Use the following thoughts and questions to have a spiritual conversation as a family. Don’t emphasize having the right answer, but focus on spending time discussing the Word as a family. 

SCRIPTURE

Mark 7:25-29

SESSION SUMMARY

We are in our new series, Problematic Stories in the Bible. We are going to spend the next couple weeks looking at stories that have been brought up to try to show that God is messed up, abusive, or evil. We will dive into what we don't understand as 21st century westerners and many times understanding eastern Jewish culture makes these stories make way more sense and gives a great awe who God is.

This week we looked at Jesus calling a gentile woman dog. People have used this to call Jesus, rude, racist, and mean. What this story really boils down to is the context the story becomes much clearer (we even get insight from Matthew’s telling of the same story). In the broader context (Mark 7 and 8)  we see 2 issues talked about; what is clean? And  where is our heart? In the first part of Mark 7, Jesus is calling out the the pharisees and the people for the extra rules they have made that are not God’s law and even go against God’s heart. Most of these rules revolved around the cleanliness of things. One of the most unclean things for these people were gentiles (non-Jews). So in this story of Mark we see Jesus by acting like the disciples (calling her a dog) and then praising her for faith and healing her daughter Jesus calls out a cultural ideal (intense racism) the disciples bought into that was not inline with Jesus’ heart and affirms that Jesus is more about our heart than what is on the outside. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION

As a Family Read Mark 7:25-29, Genesis 1:27, Leviticus 19:34, Isaiah 42: 1,6, Galatians 3:28,  Mathew 15:21-28

Use these to start a discussion with your students. 

1. How do people different from you maybe make you uncomfortable? 
2. As we compare Matthew and Mark to get more insight, why is it so important that we look at the big picture of scripture to get an understanding some times? (Scripture ultimately as one author and all of it lines up with who God is, so sometimes when something doesn’t make sense other parts of scripture can help us, especially because we are 2000 years removed)
3. Why is it also important to look at the context of a story and not just focus on a couple verses? 
4. How is Jesus pushing back against the ideals of the time, and what the disciples probably thought about this woman?
5. How does Jesus show her love, compassion, and dignity? 

LIVE IT OUT 

• How can we live out loving all people? Even those different from us? 
• What aspects of our culture are we so used to that may go against God’s heart? 

FOR KEEPS [MEMORY VERSE]

Encourage and/or challenge your teenagers to memorize the Scripture below.

Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. 

Thanks for all your prayers for our students and our ministry. Have an amazing week!