I attended a Martin Luther King breakfast a few weeks ago and heard a fascinating message from the speaker, a prominent African-American leader in the community. She spoke from Matthew 15:21-28, the account of the faith of a Canaanite woman.
The story is unique in the Gospels, since it is the only time anyone actually “defeats” Jesus in debate. In other words, he concedes her point and changes his behavior based on her argument. A Canaanite woman (Mark identifies her more specifically as Syro-Phoenician) approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter of demon possession. Jesus at first refuses, since he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, and because “it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” The woman cleverly responds that “Yes it is…Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” Jesus is so impressed with her answer and her faith that he heals her daughter. What is striking about this passage is not only that Jesus allows the woman’s argument to overrule his own, but that he does so for someone of very low social status. She is not only a woman, but a Gentile, two strikes against her from a Jewish perspective. The story carries forward the pervasive Gospel theme that Jesus’ ministry is for outsiders and the outcast.
The traditional interpretation of the passage is that Jesus is playing along with the woman. He of course knows his ministry will eventually expand to the Gentiles, but he speaks disparaging of Gentile “dogs” in order to highlight God’s grace and to provoke a declaration of faith from her. In Mark’s version Jesus even says, “First let the children eat all they want” (7:27).
The speaker at the breakfast followed a very different interpretation. She took the common feminist and liberationist view that this complete outsider actually taught Jesus a lesson. Her insightful comment provoked a breakthrough in Jesus’ comprehension of his own purpose and mission. The speaker went so far as to claim that, based on this new insight, Jesus subsequently went to Jerusalem with this “new” message of inclusion, and it was this that provoked his crucifixion. The parallel to the inclusivist vision of Martin Luther King is obvious.
We may quibble with this interpretation of the narrative, not least because it is hard to believe the Gospel writers really intended to present Jesus as beaten in debate. Jesus is always in control in the Gospels and always in charge in the context of debate. But whether we find this interpretation convincing or not, it brings up the fascinating question of “What did Jesus know, and when did he know it?”
Evangelical Christians (like myself) have a tendency to focus so much on Jesus’ deity (prompted of course by polemical attacks on this critical doctrine), that we don’t take seriously the humanity of Jesus. But we must not forget that throughout his childhood, Jesus “grew in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). Jesus underwent normal human growth and development. He must have gradually come to understand who he was and what his mission was to be. (Few of us would claim that the baby Jesus lying in the manger looked around and said, “I created all of this because I am God!”) So it is legitimate to ask questions like, “When did Jesus know he was the Messiah?” “What provoked his recognition of the nature of his mission?” “How did his deity express itself in his own self-consciousness.” Jesus certainly had a growing recognition that God was his father by the age of twelve (Luke 2:49). But was this an awareness that he was the Son, or simply a son? And how did his growth in wisdom and knowledge progress before and after this point? As an adult, was Jesus still growing in wisdom and knowledge? Of course he was.
The writer to the Hebrews reminds us of Jesus’ humanity when he points out that Jesus “learned obedience” and that he was “made perfect” through suffering (Heb. 5:8-9). Jesus brought humanity to the destiny God had originally intended for it by living a perfect life — a perfect human life.
No doubt these (mind-blowing) questions will remained largely unanswered and unanswerable this side of eternity. But before we jump to conclusions about what a Gospel passage must or must not mean, we should take into account not only the true deity of Jesus, but also his true humanity, and the process of growth and development that is an integral part of being human.
Of course it is the tension between these two perspectives that sparks many of the debates about Jesus in the public media. Prime Time Jesus is here to address these issues.
+JMJ+
Dear Mr. Strauss,
Interesting that I should find this article on the first page of your blog, as I had just been prompted to find a way to contact you (to clarify this very issue) after watching the "The Case for Christ".
Jesus is not a human person, as you know. He is a DIVINE PERSON ONLY. He is a Divine person with two natures: one human and one divine.
There are three types of persons: 1.) Divine, 2.) Angelic* (*of which there are two kinds, both good and the other evil), 3.) Human.
Say, for example, you are out in a park in a cabin and you hear a knock at the cabin door. You ask, "Who's there?" not, "What's there?" You don't assume a bear would be knocking at the door, right? Why not? The answer is clear: because bears typically don't knock at doors, rather, people do. Of course, it is not the nature that does the action, but the PERSON. Nature is an answer to the question: what? It says what something can do. A bear doesn't have a nature that would knock. Nature is a thing's 'whatness'. It answers "what is it?" or "what can it do?" Person answers "what can it do?" Nature gives an ability, but nature does not DO anything ---the person does something.
Christ is one "who" and two "whats".
The Person answers WHO, and in the case of Christ, the Person is (and always has been) GOD. He has two natures: Divine nature that can read person's minds and souls, raise the dead, calm the sea, etc. and a human nature: he can eat, bleed, suffer, etc.
Our Lord's knowledge is Divine. He knows it all for all eternity. He always knew he was the Messiah! If you know who YOU are, and I know who I am, why wouldn't God know who he is? That's how we correct confused people.
Our Lord has infused knowledge, beatific knowledge and acquired knowledge.
Beatific knowledge is how he sees the world. He possessed this as man from the very first moment since his conception. He has a human intellect that is finite with a human soul. He can see everything there is to be known about all creatures, past, present a future. He sees the essence of God and the secrets of nature (i.e., everything you are thinking). He has infused knowledge which give him a perfect knowledge of everything that can be known about creatures, except the essence of God. He had acquired, experiential knowledge, which is basically by how one experiences something by sensory which is stored in the memory. (But this was experience in the context of infused knowledge for Christ, and beatific --- he knew everything that there was to know about apples, but at the same time he acquired knowledge of apples by the sensory experience, and then his perfect intellect recognized it.)
Jesus may confound us where we lack humility, but he is never wrong. We, however, are often wrong, whenever we try to re-interpret the Word of God apart from what has already been infalliably handed down from us under the guidance of the Paraclete.
(The idea of developing and understanding of God as a church is non-sense, since God isn't going to get a new idea; He's God, and He has already revealed everything we need to know about Him and what is necessary for our salvation. Anyone who gets any 'better' ideas since the handing down of the faith in the one, true Apostolic tradition, is... well, off the path.)
This woman who said this about Jesus learning a new truth was just confused. This is really blasphemy. He knew what he was saying, even if not all of us understood it.
As for the woman Jesus was speaking with, is there always a time when Jesus is speaking directly to each of us? Not unless we experience a special favor from our Lord. We shouldn't be surprised when we just don't understand everything, especially when we are talking about a Divine person.
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