A: One of the verses to which you refer is Matthew 15:26
- "But he answered
and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast
it to
dogs." In this story (Matthew 15:21-28), a woman of Canaan
came to Jesus
to ask Him to deliver her daughter from a devil. Initially, He
refused
with the statement: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep
of the house
of Israel" (v.24).
When she persisted and refused to give up, Jesus made the statement
in
question about giving the bread of the children to dogs. The woman
still
would not turn away. She pointed out that even the dogs get to
eat the
crumbs that fell from the table. At this, Christ declared the greatness
of her faith and delivered her daughter.
In this story, Jesus is showing us that His main calling during
His
lifetime was to the Jewish people and not to other peoples of the
world.
When He sent out the twelve disciples in Matthew 10, He told them, "Go
not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans
enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
(v.5-6). Even Paul testified "that Jesus Christ was a minister
of the
circumcision" (Romans 15:8). When the Bible refers to the "circumcision,"
it is referring to the Jewish people.
You see, Jesus was born as the Jewish Messiah--as their promised
Holy
One. He came to them to fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies
concerning Him. It was only after He was rejected by them, that
the
message was offered to all people.
So, the children of Matthew 15:26 are the Jewish people. The dogs
are a
picture of the Gentiles--that is, everyone who is not a Jew. Jesus
came
to His own people (John 1:11). Just as it would not be right to
allow our
children to go hungry while we fed our pet dogs very well, Jesus
would
not spend His ministry reaching the Gentiles when He was called
to go to
the Jews.
The good news is that Jesus was willing to give crumbs to the woman
of
Canaan because of her faith even when His ministry was to the Jews.
And
now, after the rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people, "salvation
is
come unto the Gentiles" (Romans 11:11). According to the apostle
Paul, we
Gentiles were "without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of
Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no
hope, and
without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). Yet through Jesus
Christ we
"who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of
Christ"
(Ephesians 2:13). We have been given the full blessings of being
the
children of God. And, though Jesus will again reach out to the
Jewish
people, we know that He will never turn from us because we are
Gentiles.
I hope this helps. May the Lord bless you.
Pastor David Reagan