wasn’t, of course. And then Jesus looked around at the man and he said, Okay, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now, this is something of a bombshell for him to say that. Because what he has done is to own up to a couple of things. One, that Jesus is the Messiah to come. It is an enormous claim of enormous importance. You and I would take it for granted we speak of Jesus Christ all the time, and the idea that he is the Christ doesn’t even faze us. But the Messiah, the Christ, was to be a conquering hero, come back to deliver this country, and that’s what Peter said he was. Not only that, he was the son of the living God, not of Joseph. And Jesus answered and said, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. My Father in heaven has revealed it to you. I don’t think you really would have got it except for that. And I say also unto you that you are Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now this passage of Scripture gives some Protestants the willies because they’re well aware of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church where the Pope is the legitimate successor of Peter and that Christ built the church upon Peter and founded upon Peter and Peter was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever he bound on earth should be bound in heaven and whatever he loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven. It’s the statement of the papal authority by the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants who don’t accept that authority and have various struggles that they engage in with this passage of Scripture. It’s not really all that hard, though. When he said, You are Peter, he was not speaking Greek. I think this passage was written. It might have been written in Hebrew, but it was also written in Greek. But they’re working out of the Aramaic, which is what Jesus probably was speaking to his disciples. But when they put it into the Greek, they chose two different forms of this word. They chose petros, the masculine form, which is generally speaking used in Greek for a small pebble. And then they chose the word petra, or a large crag of rock, a feminine form, for the word rock. So you are Petros, and upon this Petra, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, actually is intended to draw the distinction between Peter and the rock. He didn’t say, you are Peter, and upon you I’ll build my church. It was the rock he was going to build the church on, and the rock was Christ himself, his own strength. And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, some Protestant scholars have looked at this, and they’ve studied the Greek very carefully, and they’ve come up with the conclusion that it should be translated, Whatever you bind on earth shall be having been bound in heaven. And whatever you shall loose on earth shall be having been loosed in heaven. In other words, you can’t bind anything on earth that hasn’t been bound in heaven and so forth. Well, I wouldn’t want to think that I could bind something on earth contrary to what was written in heaven, and I sure don’t think Peter thought that way at all. But it’s an awfully convoluted way of going about the translation and explanation of this verse. I think it is simpler to go back to the book of Deuteronomy and to a statement in the law in which God spoke to Moses and the people and said something along these lines. He said, now, if there arises a matter too hard between you, between blood and blood and stroke and stroke. In other words, what he means is if we have come across a case of civil liability or a problem having to do with the law that you are not able to decide for yourself. You’re supposed to get up. And go to the priest or the Levite or the judge that shall be in those days and present your case. The judge will then decide your case based upon the law. And he will explain it to you out of the law. What he’s giving you is a judgment. Then he goes on to make a very important statement in this passage. He says this, that once that decision is rendered, it takes on all the force of law. And if you then having come and got it, having got the decision, having got the judgment, if you turn your back on it and walk away and do contrary to it, you’re going to be punished and punished very severely for having done so. So that a judgment handed down by the judge according to the law, based on the law, took on all the force of law and was punishable. What you are reading in this passage is the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament system of judges. that the apostles, not just Peter, but all of them, because he will later say this same thing about the keys of the kingdom to all of them, rather than merely to Peter. What he is saying to them is that in matters of judgment, things that might be unclear, things that might be hard to understand, I expect you to make decisions on those, and I will back those decisions up. They didn’t have the right to change the law. They couldn’t come about and say, oh, well, you know, it’s no sin to commit adultery. They couldn’t come along and say it’s okay to commit a lie. But what they could do was come along and give you a decision as to what constituted or did not constitute adultery in a given situation of, say, divorce and remarriage. They actually, if you came to them, and if you asked the question, they had the authority to make decisions, and Christ said, I will back those decisions up. Now, that’s not really all that hard. That in any Christian community, there are going to be difficult decisions to be made from time to time. And someone within that Christian community is going to have to act as a judge as to what the whole community will accept or will not accept. And all Jesus says is that if you will get together, if you’ll pray about these things, if you’ll trust me in them, I’ll help you. You make a decision, I’ll back it up. Now, this falls a long way short of papal claims of infallibility and of the total authority that some popes have claimed over the Catholic Church. But it also goes a lot further, I think, than many Protestants have been willing to go in this realization. There’s a fear, I think, that granted that kind of authority, that it will be abused. But if you understand the historical roots, the Old Testament roots of the idea of the judges, as it states in Deuteronomy, if there arise a matter too hard for you, now who decides if the matter is too hard for you? Well, you do, of course. So you don’t have to go to these judges to ask this question in the first place. You can decide it for yourself unless you think it’s too hard for you. If it’s too hard for you and you conclude that, and if you go and you ask, then that decision is binding upon you. There’s nothing really to be afraid of there, for there is no opening here for an arbitrary ruling handed down without the question from some apostolic authority on high. You don’t ask the question, you don’t get the answer, and you’re not bound by the answer. So you see, there’s nothing really to be worried about. It is necessary if there’s going to be a ministry, if there’s going to be a church, that there be somebody for helping people with decisions. Jesus will talk more about that to his disciples later. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart reminding you, if you know, don’t ask.
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The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to You may call us at 888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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