Mark 7:25-29

Mark 7:25-29 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. Jesus seems to be very rude to this poor lady in our verses for today! Here she is trying to get her daughter healed and Jesus is calling her and her daughter dogs! Wow! So, is Jesus rude, or is there something else going on in our verses? Well, I don’t think for a minute that Jesus would be harsh with a needy woman. Jesus was harsh with the Pharisees, but they were prideful and needed a shock. But this lady came to Jesus humbly and pleadingly. I think Jesus was just testing her to see is she had faith to believe that He could heal her daughter. As a matter of fact, the same story is related by Matthew in his Gospel in Matthew 15. Matthew records that Jesus is amazed at the woman’s faith! And Jesus tells her, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” And sometimes Jesus will test our faith. He may send difficulties our way to see if we will be faithful. Actually, Jesus is more concerned with our faithfulness than He is with our happiness. And just like the woman in our story, Jesus may test us and let us see that our faith in Him is real. Do you trust Jesus? I hope so!