Bible Study-Mark 7:24-30
By Deborah Krause, Associate Professor of New Testament
Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO
Comments or questions? Write to Deb at dkrause@eden.edu
Read Mark 7:24-30 (NRSV) 24. From there he set out and went to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophonecian origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 28 But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29 Then he answered her, "For saying that, you may go -- the demon has left your daughter." 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Step 1. Assess our traditional interpretations (as power)
Traditionally speaking, what is your understanding of this text? Is it a miracle that demonstrates Jesus' extraordinary power (i.e., that he can heal from afar), or is it scenario in which Jesus cleverly engages and draws out the faith of a Gentile woman? In reading this text as a demonstration of Jesus', and thereby, God's power, what kinds of claims might you draw from it?
Step 2. Reorient our perspectives (for power)
Intentionally reorient your perspective in the text. Take your focus off of Jesus for a moment. Who are the other characters in the story? What is their relationship to Jesus? Are they "insiders" or "outsiders?" What do they do? For example, how does the woman engage Jesus? Closely follow her actions. Attend to the verbs. Begin to think out loud about what else this story might speak to other than Jesus' or God's omnipotence? What other kinds of "power" issues -- on a human-social level -- are present in the text? Now in light of these insights, revisit Jesus. What role does he play in relationship with the woman? Does he change in this story? If so, how?
Step 3. Stay with the concrete elements of the text (food, water, money, housing, etc.) avoid spiritualizing
Note where this story takes place, a home in Tyre (way up North -- in "Gentile territory"). What does the woman need from Jesus? Why does she come to him? What metaphors does Jesus use to answer her? How does the woman engage them? Note how their engagement evokes two perspectives on a meal (from above the table, and from below). What is Jesus telling the woman? What is she telling Jesus?
Step 4. Analogize to concrete, "real life" situations today
What kinds of contemporary situations do you see addressed by the woman and Jesus' discussion about the meal, and their relative perspectives on how much food there is? How might the problems in their conversation with one another relate to how people from different classes, races, ethnic, and religious backgrounds talk to one another today? Where is your church in the human social-power relations in this story? Are you perhaps in the position of the woman, or Jesus? How?
Step 5. Claim, with authority, what the Bible says anew
In light of these various steps, what new things have you seen and heard in the text? How, if at all, do they challenge your more traditional ("as power") reading of this story? What have you learned about God and Jesus? What have you learned about yourself, your church, your world? How does this text speak afresh to the concrete contexts of your life? How will you respond to this? How will you proclaim it to others?
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