Sunday, December 06, 2009

The Children's Bread

This week we had the story of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15). For some reason, it bothered me tremendously that Jesus said, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."

Yes, it is! Because that's what He did!

It almost seemed to me like Jesus was lying about that.

I fussed with Pastor about it. He finally got it through my head (at least, temporarily...) that according to the law it is not right to give the children's bread to the little dogs. But the gospel trumps the law.

I keep bumping into that again and again. And it trips me up over and over. The law is true. But the gospel is bigger and greater. Even though the demands of the law are valid, the gift of the gospel trumps the truth of the law.

3 comments:

  1. I don't understand... How did Jesus take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs?

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  2. The Israelites' Messiah is the Savior of the whole world.

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  3. Huh... I guess I didn't think of it like that. I'm not sure how I thought of it before, but when I read the passage earlier (after your post), my very first thought was that he made the dogs children, that Abraham's descendants are all Christians, that the Church (regardless of blood heritage) is the true House of Israel.

    But we just read about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for prayers, and I was recently reading in the Bible where the prophets prophesy that the Messiah is for the gentiles, as well. So I think I was interpreting the passage with all of that in mind...

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