Jews and Gentiles

(One Perfect Life Chapters 81-86) The Gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). This week we see Jesus reaching out to Jews and Greeks with His message of Salvation.

He is confronted by religious leaders who criticize Him for violating “the traditions of the elders” – ceremonial hand washing. Jesus kept all of the laws written in the Bible, but He did not adhere to the rules of Men. He goes further to point out to the leaders that some of their traditions actually violate God’s written commandments (Matthew 15:1-6).

Obedience to the Law is how we show God that we love Him (Deuteronomy 11:1; John 14:15). Obedience is not a means for earning salvation. Jesus further teaches that it is what is in our hearts (demonstrated by our speech) that defiles us, not what we touch or eat (Mark 7:17-23). The Pharisees were relying on their public adherence to the law to save them. Unlike their father Abraham, they did not have a righteousness that comes from faith (Genesis 15:6).

Faith was demonstrated by a Greek woman who asked Jesus to drive a demon out of her daughter (Matthew 15:21-28). Jesus ignores and then denies the woman her request until she showed a great faith. Jesus is showing that gentiles will come to faith and God will have mercy on them just as He did for the Jewish people.

Next Jesus go to an area known as the Decapolis. This was an area to the East of the Sea of Galilee where He had delivered a demon possessed man. Jesus had told the man to share how he had been delivered. Jesus now returning to reach these people. They were a mixture of Jews and Greeks. The Jews were not practicing their religion but instead lived like their Greek neighbors. Jesus performs many miracles and many come to believe and “glorified the God of Israel” (Matthew 15:29-31).

Jesus’ final act to show His love for Jews and gentiles in the region of the Decapolis came when He replicated the feeding of the multitude there. This time he had seven loaves with seven baskets of leftovers (Matthew 15:32-38).

Jesus followed the feeding of the 5,000 with the Bread of Life discourse. He follows the feeding of the 4,000 with a warning about the leaven of the Pharisees. Earlier Jesus likened the Pharisees to the tares sewn amongst the wheat and blind guides (Matthew 15:13-14). Now Jesus compares them to leaven that “puffs up” the dough. The Pharisees were “puffed up” with pride based on their adherence to the law. They relied on their acts of righteousness instead of having faith in Jesus who would die for their sins.

The final healing of a blind man is a metaphor for the people’s spiritual blindness. Jesus touched the man to heal him. The people will be touched by Jesus – before and after His resurrection in order to fully restore their spiritual vision.