Matthew 15:21-39

Grace for the Gentiles
Book of the Bible
Matthew
Speaker
Tony Ferguson
Sermon Date

In this passage Jesus travels northwest into the region of Tyre and Sidon and encounters a Syro-Phonecian woman who has a daughter that's severely demon possessed. As she cries out to Jesus as Lord, she seeks mercy from Him as the "the Son of David".  Her request is initially met with silence from Jesus, but she persists in seeking deliverance for her daughter.

When Jesus does respond, He tells her that "It's not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." In humility she accepts the fact that she does not stand in the same privileged position as the Jews do, to whom the Messiah came. Though she doesn't have a seat at the table yet, she bases her request on the fact that even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table.

Description of the book of Matthew

As you come to the New Testament the first three books you encounter (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are referred to as the "synoptic" gospels. They are called the "synoptic" gospels because for the most part, they have a "similar view" of the life and ministry of Jesus. Though they account for much of the same narrative regarding the life and ministry of Jesus, they are not identical, nor are they intended to be. They assemble the accounts in different contexts, and contain different amounts of detail, but they are all important. God always seeks to establish a matter on the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses, so having these 3 synoptic gospels about the life an ministry of the Son of God is in no way redundant.

Matthew’s gospel communicates to us the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus in the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. From His lineage, to His birth, to His miraculous ministry, to His teachings, to His crucifixion, Matthew will time and time again point out that these things happened “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet…”.