{"id":24257,"date":"2022-12-05T22:00:27","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T05:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/mark-7_14-23-copy\/"},"modified":"2022-11-22T18:21:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T01:21:59","slug":"mark-7_24-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/mark-7_24-30\/","title":{"rendered":"God\u2019s Heart for People of Every Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p><strong>Mark 7:24-30 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Mark+7%3A24-30&amp;version=NIV\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-24259 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/22-1206.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/22-1206.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/22-1206-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s passage is Mark 7:24-30.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark 7:24-30 (NIV)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em><sup>24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On verse 24:\u00a0 Jesus goes into Gentile territory, visiting the city of Tyre.\u00a0 Whereas the Pharisees and teachers of the law would be concerned about becoming ceremonially by getting close to Gentiles, Jesus had no such concern.\u00a0 The fact that Mark places this passage right after the passage where Jesus declares all foods clean suggests that just as there was no food that could not be eaten, so\u00a0<strong>people of all cultures are loved by God and God does not discriminate based on culture or race<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps because Jesus had taught and healed people from Tyre before (see Mark 3:8-10), Jesus could not keep his presence in Tyre secret.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark 7:25-30 (NIV)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em><sup>25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet.<br \/>\n<sup>26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.<br \/>\n<sup>27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0&#8220;First let the children eat all they want,&#8221; he told her, &#8220;for it is not right to take the children&#8217;s bread and toss it to their dogs.&#8221;<br \/>\n<sup>28\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0&#8220;Yes, Lord,&#8221; she replied, &#8220;but even the dogs under the table eat the children&#8217;s crumbs.&#8221;<br \/>\n<sup>29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then he told her, &#8220;For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.&#8221;<br \/>\n<sup>30\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On verses 25-30:\u00a0 What do we make of Jesus\u2019 shocking answer to the Greek woman born in Syria Phoenicia.\u00a0 How could Jesus compare her, her daughter and her people to dogs while comparing his own Jewish people to children?\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 time this probably might not be taken as an offensive comment for at least a couple reasons:<\/p>\n<p>1.\u00a0\u00a0The term \u201cdogs\u201d is probably more accurately translated \u201cpuppies\u201d, so Jesus\u2019 comment was couching both Jews and Gentiles in a cute light rather than an offensive light.<\/p>\n<p>2.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus was testing and stretching this woman\u2019s faith.\u00a0 We as a church often try to eliminate barriers to people coming to faith and try to make it as easy as possible.\u00a0 But here Jesus is making it a little harder for this woman, not because Jesus doesn\u2019t want her to come to faith, but to prove the genuineness of her faith.\u00a0 There is wisdom in Jesus\u2019 approach, for by not making it super easy for this woman, by making her fight for it, she will cherish Jesus and Jesus\u2019 answer more.\u00a0 Likewise, sometimes\u00a0<strong>God will allow things to be a little harder than we expect and put us in pressure situations, not to be cruel to us, but so that our faith can grow under that pressure like a muscle and so that we would cherish Jesus more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>So when Jesus squeezes you, will faith come out?<\/p>\n<p><em>Father, thank You for Your heart that is for people of every nation, race and culture.\u00a0 Thank\u00a0 You that You don\u2019t always make things easy for us, not to be cruel to us, but so that we can grow.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s passage is Mark 7:24-30.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n<p>Mark 7:24-30 (NIV)<br \/>\n24\u00a0\u00a0Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nOn verse 24:\u00a0 Jesus goes into Gentile territory, visiting the city of Tyre.\u00a0 Whereas the Pharisees and teachers of the law would be concerned about becoming ceremonially by getting close to Gentiles, Jesus had no such concern.\u00a0 The fact that Mark places this passage right after the passage where Jesus declares all foods clean suggests that just as there was no food that could not be eaten, so\u00a0people of all cultures are loved by God and God does not discriminate based on culture or race.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps because Jesus had taught and healed people from Tyre before (see Mark 3:8-10), Jesus could not keep his presence in Tyre secret.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24260,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24257\/revisions\/24260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}