Welcome to this daily PBJ devotional. Read Genesis 22, Nehemiah 11, and Matthew 15 today. This devotional is about Matthew 15. Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands before they eat. Jesus replied, And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, Honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. But you say that if anyone says to his father or mother, whatever you would have received from me is a gift devoted to God. He need not honor his father or mother with it. Thus, you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. They teach as doctrine the precepts of men.' Jesus called the crowd to him and said, Listen and understand. A man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of it. Then the disciples came to him and said, Are you aware that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this? But Jesus replied, Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by its roots. Disregard them. They are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit. Peter said to him, Explain this parable to us. Do you still not understand? Jesus asked. Do you not realize that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then is eliminated? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart. And these things defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are what defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile him. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanite woman from that region came to him, crying out, Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon. But Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came and urged him, send her away, for she keeps crying out after us. He answered. I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The woman came and knelt before him. Lord, help me, she said. But Jesus replied, It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs. Yes, Lord, she said. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. "'O woman,' Jesus answered, "'your faith is great. "'Let it be done for you as you desire.' And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Moving on from there, Jesus went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountain and sat down. Large crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and laid them at his feet, and he healed them. The crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they glorified the God of Israel. Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion for this crowd, because they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may faint along the way. The disciples replied, Where in this desolate place could we find enough bread to feed such a large crowd? How many loaves do you have? Jesus asked. Seven, they replied, and a few small fish. And he instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground. Taking the seven loaves and the fish, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. A total of 4,000 men were fed, besides women and children. After Jesus had dismissed the crowds, he got into a boat and went to the region of Magadan. This is God's Word. Not too many people have the guts to correct Jesus. And for good reasons. Being the God-man, Jesus never makes mistakes and therefore never needs correcting. But here in Matthew 15, Jesus was corrected by a very unlikely person in verses 21 through 28. First of all, she was unlikely because she was a woman, as we saw in verse 22. Although Christ himself directly talked to women throughout his ministry and treated them with the same dignity as he gave to men, that was not customary in Jesus's society. Many in Jesus's world would have ignored or even rebuked her for what she said. A second reason why she was unlikely to correct Jesus was that she was a Canaanite, as verse 22 in the NIV put it. Since Jesus was in the Gentile land, verse 21 says it was the region of Tyre and Sidon, that's Gentile country. But since he was there, it was not surprising that there were Gentiles around. But Jewish people did not ordinarily mix with Gentiles, and they certainly didn't have religious dialogue with them. But the woman in this passage was on a mission. Despite her background, she came knowledgably to Jesus, calling him Lord Son of David in verse 22c. Clearly, she had not only heard about Jesus and his miracle working, but she had some insight into who he actually was. I said earlier that she corrected Jesus, and we'll get to that in a minute. As you know, many times correction comes with a side order of superiority. People correct others often because they think they're better informed or smarter or just better in some other way than the person they are correcting. This woman did not have that spirit at all when she corrected Jesus. Instead, she came pleading, have mercy on me, as we saw in verse 22. She later kneeled before Jesus before she corrected him in verse 25. As we'll see, she had a deep, appropriate sense of humility in her approach to Jesus. But she did correct him. Jesus did not respond to her request to deliver her daughter from demonic possession in verse 23a. So the disciples were quite annoyed with this woman in verse 23b and wanted Jesus to get rid of her. Instead of rebuking her or continuing to ignore her or to send her away, Jesus tenderly told her that his mission prevented him from helping her. He said in verse 24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Again, that's verse 24 in the NIV. His response did not dissuade her one bit. Instead, she kneeled and asked for his help in verse 25. Jesus responded with a proverb, and the proverb went like this. In verse 26 from the NIV, it says, It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs. And this is where she corrected him. Yes, it is, Lord, she said, my paraphrase here. She said, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. We saw that in verse 27. What a quick, agile mind she had. In an instant, she grasped the significance of Jesus' enigmatic proverb, embraced the implication of it, and then responded in kind. Let me break all that down for you. First, she grasped the significance of his proverb. Jesus used an analogy that elevated Jewish people and denigrated Gentiles. The children in this analogy are the children of Israel. So Jesus' proverb was an indirect way of saying that she had no right to ask for his help since Jesus was sent not to the Gentiles, but to the Jews. Her response in verse 27 showed that she understood his meaning. She embraced the implications of his proverb. Dogs were not thought of as great pets in Jesus' day. Instead, they were considered vile, scavenging creatures. That's who Jesus compared her to, her and all other Gentiles. He compared her to filthy, disgusting, from their perspective, dogs. And she understood that this was a put-down. But she embraced it anyway. And then, I said, she responded in kind. What I mean is that she entered into the proverb, and in her response, she showed Jesus how his own analogy proved that he could help her if he wanted to help her. Sure, the dogs don't sit at the table and eat off the good plates like the king's kids do. That's all true, and she agreed with Jesus about that. But, The kids are sloppy and drop stuff on the floor, and dogs are quick to scarf up whatever they drop. So despite what Jesus said, the dogs do get to eat. They don't eat in the same way that the king's kids do. But those dogs who are quick and crafty can benefit from the excess that the kids don't eat. When she corrected Jesus then, she was not rebuking him or pointing out that Jesus had made some kind of error. Of course he didn't do that. Instead, she was showing her faith in the deep mercy of God. Throughout the Old Testament, some Gentiles experienced the overflow of God's grace. Naaman did, when Elisha healed him of leprosy. Nebuchadnezzar did when God restored his sanity. The people of Nineveh did when they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Whether she knew any of these examples or not, she had deep faith in Christ and it showed in every bit of her response to Jesus. Jesus acted the way that he did toward her so that her faith would be seen by everyone else. Her example was a preview, a foretaste, of God's saving grace to us Gentiles. This passage then should lift our hearts in worship to God for his amazing grace and mercy. Although there was no covenant reason like the Jews had for Christ to offer us salvation, His intention was always for you and me to sit at the table with Abraham and Abraham's descendants and receive God's kindness and salvation. This passage should also remind us that there's nobody on earth who deserves salvation less than you and I do. None of us deserves salvation. Since we have received it by God's grace, We should eagerly offer it to everyone, whether we think of them as dogs or as children. And if you found this devotional helpful, please go to my website dailypbj.com slash subscribe and enter your email address. And then every day for free, these devotionals will show up in your inbox and that will cue you to be in God's word every single day. Please consider becoming part of my financial support network so we can keep making video content like this and more. Go to dailypbj.com slash support if you're interested in being part of that mission. Maybe share this with someone who might be helped in their faith by it. And I'll see you next time. May God bless you. Hope you have a great day today.