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Catholic Bible Study
Matthew 15:10-39
00:30:02
This week Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber continue their study of the Gospel of Matthew by diving into 15:10-39.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to form. Now I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, who is a professor of scripture here at the Augustine Institute. And we're going to continue our ongoing Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. So whether you're joining us for the first time or you've been with us all, open up a Bible or just join and we're going to do this little Bible study. And last time we talked about the difference between tradition as a capital T, a tradition that goes back to Jesus, therefore is authoritative or small t tradition that we have in the Catholic Church. We have small T traditions that can change that. You know, they don't go back to Jesus and they're implemented to bring more piety, to help out in some way, you know, and they can be changed. And I think one of the things, Michael, that confuses people is when they we talk about traditions because, you know, the Catholic Church respects tradition and we love history. We have a 2000 year history and tradition, which is one remarkable nobody, no country, no culture has that kind of longevity and richness in their tradition. And yet when a small T tradition gets changed, I think sometimes it's unsettling to people. They think, well, we're changing our traditions and if we can change our traditions, we can change our church's teaching and we can, there's a real difference there. Help people understand this idea of small T tradition and big T tradition.
- [01:21]
B
Right? Well, actually, that kind of concern has always been with the Catholic Church. So there was a great council, Council of Nicaea, that stamped out what was known as, or at least aimed at stamping out what was known then as Arianism or early Christian heresy. And there was a creed that was put together by that council, the Nicene Creed. And the council explained, and no one can ever change this creed. The this is the creed that is to be used. And then at the next council in the year 381, they changed that creed just a little bit. But that was really confusing to have after a council. What's going on here? Especially in 381, there were lots of people saying, this is troubling, this is problematic. And so for time immemorial we've had this issue of, well, some practices. So that was a liturgical practice, saying the creed in the liturgy. Right? The liturgy had a change in it there. So there are always these concerns that crop up. But what we want to understand is, for our purposes, capital T tradition paradosis in the Greek, what we would recognize, St. Paul talks about is those things that have been handed on from Jesus through the apostles to us. And Paul was very much aware of tradition because he was a Pharisee and Pharisees, Pharisees honored traditions, right? And so Paul had to let go of certain traditions, right, and embrace in fact the idea that Jesus himself had passed on certain things that were not just traditions of men, as Jesus describes them here, but as doctrines, as Jesus would say using this translation, that are meant to, to endure.
- [03:20]
A
And sometimes I think for example, right now in Germany they're having a synod and they're going to try to have this synod amongst German bishops and lay people and all these things. And some people there are saying, well, we're going to change some churches teachings about marriage. But that's not a tradition or even that's more than a tradition, it's a doctrine that goes back to Christ that can change. So if they change it, they're disobeying our Lord. And so, you know, when something is a moral doctrine, when something is a capital T, tradition, that's not changeable. I'll give you an example. You know, St. John Paul II said, you know, women can't be ordained. And he says, I don't have the authority, no pope has the authority to change that teaching because that goes back to Jesus Christ. Jesus chose the 12 apostles and he chose and intentionally selected an all male priesthood. And so that's a tradition that goes back to Christ and we can't change it. And no one has the authority to change it because no one's got an authority that's a pay grade above Jesus.
- [04:24]
B
And so here we have a distinction in our day we can recognize that there is an official magisterium, there's the Pope and the bishops united with him who can expressly define what church teaching is. This wasn't the case in the first century. And that brings us to the next story in the Gospel of Matthew. And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand. Notice the two things that Jesus says there, hear and under. It's not just enough to hear. And in Matthew's Gospel, understanding is of crucial importance. We saw that in the parable of the sower, hear and understand. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know what the Pharisees, I'm sorry, do you know that the Pharisees are offended when they heard this saying, why are they offended? Okay, because in the first century, there's a practice that before you ate meals, you washed your hands, didn't matter what the food was. Right. It wasn't because the food somehow was impure. The idea was that having touched something, you could defile otherwise. Kosher food. Right. And there seems to have been a debate about this in the first century, how all that worked. We don't think that all were on the same page on this. The Pharisees that are critiquing Jesus have very strong feelings, though, about this. And so they think you got to wash your hands before you touch any. Any food. As if impurity is so much more contagious than the old. I mean, a Jew could ride on a camel. Right. It's an unclean animal that wouldn't defile them. A Jew could ride on a horse. Doesn't defile you. Right.
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A
So couldn't eat it.
- [06:14]
B
You couldn't eat it. Right. But either way, the idea is the Pharisees are overemphasizing.
- [06:23]
A
Do you think what drives the Pharisees, Michael, Not. Not to get into a. Well, actually to get into an aside. Because this is always the fun part of doing Bible study together.
- [06:32]
B
Yes.
- [06:32]
A
Yeah. The Pharisee comes from parashim in Aramaic, which means the holy ones, the separated ones. The separated ones. And they're trying to separate from anything unclean, from anything gentile. And it seems that this parashim, this Pharisee movement, is adding a rigor to the average Jewish kitchen and eating that you would find in the temple for the priests. In other words, that the kind of rigor that the priests had to observe in temple sacrifice and eating and washing in the temple, they're now requiring of everybody.
- [07:09]
B
There's a lot of scholarships.
- [07:10]
A
What do you think about that idea?
- [07:11]
B
I'm not 100% convinced that that's right for various reasons. But what I am convinced about is that they are trying to introduce this pronounced sense of rigorous. And there's a reason for that. Why are the Romans in charge? Why are the Romans oppressing them? Why does Israel find itself under the thumb of gentiles? Because we haven't been keeping the law. Right. If you don't keep the law, then your enemies are going to come.
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You're punished with enemies ruling you.
- [07:37]
B
And so there is actually a connection in the 1st century between Pharisees and zealot movements. Right. You do actually see that connection. And so I think the reason the Pharisees are so adamant here is out of a real recognition that we've really messed up. And we need to find ways to magnify the importance of the law. And so the idea was you build a hedge around the law, right?
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A hedge around the Torah.
- [08:04]
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A hedge around the Torah. So, well, we're not going to break the Torah's laws, but we'll add some other laws around that. So if you break those, at least you're not breaking the laws of the Torah. And here. And so I think that's the idea behind the Pharisaic movement, whether or not they're trying to apply. I just recently was researching this again and there are some aspects of the Pharisaical doctrine. If you. And the Pharisees, which Pharisees are the Pharisees? Right. There were disputes within the Pharisees whether they were trying to apply priestly holiness. Not everybody is sure about that. It might be. Some have thought that, but not sure. But the key idea is their emphasis on Torah observance. That's absolutely paramount and that's what their traditions are all about.
- [08:51]
A
And Jesus here has such a striking yet simple but profound insight that as they're all worried about what they're going to put into their mouths, Jesus gets to the heart of what really matters. And it's what comes out of our mouth, not the food we put in, but that defiles us. But really it's the words we speak that can defile us. Wow, what a powerful idea. That how I speak, what I say about others, how I speak, that is how I can defile myself. And that's something for all. That's kind of a resting for all of us.
- [09:24]
B
Right. In the first century there was an understanding that impurity is what comes out of a body. And there are some later traditions, Rabbinic traditions that have that idea. So, so Jesus is speaking like a first century Jew in this context. But nonetheless, the point that he wants to underscore is the key is once again the heart. What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person. So it's not that, oh, you know, something from the outside can come into the inside of me and defile the inside of me. No, it's what comes out of your heart that is what is most important here. And this is a major theme we're going to see throughout the Gospel of Matthew, the importance of the heart.
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A
Now that's going to be. That's a theme that we find in one of Moses books.
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B
Absolutely. In the book of Deuteronomy. Right. In Deuteronomy 10, the Lord says, or Moses says, He says, circumcise your hearts. Why are you disobedient? You need to circumcise your hearts. Now how do you circumcise your heart doesn't actually tell you how to do that. And at the end of the book, in Deuteronomy 30, Moses says one day the people will turn to him and the Lord will circumcise their hearts. So having a circumcised heart is something only God can give. In Jeremiah, we'll pick this up in Jeremiah 31. The promise of a new covenant is when God will write his law on the hearts of his people. And in fact, Jesus is going to allude to that prophecy at the Last Supper. We'll talk about that then. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. In other words, it's not like, oh, I've touched something unclean. And now, I mean, I've, you know, I've got to be super careful about defiling the inside of me by washing my hands. No, moral impurity is not simply a matter of hand washing, but it goes deeper than that. And I think that's the main point here. And of course it leads us to the next story because right after Jesus. So just to kind of contextualize this, right before Jesus conflict with the Pharisees, right before they're upset with him for his teaching about washing hands. Matthew's clear, Jesus has the tassels on his garments. He's a faithful Jew.
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A
What is it about humans that we love to regulate things that we can control, which is outside the body, we can't control the heart, we can't see, we can't monitor. You can't put a, you can't put any kind of controlling device on the heart.
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Right, right.
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A
So for example, you know, there's people who out of deferential and out of care, you know, will wear a Covid mask, which is good to do. But then there's people who then make that about everything. It becomes a virtue signaling thing sometimes for some people where they'll accost somebody for not doing it. And we love to, to measure the outside, but it's the inside that our Lord wants us to really focus on.
- [12:48]
B
That's right. 100% correct. And so we're going to see now example of that in the next story. So Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. So now he's in a Gentile district, which is really interesting. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. Now, it's rather remarkable that Matthew uses the language of a Canaanite woman. We have a different description of her in the Gospel of Mark. She's a Syrophoenician woman. But Canaanite reminds us of the people of the land who were there before the Israelites came into the land. And it was, of course, under David that the conquest of the Canaanites was complete. So Jesus is the son of David, and a Canaanite woman, the kinds of people that David would have conquered, comes out. And she addresses him as Lord, son of David. But Jesus doesn't answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, send her away because she's a pain in the neck. Well, that's not exactly what they say, but that's the idea. And he answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So Jesus public ministry is not the Gentiles. Jesus sends the disciples out to the Gentiles, but during his public ministry, he's focused on Israel. And she came and knelt before him, saying, lord, help me. And. And he answered, it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Now, this isn't the most polite thing you could say, right? Call a woman a dog. What's going on here? Canaanites were identified as dogs because as pagans, they were promiscuous. And they were not. How should I put it?
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A
Yeah. I mean, the Jews saw the Canaanites as very sexually promiscuous. So they compared them to dogs.
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B
That's right.
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So it was a very derogatory term that they used for the Canaanites.
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Canaan. Canine. Canine.
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Sorry, you're barking up the wrong tree with me. But our Lord challenges her with this very hard statement. And then she responds, and I love. You know, Thomas Aquinas says that humility is submitting to God and others. Right. Or submitting, you know, and she accepts that Jesus is called just to the children of Israel, that she's not an Israelite. She accepts that. But then, notice what she does. She's going to still beg based on that, which is really her humility is heroic.
- [15:49]
B
She says, yet, Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. And here we have, I think, a great model of persistence in prayer. Of course, Jesus knows what is going to happen. Jesus knows what's going to happen. 40 years in advance. He knows what's going to happen at the end of time. He knows what's going to happen with the woman. Jesus wants us to persist in prayer, all right? And not in a way that insists on our will versus his will. It's always, thy will be done. But Jesus wants us to come to him with our needs. And Jesus says, a woman. Great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. So here we have Jesus actually working a miracle among the Gentiles. Right. And this is going to foreshadow what happens at the end of the Gospel when he sends out the disciples to the Gentiles and then after this.
- [16:52]
A
Yeah, I think, by the way, the fact that he gives her such a stern challenge, you know, it's not lawful to give the bread of children to the dogs. You know, he challenges her greatly, but then that gives her the opportunity to respond greatly with a great magnanimity and humility. And now, you know, there's people like Gary Tyson who argue that sociologically, at this time, Israel grew a lot of wheat and bread. And during this time, there was some bread shortages. And people in Tyre and Sidon who were much wealthier, would buy up the bread in Galilee and make it harder for Galileans, who were poorer to afford food. So that there's also a play here socioeconomically. And so he's challenging her. You know, you're taking the bread from Israel and buying it, making it harder for the children. And so he's. So there's reasons below the surface that he's pushing her. But she. What we do know is that Jesus challenges her and she responds.
- [17:54]
B
That's right. All right. Now, after that, he went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee, and he went up on the mountain and sat down there, and great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. And they put them at his feet, and he healed them so that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, the blind seen, and they glorified the God of Israel. So here we have a sense that Jesus is in at least an area where there are some Gentiles. Is this anticipation of Gentile ministry? Certainly there were Jews in the region, so we wouldn't want to make it seem like, oh, these are all necessarily Gentiles. But it does sort of point in that direction. And then we read about the second feeding story, the second miracle of multiplication. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way. And the disciples said to him, where are we to get enough bread in such desolate place to feed so great a crowd? And you're like, you guys have a really short memory.
- [19:15]
A
Exactly.
- [19:18]
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And Jesus said, how many loaves do you have? And they said, seven and a few small fish. And directing the crowd to sit down.
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Even more than last time.
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Even more than last time. That's right. Last time they only had five.
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And they still don't have hope.
- [19:31]
B
Yes, right. I'm never like that. And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground. He took the seven loaves and the fish. And having given thanks. And the Greek word there is eucharistos, he gives Eucharist. Right. He broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowd. Once again, we have echoes of that Last Supper narrative. The next time Jesus will take bread, break it, bless it, give it to the disciples. Right is when a miracle occurs. And they all ate, and they were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of broken pieces left over. Those who ate were 4,000 men, besides women and children. And after sending away the crowd, he got into the boat and went into the region of Magadan. Now, this is a story that a lot of people have thought about, written about. Again, they're in a desolate place. They're in the wilderness. The numbers are different. And some people have suggested that maybe the reason for that is that one miracle is especially in a Jewish context. So the five loaves would represent something like the five books of Torah, and the 12 baskets would represent the 12.
- [20:45]
A
Tribes of Israel for the first multiplication.
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That's what we read in chapter 14.
- [20:49]
A
And he does that one in the region of Magdalene. It's clearly in Herod's territory, which is.
- [20:56]
B
Much more Jewish, typically identified as a Jewish territory.
- [20:59]
A
This territory is opposite Magadan, which is Magdala, in that area. So this area is Philip's territory, the Decapolis, which is known for having a lot of Gentiles.
- [21:09]
B
That's right. So people say, well, maybe the seven in this narrative is signaling the idea of a universal creation. And the four would also, you know, how many baskets, Seven baskets are picked up. And then we have, of course, seven. And then, wait, how many people are there? 4,000 people. Right. And the four being a number of the four points of the compass, which might designate, you know, universal expectations that's really intriguing. I'm not 100% sure that that's right, but it does help us focus in on the differences. And that is.
- [21:48]
A
Yeah. One of the other interesting differences too is in Mark's gospel you'll have different terminology for baskets. A Jewish basket.
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B
Yeah, that's right.
- [21:56]
A
Versus the gentile woven basket. But the other one is that in the first one he blesses the bread. In this one he gives Eucharistane. Now eulogaine and eucharistane in the first century start to be used synonymously. By the early second century they split. Jews only use eulogain and they will never. They'll stop using Eucharistane and the Christians adopt eucharistane. And so it's interesting that he uses the term eulogain, the Jewish form of blessing in the first story and in the second story it's Euchariste, which is the idea of thanksgiving Eucharist. So that's another. So this idea of Jewish gentile. There is, there is a pattern there that I think has. That's very suggestive. And I think the bigger thing is not necessarily the symbolism isn't trying to say that one audience is Jewish and one is gentile. They're both Jewish audiences. We know that historically. So it's not about how to read it historically. I think it's more reading it symbolically in light of Jesus is ultimately he just healed the Canaanite woman who is a Gentile. And so Jesus is sent to the lost tribes of Israel and he's Jewish. And so the new covenant in Christ is for the Jews, but it's also for the Gentiles in a broader spectrum. So I think that try to get to that idea of both and not either or.
- [23:23]
B
And I think it's also significant to read this in light of what came before it. So there was a controversy with the Pharisees about how to eat properly. Right. And then you have the story of the Canaanite woman who's asking for the food that is thrown at the table. And so it's really beautiful. One of my favorite lines in the story is it says, I have compassion on the crowd. So of course we can see the eucharistic symbolism here. We can note other possible connections with, you know, people point out connections possibly to the manna story, things like that in Exodus 15. But the thing that Matthew highlights is that this first comes out of Jesus genuine concern for the physical well being of those who have come out to be healed and to hear his preaching. Jesus doesn't Just concern himself with the soul. He is very much concerned with the material needs of those who have come to him. And this is a great model for the Church, Right, Paul vi, Pope Paul VI explained that the Church is always the most credible when it's keeping in mind the need to care for the poor, when it's taking in mind the need to feed the hungry. Right? And so we demonstrate our credibility to the world in recognizing that we have to be like Jesus and take care of the needs of those who come to us.
- [24:57]
A
The second time. You know, too, in Deuteronomy, it says you teach two witnesses to affirm a testimony. And so the fact that he's able to multiply the loaves and the fish a second time seems to confer that this is a testimony, a witness that the bread is the miracle of the bread is a witness to something powerful going on with Jesus. And of course, you mentioned, you know, the man in the wilderness and the fact that this is a desolate place. I mean, it does seem that the way Matthew is telling the story he wants us to see, or let me ask you, does he want us to see Jesus as bringing about a new exodus, reminding us of Israel in the wilderness, being fed by the manna. Is this something that Matthew's intentionally echoing?
- [25:39]
B
No, I think here he's really just got in mind the Epic of Gilgamesh. No, definitely. And throughout the gospel, we see this emphasis on Jesus as the new Moses. Right? And so just as Moses fed the people in the wilderness, in the story of the manna, of course Jesus feeds the people. Here. Jesus goes up on a mountain. Gee, do we know anybody who went up on a mountain? Moses goes up on the mountain, Right? So all of this feeds into, no pun intended, the imagery of Jesus as the new Moses. And yet Jesus is beyond Moses, Right? Because Moses goes to the Lord and the Lord sends down manna from heaven. In this case, Jesus himself performs the miracle. Jesus is the one who multiplies the loaves and the fish. So he's a new Moses, but he is to sort of riff on what he says in chapter 12, something greater than Moses. I do want to just highlight one more time that line. He I am unwilling to send them away hungry. And I think that's a line that should sit with us. Are we willing to send people away hungry? If we are, there's a problem, both, of course, physically and spiritually. We need to have a heart like Jesus and make sure that the people who come to us, the people who come into contact with us, never Walk away hungry. And I think that we would all be able to feed people spiritually more if we established our credibility by feeding them physically as well. And it's really been something that I've learned from my son Matthew, my second oldest. He is on top of me. He has an eye out for anyone on the street who's hungry. And it's a really beautiful thing.
- [27:38]
A
That is a beautiful thing. I know my son was always big on that as a child, seeing panhandlers make sure we give him something then we had to get so that we weren't giving money. We got gift cards and different things like that. And I know a good friend of mine, Mark, who does a lot for Christ in the city here and we get to teach a lot of their missionaries and feeding the hungry. And he even gets, when he's going downtown, he knows he's going to encounter them. He makes sandwiches and power bars and bottle of water and he puts them in little bags and he has them ready to go. I mean, it's really thoughtful. It's a beautiful thing. And that will be important when we get to Matthew chapter 25. And Jesus is going to reveal what the final exam is for all of us. And it's a tough final exam, but we know the questions on the exam, so we better prepare and want him to. When you, you know, when the righteous, the sheep who are on his right who enter into the kingdom, they were those who fed Jesus when he was hungry. They fed the hungry and they clothed the naked. And those are the kinds of things we have to do in Christ. And St. John Chrysostom talks about when we leave the mass, we've partaken of the body and blood of Christ that he's given us in the heavenly bread. And we have to go out and become generous givers, imitation of Christ Jesus. And so that's something that we're all called to do. And so thank you, Michael, for highlighting that passage. I'm going to reflect on that more today and in my prayer time tonight. I really like that image. It's a strong one. Well, I want to just thank everybody who has joined us and especially want to thank all of you who have been generous to us, all of you who have supported us in our mission circle. You know, I'm just, I want you to know how grateful we are. It really supports our mission. It frees us up to do. We just had this great Bible conference a few weeks ago which you can get on formed. And we were able to make that Bible conference free because of our donors. And we reached, you know, I think within three days, we had 11,000 people who signed up for it. We had people all over the world, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle east who did that because it was free. So thank you for your support for the August Institute. It helps us to have a global reach. We're deeply grateful for all your support. So for those of you who support us in the mission circle, if you're not, go check the top right button I've formed hit donate button and you can find out more about the mission circle and how you can become a mission partner with us. Thank you so much and God bless you.