The New Ad Campaign

All over town, I find churches that have invested in slick multicolor banners with big bold letters stating, "Casual Dress, Contemporary Worship," and other slogans which aim to catch the attention of a certain audience. One church I passed today had scrolling across their electronic marquee, "We Serve Starbucks Coffee." Recently another church I saw had a large banner advertising "Blended Worship." This caused me to wonder how many unchurched people were out there shopping for "blended worship," or how many even knew what that phrase means. It seemed to me that the target for that ad campaign was people who were unsatisfied with their present church's music. So all of this got me thinking, and the following was the brainchild of that thought process:




I am curious to see what kind of attention it draws. I will keep you posted ....

God and Sports

With hockey season resuming, and the Triad being home to a team once again, I return to service as a volunteer chaplain this year with the Twin City Cyclones. My ministry to the team is under the umbrella of Hockey Ministries International. I will be conducting chapel services for interested players once a month, and providing services as needed and requested at other times. Yesterday, I went over to meet the players after practice, and was received well by them all.

Tomorrow night is opening night for the Cyclones. I will be speaking to the players prior to the game and offering prayer for them before they take the ice. So, what do you say in a time like that? Well, I won't be telling them that God wants them to win or praying for an on-ice victory. Neither do I want there to be a superstitious perspective on my presence and the prayer we offer. If you are a pro sports fan, you know that players develop superstitions about many things -- baseball players don't step on the baseline as they come on and off the diamond; some players have a "lucky shirt" that they don't wash all season, etc. The last thing I want these players to think is that our pre-game prayer is an amulet for success, or an omen of doom. So what will I say?

Something to this effect:

God, and prayer to God, is not a means to our own ends, but rather He is the greatest end of all our means. Our entire life is about pursuing Him. So my presence in the room with the team, and the prayer we lift up is not a good luck charm. God loves the other team as much as He loves us. Rather, my purpose here before the game is to remind you that you were made by God for a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God with your lives. First Corinthians 10:31, "... whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Colossians 3:17, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks through Him to God the Father." Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men." Because whether you win or lose, God is working in your life to bring you into a deeper knowledge of Himself and to shape your character for His purposes. In the film "Chariots of Fire," Eric Liddel is depicted as saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure." So our prayer before the game is that each player will glorify God by giving his best effort on the ice. We pray that each will play with honor and sportsmanship, that each will play to the best of his ability, that the players will be kept safe from injury, and that God would be glorified in all our lives, including the time spent on the ice in this game.

For an interesting look at God and Sports, see Slate Magazine's post today entitled "Are the Colorado Rockies Blessed? Examining God's Effect on the Baseball Diamond" by David Plotz.

Mark 7:31-37 -- “The Ears of the Deaf Will Be Opened … And the Tongue of the Mute Will Shout for Joy”

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Around 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the prophet Isaiah declared that when the Messiah came, the “eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy” [Isaiah 35:5-6]. In the passage before us today, Jesus demonstrates that He is this long-awaited Savior by performing these very tasks.

In the passage immediately prior to this one, Jesus had gone to the city of Tyre. We are told in verse 31 that he is now leaving Tyre, traveling through Sidon, and then down to the Sea of Galilee into the region of Decapolis. We don’t know why He chose this route, or how long His travels would have taken, but we do know that this was a circuitous route of somewhere around 120 miles. It would be similar to traveling from Greensboro to Winston-Salem by way of Danville, Virginia. Previously, when Jesus came to Decapolis in chapter 5, He cast a legion of demons from a severely afflicted man into a herd of pigs, prompting the locals to implore Him to leave their region. This time, when He entered, His reception was much different. As He came into the region of Decapolis He was met by a group of people who were bringing a deaf man with a severe speech impediment to Jesus, imploring Him that He might lay His hand on the man. And in the events that follow Jesus transforms a life and reveals Himself to be the promised Messiah. Let’s look at the events that unfold before us here in these verses and see Christ as they saw Him, and find application for our present situation as well.

The first thing that strikes us in the passage is …

I. The Important Work of Intercession (32)

Jesus is met by a group of people who bring to Him a man who is described by Mark as deaf and speaking with difficulty. Notice here two things.

A. A Man with a Helpless Condition

We are told that the man is deaf. We are not told if his condition is congenital or if it is the result of an injury or illness. He also has a severe speaking disorder, not uncommon with people who are deaf. He was not a mute; he could speak. But, his speech is described with the Greek word mogilalos, literally rendered in the NASB as “spoke with difficulty.” This is the only occurrence of this Greek word in the New Testament. Interestingly, when the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek, a translation we call the Septuagint, the word occurs only once there as well. Where do we find it? We find it in Isaiah 35:6, where the NASB reads, “The tongue of the mute will shout for joy.”

So here is a man who cannot hear what others are saying to him, and cannot speak to others about his own needs. Others have heard about Jesus. He has not. Others have spoken their concerns to Jesus. He cannot. His friends are leading him about, but he can’t hear them say where or why. He can’t even tell them whether or not he wants to go. He is at the mercy of those who are leading him. He is a man with a helpless condition. But he is also …

B. A Man with Helpful Companions

Not content to leave their friend in the silence of his condition, his friends decided to bring him to Jesus. Perhaps they had heard of His healing power; perhaps they had witnessed the incident with the pigs when He last visited the region; perhaps they had heard the testimony of the man who had been set free from the legion of demons. Whatever happened, these friends were convinced that Jesus could help their friend. So they brought the man to Jesus and began imploring Jesus to lay His hand on him. They were confident that the touch of the Master’s hand could transform the life of this man.

When I was growing up we had some very close family friends who had a son who was deaf and could utter sounds, but not in plain speech. When I was just a young boy, I learned to say in sign language, “My name is Russ.” No matter how hard I tried to communicate with my friend, all I could do was say, “My name is Russ.” My guess is that my deaf friend got really tired of me telling him my name over and over again, but it was all I could say to him. Some of us know folks like this, others perhaps don’t. But all of us know people who are spiritually deaf and mute. We try to communicate with them about Jesus, but they don’t hear what we are saying. It does not register with them, and they often do not know the right response to make. Surely most of us have experienced this frustration. But we must get them to Jesus because only as He touches them will they be able to comprehend the spiritual truth about their condition and God’s salvation in Christ. The Holy Spirit must do the work of convicting and converting! And so our efforts to witness to our friends will only be as effective as our labor of intercession – bringing them to Jesus in prayer and imploring Him to touch them. And as He does, our witness will be understood by them and they will find the salvation that we so desperately want them to know. We cannot emphasize enough the important work of intercession.

Now, notice secondly in the text …

II. The Individual Manner of Interaction (33-35)

We don’t know how many people came with this man to see Jesus, but we are told that there was a crowd of people present. And Jesus takes the man off by himself, aside from the crowd. It is the way of Jesus to deal with people one on one. This episode is about what He is going to do for this man, not what He is going to do for the crowd. They would be amused and entertained to be sure, but that is not His purpose. Jesus’ purpose is to transform the life of this man and He takes him aside individually to interact with him.

A. He Interacts Privately (v33a)

Mark notes carefully here that Jesus takes the man away from the crowd and He takes him off by himself. We aren’t told why, but two things seem obvious.

1. The private interaction minimizes distractions

Being deaf, the man relied upon his other senses more heavily. It has often been noted that people who have lost one of their five senses have keener abilities in the others. Therefore it is important that Jesus deal with this man in private lest he become distracted by others moving about around him, brushing up against him as they crowd in to see and hear what Jesus is doing. It might have increased Jesus’ popularity to entertain the crowd as He healed this man, but Jesus was never interested in popularity. Most of it was misguided anyway. Instead, He minimized the distractions for this man by taking him aside privately.

2. The private interaction maintains dignity

The man had already been made a spectacle of, by being led to Jesus and made the focal point of a crowd of onlookers. But Jesus doesn’t further the spectacle by using the man as a prop in a sideshow act. It is very important that this man have confidence and trust in Jesus, and Jesus demonstrates that He is worthy of that trust by maintaining the man’s dignity interacting with him in private.

When I was in Kenya ten years ago, the hotel where we stayed brought in local entertainment every night. One particular night we had this comedy magic act, and you know the guy was pulling coins out of ears, stuff like that. And then he asked for a volunteer from the audience. So a few guys on our mission team started pointing to another one of us, saying “Pick him, pick him.” And so the magician picked this poor guy, a pastor from Texas. Now the magician didn’t know this guy was a pastor, and maybe he wouldn’t have cared if he did know, but he started doing some rather crude and offensive little jokes and tricks with the guy, and this poor pastor was turning redder and redder. And all these German tourists and local Africans were laughing and having a great time, but the guys who had thrust our fellow team member into the spotlight were noticeably ashamed that their friend had been made into a spectacle. The pastor was a good sport about it all, but the mood of the evening was definitely altered from that point on.

No one likes to be made a spectacle of. Well, there maybe some who like it, but something is wrong with them. And in order to assure this man that Jesus respected his human dignity, He took him away privately to interact with him.

As we deal with those who are spiritually deaf and mute, we must also know the importance of private interaction. By talking one on one with a person away from the distractions of crowds and noise, and preserving the dignity of that person by not making a spectacle of them in front of onlookers, or causing them to put up a defense in order to maintain an appearance, we will have far more respect in their eyes. This is why I question so much of the stuff being done by so-called “faith-healers.” They rent out these big arenas and put on these grand and elaborate shows and people flock in there to watch them supposedly heal people. Jesus would have never done this. He deals with people one on one. And when He deals with a crowd, it is to preach the gospel to them, not to amuse them with His act. We must learn to value the importance of private interaction in dealing with people who don’t know Jesus, and we will be far more effective with them as we do.

Now notice, not only does Jesus interact with this man privately …

B. He interacts personally (33b-34)

Jesus does not follow a step-by-step method when He deals with people. G. Campbell Morgan said, “He never did anything the same way twice. There was infinite variety in all His dealings with men. He never healed more than one blind man in the same way. He never cast out the demon from more than one man in the same way.”[1] And so here, we see Jesus interacting with this man in a way He has not interacted with any other.

This man could not hear anything Jesus said, so Jesus communicates with him physically, using as it were a sort of sign language. First, He puts (or more literally in the Greek, He thrusts) His fingers into this man’s ears indicating that He was going to pierce the deafness of this man. Then Jesus spit. Now the NASB adds the thought that Jesus touched the man’s tongue with the saliva. If you are using the NASB (your own copy or one of the pew Bibles) you should notice that the words with the saliva at the end of v33 are in italics, which means that they do not occur in the original Greek text, but have been added with the intent of clarifying the passage. However, here they do not clarify, but rather add unnecessary information. “Mark does not say that Jesus spat on the man’s tongue, nor yet that He spat on His own hand and applied the saliva to the man’s tongue.”[2] We should be careful to note that neither does Mark say He did not do this. We don’t know.

Now, frankly, it kind of grosses us out to think that Jesus would put His own spit on another man’s tongue. But even if He did (and again, we don’t know if He did or not), it “would not have been as surprising to those in the ancient Mediterranean world as it is to us.” In addition to stories involving superstition and magic “where saliva was used as a curative agent, … there are also mentions of its use in more normal medical practice.”[3] Obviously, it was not important to Mark to indicate whether or not Jesus put His saliva on the man’s tongue or not. The more important question is why did He spit? Just as placing the fingers into the man’s ears signified the opening of the ears to hear, so here, spitting indicated that the impediment of the man’s mouth was about to be cast away. And then Jesus touched the man’s tongue to demonstrate that his speech would be restored.

Then Jesus looked into heaven. Looking up into heaven would have communicated to the man that what was about to take place was coming to him from God. This was to be no ordinary medical procedure, it was going to be a divine miracle. And then with a deep sigh, Jesus uttered the Aramaic word Ephphatha, which would have been an easy word for the man to lip-read, meaning “Be opened!”

So we see that Jesus went to great lengths to communicate to this man in a way that he could understand what was going on. Without hearing a word, he understood that Jesus was going to open his ears and loosen his tongue with power from heaven. And all of this was done so that the man would personally commit his faith in Jesus. It is not enough that his friends had faith that Jesus could heal him. This man must believe for himself. But he couldn’t hear the message that others were speaking about Jesus. He couldn’t ask others about Jesus. He had to come into personal contact with Jesus, who would communicate to him in a way he could understand. Everything Jesus did for him was to awaken and develop an intelligent faith within him concerning who Jesus was and what He was going to do.

And so Jesus continues to deal with people in this personal way. You may have difficulty sharing Jesus with someone, but as you witness to that person, you must be prayerful that Christ will make Himself known to that person in a way that the person will understand. You must pray that He will, as it were, thrust His fingers into the person’s ears and loosen their tongues as personally and individually as Jesus did for this man. And this should also cause us to beware of “one size fits all” evangelistic methods. I tell people that I don’t have any magic bullets that will always do the trick to convert a sinner. I just have the same gospel that you have. But as Morgan says, “If we are really going to deal with men in the name of Christ, we cannot deal with all men in the same way.”[4] For some, a gospel tract will suffice; others may need to hear our personal testimony; others may need a logical apologetic argument; others may need to see our faith demonstrated in our lifestyles. Some will respond well to a sermon, others to a film about the life of Christ. Some may need to be challenged to take up God’s word and read it for themselves. But each individual must be dealt with uniquely, just as Jesus shows us with this man. There is only one gospel, but there is a multitude of ways to share it. And this is why it is important for each of us to be about the business of sharing the gospel, because where one of us is weak, another will be strong, and together we join our efforts in reaching lost people. And it is also why we must be adaptable – not changing our message or compromising our convictions, but finding unique ways to bridge the gap of communication with each individual we come into contact with in order to share Christ with them.

I am speaking here of the individual manner of interaction with people, and how Jesus dealt with this man privately and personally. But notice also …

C. He interacts powerfully (35)

Immediately the man could hear again and speak plainly. The effectual element in this miracle is the divine power and authority of Jesus voiced by the word of His power to speak authoritatively this divine decree that the man should be healed. Here is this Jesus who can speak and the winds and waves obey Him, the demons surrender to Him, and even physical ailments obey His command. Just as the word of God’s power spoke the universe into existence, so here with one word, the ears and mouth of this man are opened.

We must see here the power of proclaiming God’s Word. There are so many exercises and activities that can consume a church calendar, but only one thing transforms lives. It is the proclamation of this powerful Word. I once heard Howard Hendricks say that there are only two things on this planet that are going to last forever – the souls of men and the Word of God. So why should we not invest our time and effort into things of eternal significance and proclaim this Word to these souls?

This week, Christianity Today featured on their website a story about Willow Creek Church in Chicago. Willow Creek pioneered the seeker-sensitive movement of church growth, and for 30 years has packed crowds of people into their facilities, literally redefining the way church is done all over the United States. Largely based on the model of secular business plans, Christianity Today summarized their philosophy of ministry this way: “church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage.” However, a recent multi-year self-study of their ministry effectiveness revealed a startling conclusion: their enormous slate of programs and “consumer” church model has produced very little spiritual maturity among their members. To which I said, “Duh!” You cannot convert people to God-centered living using self-centered methods! It will not work. What “works” is feeding people on the Word of God. His Word is powerful and authoritative and sufficient to open deaf ears and loosen bound tongues to declare the praise of His glory. His word transforms lives and those transforms lives then become contagious in the work of sharing His word with the world around us.

And so it is significant that here as Jesus deals with this man, He does so by speaking. And what His word does for this man, it will do for us as well. Our ears are opened to hear God’s truth, and out tongues are loosed to declare His praise. And we now have this Word of God in the Scriptures. And now if we would see His power at work around us, it will be as we take up and proclaim this powerful word in our work and in our witness.

Now briefly and finally, notice here …

III. The Intriguing Nature of These Instructions (36-37)

Here again, as elsewhere throughout Mark’s Gospel, Jesus gives orders not to tell anyone. Let’s observe the reason for these instructions and the response to them.

A. The Reason for the Instructions

We’ve discussed it before, so we won’t dwell too long on this now, but the reason for this gag order was to prevent becoming popularized as a side-show magician out doing tricks, and to prevent misguided messianic fervor from diverting Him from His Father’s plan. His true identity and purpose could only be fully understood after the Cross and Resurrection. And so to speak of Him only in reference to these physical cures He has worked is to speak with only a partial understanding. These miracles were foretastes of the complete redemption that He would accomplish for humanity in His suffering, death and victorious resurrection. And so following the resurrection, the command is not to keep quiet but to go and tell, because His work of salvation has been accomplished, and He has been declared with power to be the divine Son of God by His victory over death. So no one today can claim to be keeping the Messianic secret, because we have now been commissioned to take the good news of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

B. The Response to His Instructions

So utterly astonished were these people of Decapolis that they were not able to heed the command of Jesus. Notice …

1. The audacity of their disobedience (36)

The more He ordered them not to go and tell, the more they went and told – each time farther and wider. It is kind of funny – winds, waves, demons, diseases – all these obey Jesus. It is people who just can’t seem to do it. So Ezra Gould says, “The conduct of the multitude is a good example of the way in which men treat Jesus, yielding Him all homage, except obedience.”[5] Alan Cole says this is an illustration of “the strange perversions of human psychology.”[6] So totally depraved are we, that if God commands us not to do something, it creates a desire in us to do it all the more. Here Christ commands to keep quiet, and they go tell. And we marvel at the audacity of their disobedience, but have we overlooked our own? Now He has commanded us to go and tell, and we keep silent. We are as audacious in our disobedience as they are. But may we not view the Great Commission as a law which binds us as slaves, but rather may we be so caught up in utter amazement at the greatness of Christ that we must go and tell!

2. The Accuracy of their declaration (37)

Even though they were disobedient by going and telling, at least we can say that what told was true. “He has done all things well!” they said. Indeed He has. Just as God looked upon His work of creation and declared it to be “very good,” so we are able to look on all that Jesus has done and say that He has done it well. There are no mistakes in His will or His work, and like these folks of Decapolis, may we declare this daily in our lives as well. He has done all things well.

And they said, “He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” Here they are not just reporting the facts. There is spiritual significance to what is being said. You recall from the opening words of this message that Isaiah had prophesied that when Messiah comes, “the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy” [Isaiah 35:5-6]. This congregation of people were witnesses to the fact that He had come in the person of Jesus, with all the accompanying signs that were promised. They understood exactly who He was and what this meant for the world. The salvation that God had promised for centuries to bring to all nations was here in their midst. And this was good news they couldn’t help sharing.

This same good news we share with you today. Each of us is born in a state of spiritual blindness, deafness, muteness, and lameness, but Christ has come to open our eyes and ears, to loose our tongues and raise us up. If we will turn from sin and recognize that He has died to save us, then we can receive this salvation in our own lives as well. So if you never have before, then come aside alone with Jesus and let Him do His powerful work in your life just as He did for this man in our passage today.

---

[1] G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1927),176

[2] D. Edmond Hiebert, The Gospel of Mark: An Expositional Commentary (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1994), 214.

[3] R. T. France, The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 303.

[4] Morgan, 176.

[5] Cited in Hiebert, 215.

[6] Alan Cole, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St. Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 125.

Up Willow Creek Without A Paddle

Well, it seems that the folks at Willow Creek have finally realized that the Burger King ("Have it Your Way") philosophy of ministry is not all its cracked up to be. Turns out, all of their catering to the self-centered appetites of their "consumers" has done very little to promote real spiritual growth. Read all about it here.

Here's the good news: They admitted it without trying to rationalize, make excuses, or spin the story. I applaud that rare expression of humility.

Here's the bad news: For 30 years, churches across the country have been abandoning the Biblical message and means of ministry for the Willow Creek model, assuming that numerical growth was as important or perhaps indicative of real spiritual growth and disciplemaking. My first concern is -- how many of these churches will even discover the startling revelations of Willow Creek's self evaluation? Will they continue blissfully along the primrose path of their status quo without even being aware of this cause for concern? My second concern is -- how many will learn of these discoveries, but refuse to change because of fear of losing people, having to trim staff and/or salaries, having to cut programs, or God-forbid downsize facilities? My third concern is -- will those who recognize and change return to Biblical means or will they seek the latest fad or trend to replace Hybelsism? My fourth concern is -- why did it take 30 years of doing ministry this way and several years of study to discover this? It seems to me that a cursory knowledge of the New Testament and some personal familiarity with the people to whom they are "ministering" would have revealed it long before now!

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Mark 7:24-30: Faith that Moves Mountains

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If you knew in advance that this message was entitled “Faith that Moves Mountains” you might assume that our text would be Matthew 17:20 where Jesus says, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move.” Or perhaps you might think of Matthew 21:21, where He says similarly, “If you have faith and do not doubt, … even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen.” You would probably not expect to take up the subject of faith that moves mountains from a passage where the words “faith” and “mountain” do not even occur. Yet in this passage, we see a woman who is a remarkable example of faith overcoming mountainous obstacles that stand between her and the God who is able to help her.

Mark tells us here that Jesus has gone into the region of Tyre, a Gentile region directly northwest of Galilee in modern day Lebanon. We do not know whose house Jesus entered there, but we are told that He wanted no one to know about it. It is unclear, apart from the theme of secrecy that dominates Mark’s gospel, why this was. Perhaps because of the ongoing and rising opposition from the Pharisees and Herod Antipas, Jesus desired a little season of private respite. Or, it could be like the situation in Mark 9:30-31 when Jesus retreated to have some private instruction time with the disciples. Or maybe it was to finally have that time of quiet rest He and the disciples attempted to have back in Mark 6:31. You may recall that they were spotted by a multitude of thousands which Jesus began to teach and miraculously feed. We must confess that if the reason for this sojourn to Tyre was important, Mark would have told us, and he doesn’t. What he does tell us is that, as usual, “He could not escape notice” (v24). We don’t know how many were aware of His presence in the region, but we are aware that one particular individual found out and came to Him immediately in a state of desperation, and with tremendous faith.

This particular woman in the passage has a daughter, and the diminutive form occurs in Greek—a little daughter—who is afflicted in the grips of demonic possession. The woman has heard of Jesus. Perhaps she has heard a buzz around town that Jesus is there. It may be that she didn’t even know who Jesus was, but someone told her of His teaching and His miracles—how he had healed many diseases, how he had fed a multitude with just a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread, how he had cast out demons. And believing that this Jesus was the only one who could help her little daughter, this woman comes to Him immediately (Mark’s favorite word), and fell at His feet repeatedly asking Him to deliver the girl from her affliction. And in so doing, we see her tremendous faith overcoming several mountainous obstacles.

I. Faith overcomes the mountain of social status

This woman is given a thorough introduction in the passage. But it is not her impressive credentials which demand our attention, but rather the lack thereof. As James Edwards says that the description of this woman “reads like a crescendo of demerit.”[1]

First of all, though it does not offend us as much as it would a first century Jewish male, this is a woman. It would have been deemed highly inappropriate in the prevailing sense of decorum for a woman to approach a man as this one has. The fitting thing to do would be to send her husband to Jesus rather than coming herself. But that brings us to our second consideration of her social status.

Secondly, she is mentioned without relationship to a husband, which some believe implies that she was possibly widowed, divorced, or had never been married. If she had been divorced or never married, then she would have born an additional social stigma of being an undesirable woman at best, an unclean and sexually immoral one at worst. We aren’t told anything about her marital status, so it would be speculative to suggest which of these situations might be true. Nonetheless, it compounds the cultural scandal for a woman to come to a man in this way, when nothing is known about her husband, or if she even has one.

Third, you will notice that she is called a Gentile, or more literally as the original language reads, a Greek. Though she was not from Greece, this label was applied to all Gentile peoples. In the mind of the Jew, there were only two kinds of people: us and them. If you weren’t Jewish, you were Gentile. And if you were Gentile, you were unclean in the estimation of most traditional Jewish people. Because of this Jews typically wanted no contact with Gentiles or anything associated with them. For this reason, as Mark tells us in verse 4, the Jews would cleanse themselves after visiting the market, lest they be contaminated by coming into contact with Gentiles. Though Israel had been commissioned by God to be a missionary light to the Gentile nations, their nationalistic pride caused them to despise the Gentiles with extreme prejudice.

Next we see more specifically that she is not just a Gentile, but “of the Syrophoenician race.” Now the word “race” in the NASB is sort of a modern interpolation. Prior to the rise of evolutionary thinking, people were not thought of as being part of different races. In fact, most folks are unaware that Darwin’s most influential work, The Origin of Species, was subtitled “The Preservation of Favored Races Through the Means of Natural Selection.” Before Darwinism came to prominence, it was generally accepted that all peoples shared a common origin, just as the Bible declares in Acts 17:26, “He made from one man (or one blood as the KJV says) every nation of mankind.” The Greek word used here in Mark 7:26 is genos, and literally carries the idea of family. It is much more biblically accurate to speak of different ethnicities as families of people, people groups, or nations rather than races. And this woman’s ethnic roots were Syrophoenician. Tyre had been a prominent city of the Phoenician empire, and the Phoenicians had a long history of antagonism against Israel. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus said that they were “notoriously our bitterest enemies.” The Syrophoenician people represented the most extreme expression of paganism that a Jewish person could encounter.[2]

There was scarcely a rabbi in ancient Israel who would have welcomed the visit of a woman of this social status. In fact, Matthew records that the disciples were imploring Jesus to send this woman away. But her desperate faith overcame the obstacle of her social status and drove her to Jesus, and He did not turn her away.

Today there are many who are separated from God because they have not the faith to overcome what they perceive as a stigma on their social status. Perhaps it is the color of their skin, their ethnic heritage, their marital status, or some other factor. These things stand in their way looming large as an insurmountable mountain. But we see in this woman a desperate and determined faith that would not keep her from the God who could help her, and she overcame that mountainous obstacle to encounter Jesus. So what is it that is keeping you from Jesus? Is there some shame you bear, that you fear will cause Him to turn you away? Oh no. Jesus has said, “The one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out” (Jn 6:37). Faith overcomes the mountain of social status.

II. Faith Overcomes the Mountain of Demonic Devastation

The woman’s little daughter “had an unclean spirit” we are told in v25, and it is explained to us later in the passage that this is a demon. We are not told how it happened or why. Those things are of lesser importance than the fact that her present state is one of absolute devastation. Mark does not supply detail about how this demon manifested itself in the daughter, but he has done so elsewhere. Most notably, we saw a severe case of demonic possession in Chapter 5 where a Gerasene man was possessed by a legion of demons. He lived among the tombs running about screaming and gashing himself with sharp stones. And we are told there that no one could bind him, for every time they tried to shackle him with chains to subdue him, he would break the chains. While we are not told that this little girls case was as severe as that man’s, we do know it must have been similar, even if on a smaller scale. And though the neighbors likely feared and jeered this little child, and pointed blaming fingers at her and her family, there was one who could not do so. This little girl was someone’s child. And her mother loved her and was concerned for the life of her daughter.

As a pastor, I have on too many occasions had to minister to families where a little one was sick with a terrible illness. Some of you have experienced this in your own family, or you know someone who has. And you know in those cases how the mother will pace, and worry, and she won’t sleep and she won’t eat until she knows that something is going to help her child. And we can only imagine how much more intense that must be when the child suffers not from a disease but from a demonic affliction. Where could this poor woman turn for help?

A doctor can do nothing about a demon. A psychiatrist cannot help. There are no medications or surgeries that can help. No human agent or invention can compete with the supernatural powers of Satan’s forces. In fact, in the epistle of Jude, we read about a confrontation between the archangel Michael and Satan – two ontologically equal beings, both being created angels. And there Jude says that Michael “did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” But the Syrophoenician people did not worship the Lord.

Her people were historically pagan idolators, but idols would be of no help. Jezebel, the pagan queen of Israel’s King Ahab during the days of Elijah was of the same heritage as this woman. She was a Syrophoenician. And perhaps you recall from 1 Kings 18 the showdown between her prophets and Elijah at Mt. Carmel. They built an altar and asked for the true God to make himself known – would it be Jehovah or the idol Baal? The prophets of Baal cried out to their idol, “O Baal, answer us.” But the Bible says there was no voice, and no one answered. So they began to leap around the altar, but still there was no answer. Now, Elijah began to jeer and mock them, saying “Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god; either he is occupied or gone aside, or is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened." So they called out louder, and began to cut themselves, and this continued for some time, but still “there was no voice, and no one answered, and no one paid attention.” The Psalmist said in Psalm 115 that the gods of the nations have mouths but cannot speak, they have eyes but they cannot see, they have ears but cannot hear, noses that cannot smell, hands that cannot feel and feet that cannot walk. Though some pagan may turn to an idol in desperate faith, the idol will be of no help in a time of trouble. Perhaps this Syrophoenician woman had called out to the idols of her people and been left in deeper despair when she found them powerless to save her little daughter.

So no idol could help her. No human could help her. No angel could help her. This woman’s only hope was the true and living God, and somehow she had come to believe that Jesus was the only answer to her daughter’s demonic devastation. You may not be battling demonic possession but you are in the crosshairs of a spiritual battle that is being waged. Satan is at war with God but he is powerless to strike Him directly. And so he is out to bring devastation to God’s image-bearer—mankind. And when we find ourselves under attack, like this woman, we must overcome by faith in Christ. The faith that this woman had in Jesus would overcome the mountain of demonic devastation.

III. Faith Overcomes the Mountain of Personal Pride

David Garland writes, “Pride stiffens the knees so that they will not bow down and muzzles our voice so that we do not call out in humble supplication.”[3] It might have that effect on many, but we don’t see a trace of it in the woman in our text. She is not concerned what others think of her when she runs to Jesus and falls at His feet begging Him repeatedly to meet her need. She was neither too proud to bow, nor too proud to beg. And when she put her case before Jesus, if there was any vestige of personal pride in her heart, it would have surely been revealed when she heard His response.

He speaks to her with a parable, saying in v27, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Now in the mind of the first century Jew, they were the children of God, and the Gentiles were dogs. They spoke of them often with that very term. And what Jesus seems to be saying here is, “Leave me alone woman! I didn’t come to help you Gentile Dogs, I came for the children of God.” That is what it seems like it He is saying.

Now, we don’t mind reading about Jesus calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers and a bunch of hypocrites. They deserve it. We kind of like it when He says those things to them. But we don’t like it when He calls a helpless and desperate woman a dog. That is shocking to us. Numerous efforts to soften it don’t do much to help us. Some have suggested that He spoke this with “half-humorous tenderness,” and others “with a twinkle in the eye,” perhaps nodding and winking at the fact that this is how she would expect to be treated by the average rabbi. Some have tried to make much of His use of the diminutive form, not the wild pack of dogs that roam the streets, but the “little dogs” that people keep as pets. But all of these efforts of interpretive ingenuity are without warrant. Famed NT scholar F. F. Bruce said, “A written record can preserve the spoken words; it cannot convey the tone of voice in which they were said.” All we have to work with here are the words on the page, and they are sharp and jagged. But although we may be tempted to be offended at these words, the woman who had come to Him was not.

Personal pride would have stimulated her to argument and accusation. She would have called Him a hypocrite, and plead that her case demands special treatment. She would try to change Him into who she wants Him to be to satisfy her need. But she doesn’t do that. She recognizes the parabolic nature of what Jesus is said, and enters into it in her response. She perceives that the word First has not shut off herself or her people from the gospel’s power. She recognizes the ordering of His mission – to the Jew first and then the Gentile, just as Isaiah had prophesied. In Isaiah 49:6, God says that His Messianic Servant would raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved ones Israel, saying next, “I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” She does not plead for special privilege, but enters into the parable and says, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children's crumbs.” Pride does not prevent her from identifying with the dog in his parable, and as a dog sits beneath the table waiting for a crumb to drop, so she demonstrates that she has rightly heard and rightly understood the parable, and offers to receive whatever crumbs He may graciously allow to fall to her. Interestingly enough, she is the first person in the entire Gospel of Mark to correctly grasp the meaning of Jesus’ parables.

How shall we describe such faith? Humble, desperate, determined, persevering—yes all of these and then some. And Jesus says to her, “Because of this answer, go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And she went back home and found that it was so. Her faith overcame the mountain of personal pride, the mountain of social status, and the mountain of demonic devastation.

Let me conclude now with some points of personal application.

1) Perhaps you find yourself in a desperate situation in your life. Do not let any mountain stand between you and the God who can help you. Are you of a different cultural heritage? Have you come from a religious background of false belief or unbelief? Are you poor, single, widowed, divorced? Have you been cast out by those who claim to be religious? Perhaps some are on the other side – too wealthy, too successful, too happy in this life to see their need for Christ. Every person is in need of God’s help: high, low, rich, poor, urban, rural, Jew, Gentile, American, International. These mountains are not insurmountable. Come to Jesus in faith and find that those mountainous obstacles crumble beneath you as He makes His help available to you.

2) As you read the Bible, you will come across many sayings like the one in this passage which at first glance are very bitter pills to swallow. What will you do in those cases? Will you pretend those words don’t exist? Will you turn your back to God in anger? Will you turn to gods of your own making who are less offensive than the true and living God? Many have done just this. But to do so is to cut yourself off from the only possible source of real help. Embrace the mystery and the scandal of His truth, find yourself in it, and respond to Him from within His word, and you will find His grace falling, not just as crumbs from the table, but a satisfying feast of mercy in your life.

3) Jesus is the Savior of all nations, and He will receive all who come to Him in this state of humble faith, regardless of their ethnicity, their gender, their social status, their shame, or their present circumstances. The world needs to hear this message, and the church needs to hear this message. For the church is the body of Christ, the visible manifestation of His Kingdom in this age. And many churches have been derailed from the purposes of God by personal prejudice and pride. Historically, this church has not, and for that we praise God. But we must not rest on memories of the past. We must ask ourselves what we are doing in this day to make Christ known among all people. Would we venture into Tyre like Jesus and make His salvation available to those who are despised and rejected? For much of the world, Christianity seems to be a white man’s religion. For some in this community, this church seems to be a white person’s church. They do not know about 1967, they only know about 2007. Will we show those in this community and those in the ends of the earth the Christ we see here who crosses the borders and boundaries of nationalistic and ethnic pride and makes Himself available to all who will come to Him?

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[1] James R. Edwards, The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 218.

[2] Edwards 217.

[3] David E. Garland, The NIV Application Commentary: Mark (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996).