Deeper Life #246

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.

—John 4:13

IN THE DAYS OF HIS flesh, our Lord worked nearly exclusively with Jews. But occasionally a Gentile burst through the crowd; and when that happened, Jesus Christ dealt with that person in a totally different manner. In every case of our Lord’s dealings with a religious Jew, there is a sort of serious solemnity about the Jew and about our Lord. But when He came in contact with a Greek, He seems to embrace the sharp wit of the Greek and deals with that person accordingly.

The account of the Syrophoenician woman in Matthew 15 is a good example. As the incident begins, the Lord wanted to be alone. He had a lot of publicity, and He was trying to get His disciples away when this Gentile woman burst through the crowd with a request. Jesus paid no attention to her. The reason was quite obvious—He wanted to be quiet.

Watch how our Lord dealt with her. He gave her a proverb and she gave Him a proverb back: “It is not meet to fling the meat to very little dogs.” The woman replied, “But it is quite legitimate for the dogs to catch the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”

We Christian workers wonder how we are to get these irreligious, yet healthy-minded people to the place where they will want Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Many people seem to be happy without Him. They are moral and upright. But our Lord describes them as lost.

Prayer Thought: O God, help me to help patiently those who say they are “happy and content without Jesus.”

SUGGESTED READING: ²⁴And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. ²⁵For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: ²⁶The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. ²⁷But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. ²⁸And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. ²⁹And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. ³⁰And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

—Mark 7:24–30