Grace to the Unloved, the Unlovely, Marginalized, and Outcasts, Matthew 15:21-28

One of the distinctives of the Gospel of Matthew is the emphasis on the training of the disciples, but not just the training the disciples for the sake of learning the historical realities of that but because this serves as a model, a pattern for what is to be repeated from generation to generation throughout the history of Christianity. Matthew, more than the other three Gospel writers, emphasizes what has been called the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, 20, that we are to go throughout the world making disciples. This concept of disciple-making and being a disciple-maker, training others, and just being a disciple, which means to be a committed student or follower of someone's teaching is emphasized in Matthew.

What we have seen in Matthew is that Jesus is rejected corporately by the leadership of Israel, represented by the Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees (chapter twelve) after He had cast out a demon from a demon possessed man, and they said rather than this demonstrating His qualifications as the Messiah He is actually doing this is the power of Beelzebul, referring to Satan. Following that Jesus began to focus upon the training of the disciples. He began to teach them in chapter thirteen about the fact that now the kingdom offer had been rejected it would be postponed, and there would be an intervening age, and what the characteristics of that age would be. There would be various responses to the gospel and the most effective response would be from those who would bare fruit. There would also be the activity of the enemy, Satan, who would come in and sow a different seed than gospel seed and that these tares (false wheat) would grow up amidst the wheat and it would not be removed until the Second Coming when God would separate the wheat from the tares.

As we moved from chapter thirteen to chapter fourteen we saw that Jesus is training the disciples in terms of how He was going to provide for them. He is going to sustain them, as illustrated by the feeding of the five thousand as He used the disciples immediately to pass out the bread and the fish. He was teaching that He is the source of spiritual nourishment and that the disciples and the leaders of the church to follow from generation to generation were to be depended upon Him for the provision, the sustenance and nourishment of the church, and we were to be intermediaries.

As we look at the history of Christianity we see that one of the characteristics that distinguishes Christianity down through the ages is the men and the women who have gone out to difficult situations and circumstances to minister to those on the margins, those at the edge of civilization, those who were within the empire on the margin of civilization. They have ministered to the marginalized, sacrificed their own comfort, their own privilege and their own positions in order to take the gospel to the four corners of the earth. They have gone to take the love of God and to demonstrate the love of God to those who were unloved, the rejected, the outcasts, the unwanted, and have taken the gospel to the unloved and the unlovely, those who were condemned by the world as worthless.

In Rome in the early church we know that Christians would go out and find the abandoned unwanted daughters that the Romans would take out and just leave them in the street to die, and would take them into their homes and rear and provide for them. They would minister to the sick, take in the slaves and provide for the poor, all for the sake of demonstrating the love of God to a lost and dying world. Christians consistently took the gospel to the slaves, the poor and the lepers, and in the course of time it was the influence of Christians who took the Judeo-Christian heritage from the Old Testament background—the Jews were the first to have hospitals, but Christians took that to a new level—developing hospitals and orphanages and charities to provide for the poor. There are examples in recent centuries, like George Muller who founded an orphanage in Bristol, England, to take care of outcasts. He would bring them in, feed them, clothe them, teach them the Scriptures, give them the gospel and bring them to eternal life. There is the example of William Booth and his wife Catherine who founded the Salvation Army in the mid-nineteenth century in order to reach the poor and homeless of England with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are examples of missionaries like Hudson Taylor and C.T. Studd who went to China to reach the lowest levels of society and take them the gospel.

One example we have in our own history is Thomas Jonathan Jackson. He later became known as Stonewall Jackson and was a noted general, strategist and tactician in the Confederate Army. His escapades on the battlefield are still studied in military academies around the world, but one little-known truth is that he was a committed Christian who had a heart for the lost, and even though he was a slave owner he conducted a Sunday School for his slaves in conflict and disobedience to Virginia law, which said that you could not teach slaves to read. He taught his slaves to read so that they could read their Bibles.

Compassion for the lost, for those who are on the margins of society, for those who are unlovely, has distinguished Christianity from other religions throughout its history. It is particularly noteworthy that this contrasts with the environment in which Christianity was born. It is an outgrowth of biblical Judaism but it was shaped in the crucible of the conflict with Pharisaical Judaism at the time of Christ. The Pharisees rejected Gentiles. They wouldn't talk to women, they wouldn't enter into a Gentile's home for anything, wouldn't eat their food, their legalism had hardened them to the needs of the lost and those who were unloved and those who were in the dregs of society. They had completely lost any concept of the grace of God.

So this is the essence of what Jesus is teaching His disciples in this episode in Matthew 15:21-28, an episode that is recorded in only one other Gospel, the Gospel of Mark. It emphasizes to the disciples that they are to take the gospel, to demonstrate the grace and the mercy and the love of God to those who are unloved and unlovable, those who are marginalized and outcasts. It is a demonstration of God's love, as we have seen in John 3:16. Often we miss the next verse, "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him". The first coming of Jesus Christ focused upon grace to the lost, to those who were desperately in need of salvation, those who were on a one-way trip to the lake of fire, like every human being, and it was a demonstration of Christ in that by looking upon Him you could see the character and attributes of God the Father.

Matthew 15:21 ^NASB "Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon." Mark adds a little to this: "… and He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden". We should note here that we are told that Jesus went out from there. The "from there" is really talking about His ministry that we have seen at the end of chapter fourteen where He was ministering in the area of where He lived in Capernaum, which is just about five miles up the coast of the Sea of Galilee from Gennesar. So He leaves and goes to the area of Tyre and Sidon.

There are a couple of words here that we need to focus on because they are significant in relation to the event that we are witnessing here; the casting out of a demon from the woman's daughter. "Jesus went out is the Greek word EXERCHOMAI, which means to be in somewhere and to go out from there. Then we are told in the Mark passage that when He arrived in Tyre He entered a house. This is a similar Greek word, EISERCHOMAI, which means to go into some place. The root of both of these words is ERCHOMAI, which means simply to come or to go. The prefix EK [EX] means to go out, so it means you are in some place and you go outside. EISERCHOMAI means to go into a place, enter into a place. So we see that this says basically that Jesus is in one location, in the Galilee, and He goes out of Galilee and into the territory of Tyre and Sidon, and into a house. This is important because there are the most technical detailed and specific words that we find in demon possession passages, and it tells us what demon possession is: that a demon enters into a person, and when they are delivered or healed the demon comes out of the person. There is demon influence, which is the influence of demons from outside of a person—usually through the world system around us—but demon possession is when a demon, an evil spirit, enters into the body of a person and takes control of their bodily functions. We have situations in the Scripture where children are thrown into fire, people are blind or deaf, or are unable to speak. These physiological symptoms sometimes relate to the control of a demon.

Jesus left Galilee because the situation was getting a little intense for Him. He goes out of the Jewish territory and into the area of Tyre and Sidon. It is important to understand as He goes to this region that these were the two most prominent cities on the Mediterranean coast (what is now called Lebanon), an area which in the ancient world was called Phoenicia. These two cities had a terrible history in terms of the fact that they were the centers for the worship of the false religion of Baal and the Ashteroth. The worship of Baal involved some of the most horrible things we could imagine, some of the most horrific things that have even been done in the name of religion. They practiced cultic prostitution; they were practicing what was known in the ancient world as the fertility cult in order to somehow motivate the gods and goddesses to give the agricultural areas productivity. Not only did they practice this kind of immorality in the name of religion but they also would sacrifice their infants in the fires of the gods in order to placate the wrath of the gods. Tyre and Sidon represented all of these evils. Tyre is mentioned over fifty times in the Bible, usually in the context of judgment. Four entire chapters are given over to God's judgment of Tyre and in one chapter Satan is represented as the king of Tyre.

In the eyes of the Jews no rabbi would ever take his students there. There was nothing good there and, of course, the inhabitants are all Gentiles. Just going there would make a Jew ritually unclean. Going to a place like this would cause great conflict with the Pharisees who would reject the whole notion that Jesus could be from God if He could go to such a place. Furthermore, as a rabbi you would never talk to a woman. Rabbis would go out of their way to avoid having any kind of social intercourse with a woman, and much less a Gentile woman. Jesus talked to the woman at the well, something unheard of in the culture at that time. So we see that Jesus honors women, He has a reverence for women, and He ministers to the particular woman who is mentioned in the next verse.

Matthew 15:22 ^NASB "And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and {began} to cry out, saying, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed'.” The Greek word translated "Behold" in the NKJV is from the Greek word which in our idiom we would translate "Pay attention". In the parallel in Mark it is introduced as an explanatory clause, but Matthew is making a real point here in relating this episode. Matthew calls the woman a Canaanite, whereas Mark simply refers to her as being Greek, often used by Jews to describe Gentiles. She is said to be Syro-Phoenician and that locates her within this history of the evil religions of the area. But Matthew specifically calls her a woman of Canaan, a term that would be quite pejorative, almost on the level of using a racial epithet today. Under political correctness we have made any kind of racial identification slang an egregious sin. I think that is part of Satan's ploy to attack Christianity because if you buy into politically correct values then when we look at language that we find in this particular episode you'd think that Jesus would have to be a sinner—look at what He calls this woman, a dog! Matthew is referring to this woman as a Canaanite, which would be a pejorative term in Hebrew culture because it would bring to mind all of the horrible influence that the Canaanite religion had previously had in destroying the spirituality of Israel.

But this woman is different. There is something distinct about her because when she approaches Jesus she doesn't talk to Him as if He is just another religious leader, she calls upon Him as the Son of David. She has some biblical understanding; she recognizes who He is as the Messiah. This term "Son of David" is used nine times by Matthew to refer to Jesus; it is a messianic title. It is first used in Matthew 1:1, then in 9:27 when the two blind men called Him the Son of David. In Matthew 12:23 after Jesus had cast the demon out of the possessed man the crowd said: "Couldn't this be the Son of David?" And they said no, not at all; He did this in the power of Beelzbul.

There are six titles of Jesus' sonship used in the Gospels. We are reminded that in the Hebrew idiom "son of" can refer to somebody's parent. For example, in the Hebrew in the Old Testament they refer to the sons of Eli who were called "the sons of Belial", usually translated as "they were corrupt"—that is what the idiom meant. Someone who was a fool would be called the son of a fool. Someone who was a murderer would be called the son of a murderer. Those usually aren't translated that way in the Old Testament, they are usually translated in terms of their sins. When Jesus is called the Son of God it emphasizes His deity—not that He was born by God but that He is fully God. Son of Adam refers to His lineage. He is fully human; He is a direct descendant of Adam, as indicated in the genealogy of Luke. He is called the son of Abraham because He is a descendant of Abraham, indicating that He is fully Jewish. He is called the son of David, a messianic title. He is the son of David but it is emphasizing that He is the Davidic King, the Messiah. The Son of Man indicates His humanity, and son of Mary indicates that He was born of the virgin Mary.

The Canaanite woman calls upon Jesus as the Son of David to have mercy upon her. Here is this Gentile woman. She is an unclean pagan representing the whole area of demonic religion and yet she recognizes that Jesus is the Messiah, and she calls upon Him. Why? Because her daughter is severely demon possessed. In the Mark passage it says that her daughter had an unclean spirit. These are two different terms used to describe demon possession. The word to be demon possessed represents a present passive participle, DAIMONIZOMAI in the Greek, and this is where a lot of conflict develops because it is not a specific word, it is not a technically specific word; it simply means to be acted upon by a demon. This word is general and it could refer to demon influence, but it doesn't because in every case that it is used it is always qualified by other more specific terminology. Here we see that it is also related to the phrase to have a demon. There is something more personal and more specific about that phrase, the phrase that Mark uses. It is only used a couple of times in Matthew (10:1; 12:43) but it is used in numerous passages in Mark, as well as in Luke. That is their preferred term to use for demon possession—Mark 1:23, 26, 27; 3:11, 30; 5:2, 8, 13; 6:7; 7:25; 9:25; Luke 4:33, 36; 6:18. 8:29; 9:42; 11:24; Acts 5:16; 8:7. It means to have a demon.

But how do you get rid of the demon, and how did you get it in? That is important to understand. What is clear in the next couple of verses, and especially in the parallel in Mark 7:25, 27, the woman understands the correct procedure. She kept asking Jesus—and at first He doesn't pay any attention to her—to cast the demon out. It is the Greek word EKBALLO, which means to cast out. This means it must be in something in order for it to come out of something. It is not the word EXORTIZO from which we get our word exorcism, never referred to what happens in the Bible as an exorcism. The word is used in the Bible but it is only used of the practices of pagan practitioners in their attempts to cast out demons. It is used of one Jewish exorcist in Acts but it is never used for what Jesus and the disciples do. They cast out demons; the pagans try to exorcise the demons. So exorcism is not a biblically correct activity for Christians—not even an issue for Christians today.

Matthew 15:23 ^NASB "But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, 'Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us'.” Jesus not answering her seems rather rude but there is a reason for His not answering. His disciples also show a measure of being somewhat callous and think she is an irritant. The word "urged" (NKJV) or "implored" (NASB) is in the imperfect tense in the Greek, which means this is something they were continuously doing. He gives an interesting answer. He is not answering her; He is answering them. He makes the point.

Matthew 15:24 ^NASB "But He answered and said, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'.” He is really not answering because He is setting up the situation. He is giving her an opportunity to expose what she knows. Sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers because He is giving us the opportunity to further trust Him and to demonstrate what we know, rather than giving us an easy out. He is giving us an opportunity to trust Him and to think more deeply about Scripture. Jesus is emphasizing the fact that as the Son of David, as the Messiah, He was sent to the house of Israel, not to the Gentiles. Just as He initially sent the disciples out only to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, He is emphasizing that this is His mission as the Son of David. She should know this. She is calling Him the Son of David, and she should recognize that His mission as the Messiah is first and foremost to the Jews in fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants. For example, Jeremiah 31:10 ^NASB "Hear the word of the LORD, O nations [Gentiles], And declare in the coastlands afar off, And say, 'He who scattered Israel will gather him And keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock'.” It is the role of the Messiah to focus specifically on Israel as Israel's shepherd. Isaiah 40:11 ^NASB "Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry {them} in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing {ewes.}"

Jesus uses the same imagery in John chapter ten, but there He also talks about the fact that he has sheep that His disciples do not know of; He has another flock. That is a reference to the Gentiles. Hosea 2:23 ^NASB "I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘{You are} my God!’” Paul applies that to the Gentiles. God always had a plan for the Gentiles. The moment He called Abraham He said that it was through Abraham that all the nations would be blessed. So Jesus is setting up the scenario here that there is a proper order of events—to the Jew first, but also to the Gentiles.

Matthew 15:25 ^NASB "But she came and {began} to bow down before Him, saying, 'Lord, help me!'” She bowed down, submitted to His authority, recognizing Him as the sovereign God. She is desperate. Can you imagine having a child who is tormented day in and day out by a demon? Every single day there is not a thing you can do and you feel absolutely helpless and hopeless, and then you hear that this Jewish rabbi who has been casting out demons in Israel is coming into your town.

Notice how Jesus answers. On the surface it seems as if Jesus is being a little callous and is not very sensitive to her situation. But He is using this as a teaching moment related to His role: to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Matthew 15:26 ^NASB "And He answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs'.” What in the world is he talking about? He has just called her a dog! This is not a compliment, but this is how the Jews referred to the Gentiles. In the Greek this is the diminutive form of the word for dog and it refers to a household pet, one that lived in the house and possibly even to a puppy. The children are Israel; the bread is the revelation of God. It is Jesus the Messiah who is the bread of life, and He is saying it is not good to take the children's bread—referring to Himself as the bread of life—and throw it to the Gentiles. He sets her up so that she can reveal the doctrine in her soul and the proper understanding of the role and dynamic that is going on here.

Matthew 15:27 ^NASB "But she said, 'Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table'.” She is appealing to His grace. She says, "I understand that your primary mission is to the Jews, and your primary mission as the Son of David as their Messiah, but you have a plan and a purpose for Gentiles also; the Jews come first but the Gentiles come second. It is not that the Gentiles are ignored or are irrelevant, they just have to be in the proper order and we get the overflow of your grace after it is given to the Jews.

Mark 7:27 ^NASB "And He was saying to her, 'Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs'.” Jesus is emphasizing the proper order, the proper procedure in terms of the gospel.

Matthew 15:28 ^NASB "Then Jesus said to her, 'O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.' And her daughter was healed at once." He is not just ignoring her because He is callous or insensitive but because He is trying to give her the opportunity to demonstrate her maturity, to demonstrate what she knows about the Word in her soul, and to let that answer come out so that this will be a viable teaching moment for His disciples. He praises her: "O woman, your faith is great, you have understood a principle that my disciples are ignorant of, that the Jews are ignorant of."

Without going to her home He heals her daughter; He casts out the demon. Mark says: “Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out [EXERCHOMAI] of your daughter.” Jesus has gone out of Capernaum; the demon comes out of the woman's daughter. Mark 7:30 ^NASB "And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left." What we notice about both of these verbs is that they are both in the perfect tense, which means that when Jesus said that the demon had gone out it was already a completed action. The demon had already left. It is a completed past action with consequences that will go on forever.

Examples of the use of EISERCHOMAI: After Joseph is told that he could come back to Israel with Mary and the baby he came into the land of Israel. He came out of Egypt and into the land of Israel. Matthew 6:6 ^NASB "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room …" Matthew 8:5 ^NASB "And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him …"

Examples related to demon possession: Matthew 12:45 and Luke 11:26 ^NASB "Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there …" That is what demon possession is—when the demon goes inside. Mark 5:12, 13 when Jesus casts the demons out of the demoniac who has the legion of demons, they said, "Send us to the swine that we may enter into them"—EISERCHOMAI. Mark 5:13, the unclean spirits "went out"—EXERCHOMAI. Luke uses basically the same terminology. Luke 8:33 ^NASB "And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine …" It is very obvious that this term, to go into [EISERCHOMAI] and to go out of [EXERCHOMAI] is technical language to help us understand the mechanics of demon possession. That is important because if you mess up those words you really mess up your whole understanding of demonology, satanology and the angelic conflict. In John 13:27 we are told that Satan entered into Judas, and that is the same term.

What this episode reminds us of is the fact that we as disciples are to take the gospel to everyone. Too often we find Christians who say, well they're not in the right social category; they're dirty, callous, homeless; they've rejected everything, they stink. But this isn't the history of Christianity and it doesn't reflect the grace of God. Jesus is training the disciples and teaching us that we are to look at the world through the eyes of God, that no one deserves the gospel, but we are sent on the basis of God's love and mercy to give to the undeserving the grace of God and help them understand the gospel. Jesus is teaching the disciples and us that we are to love the unlovely, to minister those who are on the margins of society. We are to take the gospel to everyone without distinction. Every single human being is in the image of God and needs to hear the gospel.

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