And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. Matthew 15:27
Billy Sunday, an evangelist and temperance campaigner of the past century, used to say that everybody is stuck up about something; some people are even proud that they are not proud. I believe he was right, because pride is such a pervasive part of our nature and has been since the Garden of Eden. It was pride that led our first parents to partake of the forbidden fruit, and it has been pride that has cause most of our problems ever since. Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of pride: inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin… the root of pride is found to consist in man not being, in some way, subject to God and His rule. The opposite of pride is humility, an example of which the Syrophenecian woman in our text displays. Her example teaches us that humility obtains that which pride denies.
The story is a touching one, of a Gentile woman coming to the Lord Jesus to appeal for her sick daughter to be healed. For a time, the Lord Jesus paid her no heed, despite the urging of the disciples. When she appealed to Him, He responded that it was not appropriate to cast the children’s food to dogs. The Jews frequently referred to gentiles as dogs. But the woman was not insulted, rather she used the reference to dogs to present her petition in deepest humility. To see her daughter healed, she was willing to take the lowest place possible. In response, the Lord Jesus not only granted her prayer but also praised her faith. She stands as a wonderful example to us today of what the Lord desires in order to bless us.
Self stands in the way of blessing, because we may feel we deserve the blessing, and fail to see that all blessing is based on God’s grace, not our merit. To the Syrophenecian woman, self was not important. She did not allow self to affect her concern for her daughter or her belief that the Son of David could heal the girl. If He would refer to her as a dog, she would be willing to take a dog’s blessing. As a gentile, this woman speaks to the gentiles reading this lesson. We have no more rights than she did. We often approach God with an atmosphere of entitlement, but we should know better. Our God does indeed desire to bless us, but He also desires us to understand that whatever blessing He bestows is not ours by right but by grace. He grants, but only because of His goodness, not ours.
Humility is not natural, but it is necessary, if we would see great blessings from God. -Jim MacIntosh