From the Pulpit...

A casual reading of this passage could raise some wrong and even blasphemous ideas, especially in our overly sensitive culture. For example: Was the Lord rude and unkind when he initially ignored the lady? Was he mean or racist to speak about throwing crumbs to dogs? Did the woman really have faith or was she just clever in how she replied to the Lord? Part of the problem is that the text does not tell us background information on the woman. But it tells us enough that we can figure out something about her. Another problem is that we were not there nor did we live in the culture at the time, so we cannot definitively say what would be offensive or not in this kind of situation. The woman was a Gentile, but she had great faith. Thank the Lord that He receives Gentiles as well as Jews. Faith is the basis of that acceptance—not ethnicity or any other “human” characteristic!