Three-year Bible reading plan for 10 May 2016

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Mark, Chapter 7, verses 24-37

²⁴ He healeth the Syrophoenician woman's daughter of an unclean spirit, ³¹ and one that was deaf and stammered in his speech

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.

³¹And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

³²And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

³³And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;

³⁴And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

³⁵And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.

³⁶And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;

³⁷And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Read more:Mark, Chapter 8

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7

7:24 Mat 15:21.

7:26 The woman was a Greek (that is, a Gentile, not a Jew) a Syrophenician or Canaanite. Canaan was also called Syrophenicia, as lying between Syria, properly so called, and Phenicia.

7:31 Mat 15:29.

7:33 He put his fingers into his ears - Perhaps intending to teach us, that we are not to prescribe to him (as they who brought this man attempted to do) but to expect his blessing by whatsoever means he pleases: even though there should be no proportion or resemblance between the means used, and the benefit to be conveyed thereby.

7:34 Ephphatha - This was a word of SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY, not an address to God for power to heal: such an address was needless; for Christ had a perpetual fund of power residing in himself, to work all miracles whenever he pleased, even to the raising the dead, Joh 5:21, Joh 5:26.

7:36 Them - The blind man and those that brought him.

NOTES

Jesus does not seek popularity: He asks people not to proclaim on every street corner the healings He performs. Yet according to the Evangelist's testimony, those who were healed did not listen to Him very well. Such disobedience might seem strange unless one knows fallen human nature well; once it is known...

Jesus does not seek popularity: He asks people not to proclaim on every street corner the healings He performs. Yet according to the Evangelist's testimony, those who were healed did not listen to Him very well. Such disobedience might seem strange unless one knows fallen human nature well; once it is known, however, these people's behavior becomes quite understandable.

The nearest and simplest explanation is messianic expectation. The general verdict, “He has done everything well,” is not accidental. “Well” here means correctly, in the way a prophet or the Messiah ought to act. People expected quite specific actions from the Messiah, above all demonstrations of God's power—the very miracles and healings that Jesus did perform in abundance. Next, according to the messianic ideas widespread in those days, Jesus was supposed to declare Himself the Messiah publicly and begin preparations for the messianic war, whose outcome would be the establishment on earth of the messianic Kingdom with Him at its head. This is precisely why those who were healed saw no need to conceal what had happened. They were sure that the requests for silence were only camouflage for the time being, and that very soon the Man who had healed them would in any case declare His messiahship publicly.

Here another, more general spiritual problem of fallen humanity is revealed, one usually called self-will in spiritual literature. It consists in the fact that a fallen person is generally incapable of following any logic of conduct but his own. It would seem natural to do precisely what Jesus asked—to keep silent about what He had done. After all, it was He who performed the healings, not those who were healed.

The point, however, is that a fallen person easily fits even what happens according to the laws of another world, the laws of the Kingdom, into his own limited logic. He readily incorporates events of the Kingdom into his own picture of the fallen world, confident that he understands everything correctly and is therefore acting correctly as well. If such a person considers it necessary to spread the news of a healing everywhere, he will do so, even though he did not perform it and the One who did asked him to remain silent. It is this all-embracing logic of fallen humanity, founded on the laws of the fallen world, that prevents a person from seeing the Kingdom.

Jesus' words, His answer to the Gentile woman's request that He free her daughter from the power of dark forces, may seem excessively harsh, even cruel. Yet there was no cruelty in them, only the statement of a simple fact obvious to everyone at the time: the world is divided into...

Jesus' words, His answer to the Gentile woman's request that He free her daughter from the power of dark forces, may seem excessively harsh, even cruel. Yet there was no cruelty in them, only the statement of a simple fact obvious to everyone at the time: the world is divided into Jews and Gentiles, into the people of God and all the other nations. This was a fundamental division that could not be ignored.

In this case “dog” is not an insult, but simply a symbol of uncleanness: for a Jew every Gentile was unclean by definition, regardless of the life he led and even of whether he believed in the God of Israel. It is God who cleanses a person. To be clean, one must belong to the people of God, who, as the sages of the Second Temple period taught, constitute a spiritual unity, a kind of single spiritual body. No one can be clean without belonging to it. Gentiles, of course, saw the matter differently; but the woman mentioned in the Gospel story was addressing a Jew and hoping in the power and mercy of the God of Israel, so her own opinions and views were not what mattered in this case.

By comparing Gentiles to dogs, to unclean animals, Jesus thereby makes the matter absolutely clear. The people of God really are the people of God, purity truly matters, and paganism truly stands below Yahwism—as far below as any pagan religion, whatever may lie behind it, stands below the faith of Abraham and Moses. The coming of Christ did not mean that all boundaries became blurred and all distinctions were erased; as such, they remained unchanged. What changed was something else: the general order of things, which, while preserving distinctions and even boundaries where they are appropriate, decisively destroyed every wall and barrier. In the fallen world, making a boundary impassable often becomes the only guarantee of its reliability.

It is not so in the Kingdom: there are no boundaries or distinctions there that cannot be crossed or overcome. Yet the distinctions themselves do not disappear; they merely acquire a new quality and cease to be hostile to one another. These are the distinctions Jesus invites the Gentile woman to accept, and along with them her own spiritual and existential condition as a given. Without accepting herself as she is, she cannot enter the Kingdom.

Naturally, there could be no question of this woman's having a right to her daughter's healing. But in the Kingdom there is no talk of rights at all: rights enter the discussion only when every relationship has been destroyed and each person who once took part in it now feverishly tries to preserve the remnants of what he once possessed in fullness, naturally and freely. The woman accepts the rules of life in the Kingdom: she claims nothing; she merely asks Jesus to enter her life and her daughter's life. Then He does enter, for such trust opens to Him doors that, for the one who opens them, become the doors of the Kingdom.

When we read in the Gospel that this woman was Syrophoenician, it does not mean that she was “second-class,” of the wrong origin, or had displeased Jesus in some other way. We know that the Savior is always ready...

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