In Matt. 15:21–28 a Canaan­ite woman approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter.

21 Jesus went away from there, and with­drew into the dis­trict of Tyre and Sidon.

22 And a Canaan­ite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, say­ing, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daugh­ter is cru­elly demon-possessed.”

23 But He did not answer her a word. And His dis­ci­ples came and implored Him, say­ing, “Send her away, because she keeps shout­ing at us.”

24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, say­ing, “Lord, help me!”

26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

27 But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their mas­ters’ table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daugh­ter was healed at once.

It appears, after ini­tially reject­ing her request Jesus finally gave in to her nag­ging and granted her request. This may not be what hap­pened.  To under­stand what took place, per­haps we should first con­sider the mean­ing of the term “sent”. (more…)

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Many Chris­tians are curi­ous about this mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure called Melchizedek. What was the reli­gion in Jerusalem before Abra­ham was called? How could he be the high Priest of the Most High when the office of the High Priest was only defined in the Law? Some­how this doesn’t fit into the pic­ture, at least, of tra­di­tional theology.

Gen 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. (more…)

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Heb. 12:1 There­fore, since we are sur­rounded by so great a cloud of wit­nesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with per­se­ver­ance the race that is set before us

Is there in the ‘heav­enly sta­dium’ — look­ing down on Chris­tians still in the race? Who are they that wit­ness the deeds of Chris­tians? Most often the above verse is inter­preted that either the angels or the departed saints, the ‘Church of God’ watch Chris­tians from heaven. (more…)

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The pas­sage in ques­tion is often used as a proof­text that the law was abol­ished in order to estab­lish the new covenant. If it was so, what we call “new covenant” is not the new covenant of Jere­miah, which is the law in the heart, not the absence of the law. (more…)

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This the­ol­ogy has been held by var­i­ous churches right from the early cen­turies. It says that God changed his mind and now all promises and bless­ings made to Israel go to the Church. Israel totally lost God’s favour and they have no place in God’s future plan as a nation, except as part of the Church.

This the­ol­ogy, how­ever, totally ignores the nature of covenants. (more…)

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