Misunderstanding Yeshua: Why on earth did He call that woman a dog anyway?

It had bothered me for many years, but this morning as I was praying the Psalms, I happened upon the key to breaking down a very serious misunderstanding I had about one of Yeshua’s (Jesus’) most notorious confrontations. And it came down to a very simple parallelism.

Psalm 22:16a For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me (KJV — yes they used inclosed, and it bothers me that it is spelled that way, but it isn’t my spelling mistake)

Now a parallelism is something we see in Hebrew writings where a concept is expressed in two different ways but means the exact same thing. Here we see two concepts –

dogs have compassed me

the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me.

The Hebrew word for dog, of course, is keleb, which is very similar to the name of the great Biblical hero Caleb — one of the two faithful spies who alone were allowed to enter into the Promised land out of all their generation. Caleb was the representative for Judah, even though he was not an Israelite by birth, but a Kenezite (Joshua 14:14). I will get into why that is applicable later.

The word for compassed is sawbab and the word for inclosed is nawkaf. They both have similar meanings, but nawkaf is a bit more aggressive in nature. In any event, the recipient of both these words end up closed in and surrounded, which is how we know that the phrases are parallel. What does this mean? This means that as sabab and nawkaf are being linked, so are the words keleb (dog) the phrase “assembly of the wicked.”

So, unlike what I had previously thought, dogs are scripturally equated not only with male prostitutes, but also with the assembly of the wicked.

But why did I bring Caleb into the discussion? Well, because it helped me solve a question that had always irked me, relating to the character of Yeshua.

How many of us have always hated this exchange between Yeshua and the Caananite woman?

Matthew 15:21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

I never liked it that He called her a dog, just being honest here. To someone of my generation, a dog was one of the worst things you could call a woman short of using profanities. And to top it off, He was up in Tyre and Sidon — not in Israel! It’s like, He went to someone else’s house and insulted them for living there, I never got that.

But, if we substitute in “assembly of the wicked” for dog — things get a lot clearer.

“It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the assembly of the wicked. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet those from the assembly of the wicked eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

Now that reads entirely differently and ties in perfectly with Matt 7:6a Give not that which is holy unto the dogs (assembly of the wicked).

It is no longer a personal insult towards this woman but a recognition of what she already admitted in coming to Him. Her people were not following the way of righteousness, they were not of the righteous assembly of YHVH — if they had the right way, if they were not the assembly of the wicked, she would not have been compelled to forsake her gods on her daughter’s behalf. Yeshua wasn’t insulting her, He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. Her very actions were an admission of this truth. What He was doing was provoking her testimony. And what was her testimony?

“yet those from the assembly of the wicked eat of the crumbs which fall from THEIR MASTER’S TABLE.”

This woman was given an opportunity to proclaim that YHVH is Master. And she did it. Her actions had already proclaimed it, and now her words followed suit. And Yeshua’s response to her is no longer to a dog, but He calls her “Woman.”

Now, how does this tie back in to Caleb? As I said before, Caleb was not born a Hebrew, but a Gentile, and yet he was sojourning with Israel — why? Because he also had, through his actions, admitted that he was from the assembly of the wicked (the Kenezites), and through his actions declared that YHVH is Master.

Caleb and the Syro-phoenician woman are pictures of those in the Gentile community who confessed and denounced their position as dogs, as part of the assembly of the wicked, and who receive deliverance for themselves and their children. I think that is just beautiful.

I have been waiting to understand this passage for decades, and my soul is just delighting in YHVH this morning. It is wonderful to receive peace after being vexed for so long about this exchange that seemed so out of character for Yeshua. Context really is everything!

Burning the Bridge Behind You — a Parable about Mercy and the Pursuit of Truth

I wrote this in February of 2013, but last week I heard a teaching that really brought this up in my mind again, so I am moving it over to the blog. Be sure to catch those teachings that I referenced at the end, they are life changing.

A man in a land of great darkness saw a bridge leading off over a chasm into an unseen land. The slats of the bridge were the right size for a man’s foot and even though the first step was very dark indeed, it contained a bit of light so he placed his foot upon it. The next step was perceptibly lighter, and in fact he realized that he could look ahead and see more and more light and less darkness. It was hard leaving the comfortable familiarity of the darkness he knew, especially since his family remained back in the darkness, but the light was drawing him and so he continued, one step at a time, each time making the choice to leave some of the darkness behind and step into new light. After some time, he became very impressed and puffed up with the amount of light he was walking in, and the amount of darkness he had trodden under his feet. He stopped and turned around and much to his horror all he could see was a path of increasing darkness. Facing backwards, he became contemptuous of that darkness and decided to focus his efforts on destroying it, ignoring the faint cries from those further on to turn around and keep going. So he removed a lighter from his pocket and kindled a fire on the slats that had previously been behind him, thinking to exterminate the darkness he saw. The fire quickly began consuming that ancient path that had led into the light, even destroying the guard rails. The man delighted in the destruction of the darkness, never giving a thought to the people on the dark end of the chasm, or those further back on the path — or, to the fact that he was not yet safely to the other side of the chasm. In his arrogance and contempt, he fell to destruction, never having reached his destination, and destroyed the path for many.

This is the tragedy of the Protestant Reformation, the Charismatic movement, the Hebrew Roots Movement, etc….

The darkness was the darkness the man was born into spiritually. The bridge is the calling of YHVH out of that darkness through restoration in Yeshua Messiah, but he did not know them by those names at first, he knew God and Jesus. The slats represent truth to walk in and lies to trample underfoot. Step by step he went forward, coming more and more out of the darkness and into more and more light until the splendid awareness of his knowledge got the better of him and he turned his back on Elohim without even realizing it, in order to gaze upon darkness instead of upon the light. Facing the wrong direction, he no longer had the perspective to see the mercy of a path growing ever more illuminated, but instead all he could see was a path getting darker. Contempt filled his heart and he cared nothing for the people on what he perceived as a path of darkness, — he had no love for them, no compassion, but instead only impatience. From his vantage point, he did not see the truth, that they were now on the path of light, and that he had turned away from that light and was now on the path of darkness. He deceived himself into thinking he was destroying the path to sin, but in actuality he was destroying mercy — the message of the Torah and the Prophets, the slats and the guard rails of the bridge that is Messiah. Having no mercy to stand on, he fell and took others with him, ignoring the cries of those further along down the road to repent and turn back to God.

It is human nature to believe we have arrived, to take our eyes off the prize and become more focused on the deception than on the truth. We start out in such deception, “our fathers have inherited lies” (Jer 16:19) and we get a bit of truth and it is a great temptation to turn around and view those lies with contempt. If that contempt is greater than our desire for truth, we will not turn back around. There is a difference between glancing back over your shoulder to offer encouragement to those behind you and turning around and facing the opposite direction. I see people completely derailed by the idea that it is their personal ministry to expose lies — in fact it’s all I ever see them do and they are out in droves on facebook. They are so intent on burning the bridge (interesting that I wrote bride first) behind them that they forget that the point of the bridge is to lead someone out of falsehood — it is a step by step process, there are no shortcuts. Lies must be personally confronted one by one — as King Josiah showed us, the idols had to be destroyed from the land one at a time. As Joshua and Caleb showed us, the enemies must be killed or driven out one by one, town by town, and we don’t dare turn around like Lot’s wife because when we focus on the deception, on the sin, on what is behind us, forgetting to press on in endurance, it is then that we are overcome.

So you know the Name of Yeshua and YHVH, you know some Torah, you’re Spirit baptized, you know the Gospel that Messiah preached, you know the book of Revelation — do not become so impressed with these things that you stop striving forward. Going forward takes far more humility and love than turning around with a sneer on your face. As you go forward, call an encouraging word over your shoulder so that people in darkness can hear and find the path, but don’t think you can stand your ground, facing in the wrong direction, and do anything other than hold people up. Do not dare to trample upon the mercy given you (and that path IS the mercy of Elohim), do not dare destroy the path for others, do not dare despise the path! You did not create the path, it is not yours to destroy. No one gets to the other side of the chasm in this lifetime, and so we need to keep going forward.

Addendum: This teaching came out last week, and I wish I had heard it years ago because I learned all this the hard way. This teaching goes far beyond what I wrote myself — http://www.houseofdavidfellowship.com/archives.htm September 6, 2014 — The Weightier Matters of Torah. I would also recommend Rico Cortes’, Ryan White’s, and Daniel McGirr’s teachings on Righteousness and Justice at www.wisdomintorah.com.

Developing Godly Character Pt 8: Who is the Proverbs 31 Woman? (The answer might surprise you)

This is an article I wrote back in February based on a revelation that really changed my life. I pray it blesses you as well.

I had secretly hated that Proverbs 31 woman for years–that uppity overachiever. I wanted to smack her hard. Oh yes, I have seen the Mighty Warrior teachings and all that–but it never stopped me from hating her. Mostly because this is how I read it:

She gets up bright and chipper every morning and makes breakfast for everyone

Her children rise up without complaint and thank her for the wake-up call, they are perfectly behaved and all straight-A students.

She dresses them in the finest fashions, and she never has a hair out of place

She is beautiful, with no unwanted fat, and she never ages.

She gets pregnant when she wants to, without problems or miscarriages, and she is a perfect lover for her husband because she never tires.

She provides her family with tasty, gourmet dishes.

She has her own home-based business, despite homeschooling her perfect brood.

Her husband loves to show her off because she is still so smokin’ hot.

She is smart, and witty and always knows the right thing to say and do.

Her children never fight, they love and respect her too much for that.

She tirelessly does charity work because her family is so well-functioning they hardly need her at all.

Her children become doctors and lawyers.

Need I go on? But yesterday, on my way back from shopping, I heard the voice of the Spirit.

Is she beautiful? Is she thin?–or is she judged by what she does? Does it say she has to do all of those things–is it a “to do” list, or is there something larger being communicated?

I was looking at Proverbs 31 as a to-do list that I was failing to measure up to–not as a picture of a woman who is there for people, meeting whatever needs she can meet. And I realized that she isn’t my enemy, after all, she is actually an idealized version of who I already am. She isn’t judged by how she looks, only by the fact that she dresses in accordance with her husband’s esteem. Nothing is said about her face, or her love handles, or about how her children behave or achieve. Or even if she ever gave birth or not. Here is the TDR (Tyler Dawn Rosenquist) version of Proverbs 31 (aka the unauthorized version):

Her husband trusts her–she is not a trophy or arm candy. She is an asset to his life and greatly valued. She treats him well and cares for him. She purchases what is needed and from her purchases provides for the entire family. She makes sure they are fed, and takes care of their employees as well, not mistreating them. She is recognized as smart enough to make financial decisions for the family, and does not squander the benefits of it. She makes sure her family is clothed and clean. She ensures that they have warm clothes for the winter months, and she sees to it that her house repairs are not neglected so that the family will not suffer cold. She never embarrasses her husband, nor does she drive him to poverty with frivolous spending–leaving him free to do the things he needs to do. She uses her skills for those who have need of them–whether they need food made, or to be clothed, their house cleaned during times of illness, a shoulder to cry on, or lips to offer prayers. She is such a blessing to people that they don’t notice how she looks, they notice who she is. She studies the Word of God and it seasons her speech. She doesn’t neglect to keep track of her household, the finances, and the needs of her family. She doesn’t let them lack so that she can be lazy all the time–they have clean clothes, food to eat and shelter. Her husband and children call her blessed and they appreciate her (adding this: even though the kids might say otherwise when they get angry). Loveliness can sway a man’s heart into an unsuitable match, prettiness can lead to vanity, and youth withers. Find a woman who fears God–don’t hold her back or deny her credit for what she accomplishes. Let people judge her by who she is and what she does.

Are you sure you aren’t a Proverbs 31 woman? The Proverbs 31 woman is not superwoman, she simply does and does and does. She is not etched in marble but etched into the lives of the people she serves. That list was never supposed to be a to-do list, but a recognition of the things an excellent woman is capable of and does on an everyday basis, or at least as needed.

An excellent woman is not thin, or gorgeous–if she was then most of us would have a good reason to judge God for not making us physically attractive in the eyes of the world. That is Greek thinking when we judge our excellence according to how things look–we need to judge our excellence based on what we do. The Greeks worshiped “perfect” beauty, we really can’t afford to follow in their footsteps.

When your child takes the wrong path, were all your labors truly in vain? If you put on a bunch of weight having children, does it diminish the care you give to others? What is, like me, you can’t have children at all–are you lacking as a human being? If you lack the ability to teach your own children, are you a failure for having someone else to it? Or do you get credit for providing for their education as you are able? Do you do and do and do and do? Are your family’s needs (wants aren’t vitally important) met within your ability to provide? Isn’t that excellent enough for you?

Sometimes it is as important to read what a verse says as it is to find out what the verse does not say. I challenge everyone to go through Proverbs 31 and see if the standards you hold yourself to are NOT written there. Why hold yourself to standards that do not define the biblical ideal of feminine excellence?

And while we are at it — you will notice something important about the woman in the sculpture — the ideal Greek woman, a beautiful woman to be sure, but apart from having no tan whatsoever, she also has no arms. The perfect Hebrew woman would have arms, to do and do and do and do — and then rest on the Sabbath.

The Character of God as Agriculturalist Pt 7: All things in due season

So much of scripture involves seasonal language, and so the reference cannot be ignored.

Ecclesiastes 3

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

²A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

³A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

⁵A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

⁷A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Thanks to the musical group The Byrds, this might just be the most famous passage of scripture on earth. But what is it telling us? I believe this passage by Solomon is about patience and wisdom, I believe it is about the Fruit of the Spirit. In it, I see the development of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. I look at this beautiful passage and see that things do not start out perfect, that we can expect tribulation. I see the refinement process. I see maturation and things moving forward. I see that things have to happen in seasons so that we can reap a harvest later. I see the balance that should come with experience.

Let’s be honest, we start out as the types of people who want to know it all now, we want to be mature now. But knowledge and maturity come with a price. Knowledge comes with time, experience and dedicated study. Maturity comes with time, experience and endurance. But neither knowledge nor maturity are complete without the revelation of God. We can have a worldly sort of knowledge, we can have a worldly substitute for maturity — but without a connection to the divine it is largely empty.

Unfortunately, the church has pushed us towards worldly excess in knowledge and worldly standards of maturity.

Knowledge for knowledge sake is an empty pursuit. To be a holy pursuit, that knowledge must be for the purpose of being conformed into His image, into the very representation of His character, into the sort of person who can fit into the community of His earthly Temple of living stones. If our final goal is not to glorify Him through our character and through His collective community, then our pursuit is worldly. It isn’t that we be known, but that He be known.

Maturity, as the world views it, is pretty much behaving yourself in a way appropriate to the given situation, as determined by the cultural norms. Generally when I hear someone say, “Oh grow up!” it is not because they want me to behave in a godly manner, but according to an ungodly manner. They want me to have no standards outside of the cultural norms of THEIR community — whether that community be the local church or Hollywood. Godly maturity is a self-sacrificial maturity. We decrease so that He can increase. We stop assuming that our desires are holy, or Spirit led, or even honest. We begin to question ourselves, as all children do when they begin to develop empathy. Only now we are adults who have come into the community of faith and the rules that governed out behavior as worldly children are no longer sufficient. We are more dangerous now, we are more willful in many ways, and we are often convinced that we are mature because we are now adults.

But God never called us to be adults. He called us to be mature children. Adults are independent, but children are by their nature dependent upon their parents. Adults forge their own way, but children are learning to be adults by watching their parents. Adults do as they wish, but children have restraints. Adults are masters of their own homes, but we are brides waiting for our Bridegroom and as such have not left our Father’s house. You see how the mature child mindset is completely at odds with the mature adult mindset?

All good things in time. We do not start out mature. It is unreasonable to expect people to come out of the world with any sort of real maturity. It is unreasonable to try to train up a dependent babe as you would a mature adult. With adults you tell them what to do and expect them to do it, but children have to be guided and allowed to figure things out so that they can truly learn, and part of that is watching to see what they are ready for and not just pushing them according to what we want them to know and how we want them to do it. One of the biggest problems we have in religious circles is not allowing for immaturity and ignorance (not in the nasty insulting sense of the word, but the recognition that we naturally do not know what we have not been taught!). I don’t expect someone new to God’s ways to do very much right, and why should I? How unfair would it be? And the temptation is there, while we are immature and unloving still, to start to impose heavy burdens upon those who are still learning to walk. And it is most unloving (and unbiblical) to want rigid conformance now.

Can you imagine taking a 9 month old who is still crawling, or not even crawling yet, and telling them to stand up and walk? And then telling them they are rebellious for their inability to do it yet? To everything there is a season. No one walks their way out of the womb.

Can you imagine taking a preschooler and telling them to do multiplication because you don’t want to take the time to teach them their numbers and addition and subtraction first? To everything there is a season. Even prodigies need to be taught the basics, or they will fail.

Can you imagine criticizing a deaf person for not being able to hear, or a blind person for not being able to see? To everything there is a season. If you want them to be able to hear or see, then get to work praying for them.

Can you imagine getting angry at a seed for not producing a hundred-fold harvest the day after it was planted? To everything there is a season.

I look at these examples, and what I see is not a failure in the babe of the Kingdom, but in those who do not recognize the seasons. If we do not understand the seasons, then we do not understand the community life as recorded in scripture. The seasons were given to us, by God, in order to teach us about the patient nature of His character, that He not only understands the concept that things take time, but that it was part of His design. Yes, He expects growth, but He expects it to happen “in season.” We need to do the same. It’s part of His compassion and mercy, and when we do not display that patient compassion and loving-kindness and gentle mercy, then we are sowing chaos, faithlessness and our lack of self-control into the lives of others. If we cannot tolerate immaturity in season, then our fruit is not where it needs to be and we are the ones who need to be taught, not the ones who should be teaching.

The Character of God as Agriculturalist Pt 6: Focusing on Fruit First and Foremost

Fruit, from a purely scientific standpoint, exists for one purpose and that is the transportation of seed from one place to another. Fruit is supposed to be mobile. A bird will carry away a berry laden with seeds, eat it and deposit the seeds far from the original plant. Humans and animals do the same, we take the fruit, and eat it and the seed goes elsewhere. How interesting is it that it was YHVH’s plan that all seed which is eaten is deposited in the earth WITH fertilizer!? Now that is brilliant planning. Blessed be His Name. Yes, fruit nourishes us, but its actual job is to make more fruit by making more trees or bushes.

But what is our fruit? Is it the things we try to do?

Look at the tree. Does it put any effort into making fruit? Certainly not, the fruit is what happens naturally in season, in response to the external stimuli of heat and moisture. We are much the same, we are creatures whose fruit will manifest in due time in response to our internal and external conditions. Fruit is not something we can force, fruit happens — or more often than not, is revealed. Works, on the other hand, can be forced and faked. Works are what we do, fruit is about who we really are — and most importantly, it determines the type of seeds we ourselves plant in others, for better or worse. Are we figs or thistles? Both of them are full of seeds, chock full of them!

What species of fruit we are does not change, but the quality of the fruit can. Our fruit starts out naturally inferior — Leviticus 19:23 even clearly tells us that for three years you shouldn’t even eat the fruit off of a new tree! It’s uncircumcised! Can I just say how wonderful it is to serve an Elohim who expects and makes allowances for the fact that our fruit will not be immediately good upon entering the Kingdom, that He allows us time to grow? That is the Father’s heart!

So why is the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22)? Because when we are grafted into the tree of Israel, that is the lifeblood that tree should be pumping into us, the very character of Messiah! It should be changing us, it should be changing our fruit. Our obedience or disobedience to the commandments will play a big part in how quickly our fruit changes, as will our willingness to be humble and loving and yes, gentle. We will do mercy, justice, and kindness in the lives of others.

Are we bearing the fruit of Messiah or of the evil one? His fruit will not manifest itself in mercy, justice or kindness. Messiah’s fruit tempers our flesh, while the fruit of the evil one encourages our flesh. The seed Messiah plants produces good fruit and that 100 fold harvest, while the seed of the enemy sows tares that chokes off the full potential of the harvest.

Fruit is who we are and what we propagate, works are what we do. Works can be fake — but fruit is revealed as soon as it falls into the ground and produces something. Whatever it produces will show you exactly what it was in the first place. Fruit can be transported and propagated through works, and fruit can be displayed through works, but flesh-driven works can also obscure our true fruit. Works committed under great pressure are often the true physical manifestation of our fruit. You see how deceptive works can be, and yet also full of truth? This is why the Kingdom is not only about works, but also about fruit. A works focused Kingdom can be an illusion, hence the focus in the Gospels on fruit in partnership with works! What we do is important, and if we claim that we are loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good faithful and self-controlled but never show it in our actions — then we do not truly have that fruit yet. We are still yielding evil or mixed fruit. Striving for the classic good works (church work, for instance), if it distracts us from producing good fruit (which requires submission to and discipline from our Father in Heaven), is a very deceptive trap. It seems like the right thing to do, but it is really just for naught if it springs up from a sense of guilt or obligation instead of pouring forth from the abundance of love in our hearts.Better to do nothing now, and spend time growing and maturing towards developing godly fruit, so that we can produce a hundred-fold harvest later, instead of settling for a 30-fold harvest.

Torah shows us the works we are commanded to do in order to show love to one another in truth. But the Spirit is the One who makes it possible for us to feel love towards one another. Worshiping God in Spirit and Truth is a response to both sides of the equation — be love, don’t just do love and don’t just feel love, don’t neglect one for the other, but embrace both. Be love. There is your good fruit, when you can be love.