Why Jesus called that lady a dog

Its been an interesting topic I have heard atheists use many times
In Mathews Gospel Christ calls a lady a dog
Matthew 15:22-28 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Now that seems insulting, lets not pretend that a woman being called a dog can be construed in to a good thing, then or even now. Dogs and pigs were both unclean animals to Jews, Christ was a Jew. The insult is clear and cant be polished.
So whats it about.

Well its interesting, Christ was a Jew sent to Israel and the Jews, this lady was a Gentile, Gentiles were commonly referred to as dogs by all Jews. Effectively Christ was calling her by the common Jewish label associated to Gentiles.
So what was the point?
Just prior to His comments to the woman, Christ had argued with the Pharisees about cleanliness and religion. He stated of them

8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.

The Pharisees were religious and had religious beliefs and practices to perform and serve, human rules. Their practices had become their religion. Religion over relationship.
They had taken their religion to new heights, they had ignored family and justified themselves by religion
We see this explained in verse 15:5
But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God, 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

Christ cuts the red tape. The woman he called a dog is not religious, before the religious people of that day she has no rights to anything, contrarily she is not just unacceptable she is unclean and defiled.
Christ hilights her plight as a gentile, "you are to these people a dog", but because you accept me, you dont need any religion.
The woman was in need of help for her child, many Pharisees ignored family in service to religion. The Gentile woman ignored all religion all social standards and went directly to Christ in service of her child.
Christs reply

, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.”

Christ teaches that it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with love.
All the rituals have no value. The value is Jesus.

The reason I posted this is I just learned it and it always perplexed me, I now understand what it was about.
If you have any other little queries let me know and I will see if I can find an answer.
Cheers

reply to post by borntowatch


This was also used as a lesson to His followers.
To the Jews first, then to the Gentiles.

I have a question for you.

Are you serious about what you have written in this post?
Many of your other posts seem like you disagree with the words and/or teachings of Jesus.

As someone that has struggled with these questions, I am familiar with questions, confirmation, absolution, and debate. I will gladly help you with any of these.

Your Friend,
tvtexan

reply to post by borntowatch


Dear borntowatch,

You learned the lesson, that is all that matters. The point is that although he came with a specific mission, part of it included being him. He came here to die, not to take over, that happens later. He came to be rejected. He came to show the heart was a better guide than the rules, if we allowed it to be. In addition to the woman you mentioned, he corrected his mother. His first miracle was at a wedding, his mother had never asked for anything from God, she asked her son to make wine for others, for a wedding. He told her that it was not his time and did it anyways. He was fully God and fully human, he knows we have to make choices and that people matter and relationships are built by agreement, he paid his mother back in the only thing she wanted, good for others. LOL. She knew who he was and what he could do and never asked for a personal favor. People never think about that. We read the bible and forget the human nature of people, we want them to be perfect, they are just like us, human.

Originally posted by tvtexan
I have a question for you.

Are you serious about what you have written in this post?
Many of your other posts seem like you disagree with the words and/or teachings of Jesus.

As someone that has struggled with these questions, I am familiar with questions, confirmation, absolution, and debate. I will gladly help you with any of these.

Your Friend,
tvtexan

edit on 17-9-2012 by tvtexan because: (no reason given)

I dont disagree with any of Christs teachings, I mostly disagree with Christians

If women have tails, watch them wag their tails whenever they see any guy driving something worth $100,000 and above!

Just kidding!

As the guy above said. The "Lost Sheep of the House of Israel" first....

The Lost Sheep will accept the True Gospel readily even if their lost... Note: not the Gospel of the demons - the Gospel of money.

The Gentiles are much harder to win because they tend to the flesh. They really love and worship the works of their hands, they love eating meat... Only very very few of them will readily accept the True Gospel that it's probably a waste of time, trying to win them to the True Gospel, not the Gospel of Wealth

Note, the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel aren't just those bunched somewhere near Palestine and allied with USA. In fact only very little % of their population is. They are most likely NOT those who run Hollywood, and run banks...

The Lost Sheep is scattered around the world, in every continent and every country.... Gives you a clue on who they really are

reply to post by borntowatch


Thats a fair interpretation of the event in that chapter. The essential message Jesus was conveying was it doesn't matter who you are, if you believe in him it is enough for him and your faith purifies you. She believed, she asked and she recieved.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by borntowatch

 

Thats a fair interpretation of the event in that chapter. The essential message Jesus was conveying was it doesn't matter who you are, if you believe in him it is enough for him and your faith purifies you. She believed, she asked and she recieved.

Dear lonewolf19792000,

I disagree, even the devil knows who he is and understands who he is. It is not enough, we must have minds renewed with his, we must be of love or we are of the Devil. Many will confess his name and he will tell them that he never knew them because they did not have the heart and mind of Christ, the heart of forgiveness and love. Who you are matters completely, you have to have a heart that loves God and others as much as you love yourself or it is all meaningless, you can meet every rule and still die to sin. It is not about rules, you can fail every rule, there is only one thing that is not forgivable, the choice to be completely self centered. Out traditions make void the word of God because it is not about ritual or rules, it is about our hearts, in my humble opinion. Peace.

Originally posted by AQuestion

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by borntowatch

 

Thats a fair interpretation of the event in that chapter. The essential message Jesus was conveying was it doesn't matter who you are, if you believe in him it is enough for him and your faith purifies you. She believed, she asked and she recieved.

Dear lonewolf19792000,

I disagree, even the devil knows who he is and understands who he is. It is not enough, we must have minds renewed with his, we must be of love or we are of the Devil. Many will confess his name and he will tell them that he never knew them because they did not have the heart and mind of Christ, the heart of forgiveness and love. Who you are matters completely, you have to have a heart that loves God and others as much as you love yourself or it is all meaningless, you can meet every rule and still die to sin. It is not about rules, you can fail every rule, there is only one thing that is not forgivable, the choice to be completely self centered. Out traditions make void the word of God because it is not about ritual or rules, it is about our hearts, in my humble opinion. Peace.

If having love is what makes you a child of God then hindus, buddhists, wiccans, satanists and a ton of other things are all children of God and you're pushing ecumenism and you negate Jesus being the truth the way and the life. Messiah was not some jumped up super hippie, he excersiced justice and the entire point of him creating the messianic movement was to give the religious pharisees and other sects fallen into apostacy enough rope to hang themselves with. To top it off he then began preaching in parables when they told him he had a demon, the parables were so they could not gain understanding and recieve salvation, in essence he damned them.

John 9:39-41

39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.”

40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?”

41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.

Luke 11:46-51

46 And He said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.

Matthew 23:29-36

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

It doesn't matter if Heylel believes in Jesus, he cannot be redeemed because Jesus did not die for his sins, the above verses were where Jesus (Yeshua) was exacting justice. It's not about having love, it's about loving righteousness and obeying his voice which has become our (believers) conscience. All people may be God''s creation, but not all people are his children, that is called ecumenism.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


Dear lonewolf19793000,

Tell me what the unforgivable sin is. How many are unforgivable? Is it being born unknowing or rejection of the truth? If it is not love, is it speaking ancient languages with the correct sound? You tell me how loving others is just not good enough, I guess knowing the secret sound is enough. Wow, what a world, the evil people are saved because they know a secret sound, the secret word. Yet God said that nobody was safe, that they could see him in everything and had no excuse. He said that they could see him in everything.Is being imperfect the unforgivable sin? If so, why did Jesus have to suffer for all sins? He said his yolk was gentle, yet, yours is unobtainable. I can never be perfect and do you think you are, you fail the one true test. Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Have fun with that. You are not here to judge, we are here to forgive if we believe in God and his forgiveness.