Let us read verse 27 again: “And He said to her, Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” In Greek “little dogs” are pet dogs, dogs that are kept in the house.
In verse 28 we have the answer of the Syrophoenician woman: “Yes, Lord, but even the little dogs under the table eat of the little children’s crumbs.” In her answer she seemed to be saying, “Yes, Lord, You are right. I don’t deny the fact that I am a little dog. But even the little dogs under the table have the right to eat of the children’s crumbs.”
Her answer indicates that she took the Lord’s word as her standing to claim something from Him. What was her standing? Her standing was that she was a little dog, a pet dog, under the table. According to the Greek word used, she was not a wild dog; she was a pet dog. This indicates that as a Gentile she was one of God’s “pets.” We may say that the Gentiles today also are God’s “pet dogs.”
The Syrophoenician woman, taking the proper standing, might have been saying, “Lord, I may be a little dog, but I am not a wild dog, a dog outside the house. Rather, I am a pet dog, a dog who stays under the table while the Master is feeding the children. Since I am Your pet dog, You have pleasure in me. Yes, You love Your children, but You also have pleasure in me. While Your children are eating at the table, Your pet dog is moving about under the table. Lord, am I not Your pet dog? Am I not pleasing to You? I don’t have a position at the table, but I surely have a position under the table.”
We may say that the Syrophoenician woman caught the Lord by His own word. He used the expression “little dogs.” Immediately, it was as if she seized upon this word to say, “Very good, Lord! You have said that I am a pet dog. This is good enough for me. I don’t need to be a child at the table. As long as I am a pet dog under the table, I have the position to eat the crumbs that drop down from the table.”
In a very real sense, in 7:24-30, the Lord Jesus Himself was not the bread on the table. Instead, He was under the table. We need to remember that this incident took place in the districts of Tyre, north of the holy land, a region that may be called “under the table.” The holy land was the “table.” But the Jews, as “naughty children,” cast the bread off the table, and it fell under the table. As the crumbs under the table, the Lord could now be the portion of the little Gentile dogs.
We know from 7:29 that the Lord Jesus said to the Syrophoenician woman, “Because of this word, go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” When she returned to her house, “she found the little child lying on the couch and the demon gone out” (v. 30). However, the crucial point here is not the casting out of the demon from the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman. The crucial point is that in His gospel service the Lord Jesus is distributing Himself to people as their bread, as their inner supply.
A lack of the realization of the need for the Lord Jesus as bread, as life supply, may be the greatest shortage in today’s Pentecostal or charismatic movement. Those in this movement may appreciate outward healings and miracles, but they may not appreciate the Lord as bread to be their inner life supply. Even if we receive a healing from the Lord, we still need Him as our life supply. To experience a miracle without receiving the Lord as our inner life supply is vain. Among those who emphasize miraculous things, there may be some genuine healings or miracles, but there is very little realization of the inward feeding on the Lord as our life supply. We need to realize that even when He is our Healer, the Lord Jesus is our bread.
In chapter seven of the Gospel of Mark the Lord opened Himself to the Syrophoenician woman to let her know that He was her food. She needed Him not only as the One to heal her daughter; she especially needed Him to be her food, her bread.
The revelation in 7:24-30 is deeper than that in 7:1-23. In the step of the gospel service recorded in 7:1-23 the Lord exposes the real condition of the human heart in order that we may know what our need is. Our need is not outward; it is inward. We do not need an outward washing; we need an inward cleansing, a cleansing of our heart. Then in 7:24-30 the Lord takes a further step to cause us to see that if what we have is only inward cleansing, we shall still be empty. It is not sufficient for our heart to be cleansed, purified. A clean heart may still be an empty heart. Therefore, in addition to the cleansing of our heart on the negative side, we need the supply of bread on the positive side. Even more than cleansing, we need the Lord Jesus to be our bread. This revelation concerning Himself as our bread is a further step taken by the Lord in the carrying out of His gospel service.