The Power of (Humble) Persistence: Lessons from the Syro-Phoenician Woman
By Elizabeth Prata
The Syro-Phoenician woman from the Bible persistently sought Jesus’ mercy for her tormented daughter. Her humility and faith exemplify the importance of persistence in prayer and pursuit of divine help.
That video clip scene was from the 1983 movie Terms of Endearment. Shirley MacLaine is here advocating for her daughter, who is in a hospital bed dying of late stage cancer.
As parents, you’d do anything for your child, wouldn’t you? You advocate, press, urge, seek, go to the ends of the earth trying to find a solution for your child’s ailment.
In a scene from Mark 7, we see another mother advocating for her daughter. This mother’s child had been suffering for a long time from an unclean spirit. In the Bible unclean spirits are also called devils or demons. How horrible! This child’s suffering must have been tremendous.
Unlike Aurora in the movie Terms of Endearment, the mother in Mark 7 (the unnamed Syro-Phoenecian woman) was just as persistent, but quieter and humble.
To orient ourselves, Syro-Phoenecia is an area to the west and north of Galilee. The coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon were located in this region. The woman is also noted in the parallel verses in Matthew as a Greek. It doesn’t mean she was from Greece, but was a term the Jews used to indicate a pagan, or ‘not-Jewish’. She was also named as a woman from Canaan, (Matthew 15:22) who were bitter enemies of the Jews.
Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7 used a lot of terms to describe her, but not her name. Despite living outside of Israel, this woman had heard of Jesus. In fact, his fame was such that the whole reason He was in the area was that He wanted no one to know where He was (Mark 7:24). Bur in fact, by now Jesus was SO famous that people even from Tyre and Sidon had gone to listen to him in Israel (Mark 3:8) and knew of His miracle working.
Thus, what did this desperate foreign mother know of Jesus?
-she fell at His feet
-she called Him Lord
-she called Him Son of David
-she begged Him for mercy (knowing He could deliver it)
Now here is where it gets interesting. She had fallen at Jesus feet, had begged for mercy, and now she anxiously awaited an answer.
None came. Jesus was silent.
“But He did not answer her with even a word.” (Matthew 15:23).
She was not deterred. She was not insulted. She kept asking, and asking, and asking. In fact, the disciples complained, saying to Jesus, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us!” (Matthew 15:23b).
It was at this point my pastor, when preaching this segment, said “They saw her as unworthy of the mercy she begged for.”
In verse 24 He finally answered, but He rebuffed her again. He said He was sent to the house of Israel, not to the Gentiles.
STILL undeterred by this second rejection, the woman came again, ‘bowing down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” (v. 25).
The Lord rebuffed her a third time. He said “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
The Greek word is actually ‘little dogs,’ indicating a pet. Normally during this era people did not keep dogs as pets (remember Matthew 7:6 said not to throw what is holy to the dogs). In the situation of the Syro-Phoenecian woman, the word means puppy, in the verse of Matthew 7:6 dog means scavenging canine. But saying the ‘little dogs’ are under the table we understand they are house pets. Dogs in the house do like to sit under the messiest eater and eat up the crumbs that fall, don’t they?
Again, the woman was not insulted. She’d been ignored by a silent Jesus, then she was told He was not there for heathens like her, and now He likened her to a dog.
She rejoined with the perfect response, that even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs that fall. She was humbly asking for a crumb.
A proud, unhumbled heart would not have borne this; but she turned it into an argument to support her request. ~Matthew Henry
In our day we see so many videos of people responding to authority (like videos of police encounters) with women screaming that the cop was rude or disrespected her. Studies have shown many male fights that lead to homicides are started because as the assailants say, “He disrespected me!”
Not this Phoenician woman. She didn’t become huffy. She didn’t back-talk. She had her daughter in mind, she knew who Jesus was (if not deity, then at least a miracle working prophet), and her heart was humble. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
And as a result, she is forever declared in scripture as a woman of great faith.
I kept thinking of the Persistent Widow who continually cried out to the Unjust Judge for justice. She wanted justice, she wasn’t asking for mercy. But here again Jesus mentioned faith linked with persistence. “Will God not bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night, and will He delay long for them? … However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:7, 8b). Matthew Henry says of the Persistent Widow in Luke,
All God’s people are praying people. Here earnest steadiness in prayer for spiritual mercies is taught. The widow’s earnestness prevailed even with the unjust judge: she might fear lest it should set him more against her; but our earnest prayer is pleasing to our God.
Barnes’ Notes says, “Would they be found persevering in prayer, and “believing” that God would yet avenge them; or would they cease to pray “always, and faint?”
The same lesson can be found in the Syro-Phoenecian woman’s persistence. She kept asking for mercy.
The state of this woman is an emblem of the state of a sinner, deeply conscious of the misery of his soul. The least of Christ is precious to a believer, even the very crumbs of the Bread of life. ~Matthew Henry
Those who seek Christ humbly, asking for mercy, in no wise will He cast out, John 6:37.
