
I want to respond to this infographic in a way that is clearly thought out and well organized. During the incarnation, Jesus was an observant Jew. His chosen Apostles were Jews. They kept the Sabbath and the festivals and traveled to Jerusalem when required. But the spirit and intent behind making this image and sharing this particular information is misguided. This is from a person taking a very narrow view of the scripture and encouraging others to do the same.
Let’s begin with context. The verse quoted from Matthew 15 takes place between Jesus and a Cannanite (or Syro-phoennician) woman. It is a test of faith which she passes, leading to Jesus answering her request and healing her daughter. When I pointed this out to the original poster, or at least the person I saw post this on Facebook, the conditions and qualifiers came out. Her claim is that anytime Jesus did something for Gentiles it was as an example to Israel. This woman’s daughter was healed, and the centurion’s daughter was healed, yes because of their faith but more importantly as an example to Israel. They were merely object lessons, Jesus was not ministering to them. Examples are not ministry; at least that was the claim. Jesus marveled at the faith of the Roman centurion, commenting that he had not seen such faith in all of Israel. The verse from Mark is his account of the same conversation with the same woman. Jesus didn’t go throughout Israel telling them his ministry was only to Israel. The quote from Luke was just after the birth of John the Baptst, before Jesus was even born. The prophecy of Zechariah, John’s father, was more about the ministry of John the Baptist than of Jesus. And John 4:22 was Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. More on that in a bit.
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