Gentiles, dogs, and Jesus

[Green Kepi]

True...we don't talk this way nowadays...that is unless you want to start a fight. But, when we consider how we often use animal terms in illustrative ways...Jesus' comments are much more compassionate for His day and age. For instance, in football...we might say a particular football player exhibits toughness and we might say he is like a "bulldog". The player would take that as a complement. Someone might say someone was "stubborn as a mule".

The actual wordage could be translated in Greek as "little pet dogs". In that time and place most dogs had no owners but ran wild. "Pet dogs back then...had owners who kept them in their homes and treated them well. All Jesus does is to ask the disciples and the woman to accept God's divine plan that Jesus must work out His mission among the Jews first. He had not forgotten them...they too were special and His "pets" (so to speak). (That is what the whole Book of Jonah is about....

Now salvation is for everyone...for the Jew and now for the Gentile. He was not insulting the woman.

 

[Road Warrior]

True...we don't talk this way nowadays...that is unless you want to start a fight.

Agreed in a lot of ways, but I'm not so sure about this particular case...or at least this particular reported incident. After all, witnesses do make mistakes. It's not like Jesus wrote the Gospels himself. Who knows what was in his mind at the time?

The story, like so many in the Bible is subject to interpretation. Personally, I think if one has goodness in their heart, they will find the goodness in the story. If they have something less than goodness in their heart, well, they'll find it.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Should we assume then that Jesus called his fellow Jewish people his little pet dogs too? This never occurred to my knowledge, however I admit my knowledge is imperfect.

The precise term he used and the interpretation of possible metaphorical meanings is not the issue - what is the issue is if there was a difference in how he treated the respective groups and if so, what was that difference and WHY did that difference occur; what then are the implications of such differences.

 

[Doulos]

Matthew 15:21-28

Jesus refers to the Canaanite woman, a gentile, as a dog. How do Christians explain this? Does this mean Jesus only came for the Jews?

Jesus came in fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so he came first to the Jews, but ultimately his message and salvation are for all people.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
(Romans 1:16)

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:16-20)

Even Paul, the 'Apostle to the Gentiles' goes to synagogues first in the towns he visits. God has not forgotten his chosen people, but "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved..." (Romans 11:25-26)