We concluded yesterday’s lesson with a problem: Why did Jesus refuse to speak to the Canaanite woman initially? This is unusual behavior for Jesus. There are several reasons why Jesus may have refused to speak to her.

Nothing troubled the religious leaders of Israel more than becoming ceremonially unclean, and nothing made them more unclean than contact with “unclean” Gentiles. Yet in this next section of Matthew Jesus leaves Israel to enter Gentile territory Where he helps a Gentile woman.

So we come to the end of Jesus’ radical words about the nature of true religion, which is the only religion God accepts. And I ask the necessary question: Do you stand before God with clean hands only, that is, with mere ceremonial religion, or do you come with a new, clean heart?

The last of the three conversations in these verses is between Jesus and his disciples. It seems to have been private. His previous words were to the crowds. But the disciples come to Jesus now to say that the Pharisees were offended by his teaching. I find that amusing. Of course they Were offended by his teaching. Self-righteous persons are always offended when we speak of their sin or their inability to please God by their own corrupt and wicked efforts. Truth is resented. But I also find this amusing because the disciples thought that somehow they had to clue Jesus in. He knew the situation very well, of course. He replies now by even stronger teaching.

Jesus’ condemnation of the self-righteousness of the Pharisees was so important that he called the crowds to him and strongly applied what he had said. This is the second of the three teaching conversations. He told them, “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean’” (v. 11). This was a direct contradiction of the Pharisees, for he was saying that what matters before God is not clean hands or kosher food, which is what they were concerned about, but a purified heart.