Hungry for God: Content with Crumbs

“But she answered Him, ‘Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.’”—Mark 7:28

It’s a wonder that God pays any attention to us. We who are rebellious by nature, selfish at our core, who prefer to think of ourselves as “good people” are actually anything but. We believe that we are really pretty good people, who will be let into heaven at the end of life. We believe this because we grade ourselves on a curve. We take the best Christians we have seen and then the worst offenders of society and place ourselves somewhere in the middle. We want to be good enough to be better than the felon in prison, but we want to be a little less than the radical Christian who quotes Bible verses all the time.

The fact of the matter is that God doesn’t grade on our scale, but He has His own and it is unchanging. If we are guilty of breaking one of the commandments of God, we are guilty of breaking all of them (cf. James 2:10). We are sinners—by nature and by choice. We are rebels, who have attempted a coup d'état, against the King of the Universe, who continually turn from His commands, who’s tongues are filled with poison, followers of the prince and power of the air, and deserving of death, hell, and judgment. We are desperate creatures who deserve the sentence we’ve been given. And if it were not for the grace of God, death would be the end—but it’s not. God in grace and love sent a Savior to passionately show God’s love to us.

In Mark 7:25, we see that immediately a woman comes to Him whose little daughter had an unclean or demonic spirit. We read that this woman is a Gentile (v. 26), which is a very important detail. She is not just a Gentile, but a Syrophoenician. The point that Mark wants us to understand is that she is a Gentile and outside the view of His ministry. She comes humbly, falling at His feet, pleading for the life of her child. And she begs Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And here is where we get to one of the most astonishing and troubling statements of Jesus. He says to the Syrophoenician woman, begging for the life of her child, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”

He is calling her a dog! Now, there were two types of dogs that are referred to in Greek. The word used to describe a wild dog that ran in packs with other dogs and the word used to describe a normal household dog. He chooses the later. What Jesus was doing was showing that He was sent to the lost house of Israel. He said something similar to this in Matthew 15:24, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But what does that mean? It means that the priority of the kingdom was made available to Jews before it was made available to Gentiles. Paul talked about this in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

As Gentiles, we must remember that we were

“at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ”—Ephesians 2:12-13.

We have been grated in to the olive tree of salvation, as Paul said in Romans 11—brought near by the blood of Christ as Paul said in Ephesians. Jesus was simply showing that He came for the Jews first. And describes the Gentiles as dogs, and the food was meant for the kids first. And this Gentile woman, who is probably quite wealthy, trades words and wit with Jesus. She answers Him in verse 28, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”

She comes to Him in faith, she is content with the crumbs Jesus gives. How many of us have that great of a faith? How many of us are willing to be content with the crumbs Jesus gives? We deserve death. We deserve to be cast outside. But, in mercy we beg of Him and God gives us crumbs. When we come to Him—ready to receive whatever He will give, He will reward us. And that is exactly what Jesus does with her. In Mark 7:30, He says,

“’For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.’ And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone’”

Lord, may we be content with the crumbs for Your table! May we never fail to realize who we’ve been in our rebellion! And may we never forget Your great love that enabled us to have the crumbs for Your table! May we always delight in You, and continually be amazed at who You are and what You’ve done for us in Your great and awesome mercy. Amen.