The Syrophoenician Woman – Mark 7

The story of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 has always been a puzzle to me, could you please explain it?

24 Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre . And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice. 25 But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.” 29 And He said to her, “Because of this answer go ; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30 And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left.

Jesus is showing that His love is not a partial or a biased love. He came to seek and to save the lost. It does not matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you.

A casual reading of the text would lead us to believe that Gentiles are second class and that Jesus only came for the Jews. This is not the case. Jesus is simply saying that the Jews were the first to receive the gospel message and then the Gentiles. That is the meaning of the statement “the children (Israelites) should be filled first”. The “dogs” in the text are the Gentiles. Up to this point, Jesus’ ministry had primarily been to the Jews. His answer was not a refusal; rather, it was a test of the Syrophoenician woman’s faith.

How did she respond? She asked for the crumbs, the leftovers. Her faith pleased Jesus and it led to her daughter being healed.

I hope this helps. Great question!

Pastor Eric