Even the Dogs Qualify

The Faith of the Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:24–30)

Have you ever been called a dog?

I have.

Not in jest. Not in slang. Not the kind of dogs your grandmother’s neighbour coos at in her garden. I mean the guttural kind. The slur. The insult wrapped in skin and spit and superiority. I was called a dog by someone who once claimed to love me – and he meant it.

It doesn’t land like an ordinary insult. It lands like a demotion. You’re no longer person, woman, image-bearer. You’re the thing beneath the table. Muzzled. Licking at rejection hoping it might turn sweet if you’re patient enough.

There’s a kind of shame that crawls in with that word and makes a home within you. It doesn’t howl at you. It waits to torment you in the silence.

Now let me tell you a story from the Gospel of Mark, one about what many still struggle to believe: even the dogs qualify. It’s the story of a woman with no name, no social standing, and, by cultural and religious standards, no right to approach Jesus. And yet, she did. Boldly. Desperately. Faithfully. Her encounter with Jesus breaks every rule we think we know about worthiness, about faith and healing, about who qualifies for God’s grace.

Where Grace Crosses the Border

The seaside inn wasn’t holy, but it had a view. The Mediterranean, bloated with trade and rumours, licked the Tyrian shores as if it knew something about moral compromise.

Inside, Jesus sat on a cushion dyed with faded Phoenician purple; too expensive, and out of place. He had, allegedly, come here to be alone. Privacy, they called it. Though in this case, “privacy” came with twelve men loitering like anxious bouncers at a lunch no one wanted to attend.

The disciples, bless them, were doing their best to look righteous. Which mostly meant looking uncomfortable. Peter stood by the door as if ready to bolt at the first sign of idolatry. James and John leaned against opposite walls like over-seasoned guards; their expressions sour with cultural superiority. Thomas had taken it upon himself to scrub invisible grime from his palms with the corner of his robe. And Judas, always watching, always evaluating, made notes in his head, none of them charitable.

To be fair, they were in Tyre. Tyre, the Gentile Disneyland of everything the Torah warned against foreign gods, unblessed meats, and women who didn’t cover their heads. It smelled like roasted pork and forbidden thoughts. Every third person wore gold sandals, and incense thickened the air, sourced from altars the disciples didn’t recognize.

Jesus? Hard to read. He just sat there, elbows on the table, watching sunlight stripe the floor through a crooked lattice. If He was waiting for something, He didn’t say. In front of Him, the table was half-laid leftovers from the midday meal still clinging to the edges. A broken loaf of barley bread sat near His hand, torn unevenly, the crust flaked where someone, probably Peter, had taken too much too quickly. Olive pits, an abandoned fig, the heel of a fish. Crumbs trailed like breadcrumbs in an unknown parable.

He won’t see me. Why would He see me?
A Jew, a rabbi, a holy man – they don’t look at women like me.
Not in the street. Not in their thoughts.
And certainly not at their tables.

She crouched behind the corner of the courtyard wall, eyeing the twelve men inside. All shoulders and sandals, posted like guards at an invisible threshold.
She hated that she could name them by type without knowing a single name.
The proud one at the door.
The cautious one, already halfway out in his heart.
And Jesus.

If He is who they say He is, then He’ll know. He’ll see right through me.
He’ll smell the temple incense I’ve burned, the laws I’ve broken, the idols still tucked inside my grandmother’s cupboard.
But He’ll also see my little girl,
foaming at the mouth.
Biting her tongue.
Screaming into the night.

She clutched the cloth over her head tighter.

My little girl.
She’s all I have.
She’s my everything.
And if I don’t try, if I don’t go now, I’ll lose both her and what little of myself I have left.

Her stomach turned. Her palms sweat.

What do I say?
Do I call Him teacher? Prophet?
No. Son of David. That’s what they call Him. That’s what He’ll hear. That’s what might make Him listen.
And beg.
You’ll have to beg.
Beg like you’ve never begged before.

She wanted to vomit.
She wanted to run.
She wanted to scream.

Instead, she slipped into the doorway.

He didn’t move.
He knew.

Her resolve collapsed into pleading as she fell at His feet.

“Lord… Son of David… my daughter is possessed by a demon. Please… help me.”

Jesus said nothing.

Disgruntled murmurs flew overhead like gnats.

Still, He waited, as if digging into her silence, searching for what else might rise.

She watched as her tears melted the crumbs on the floor.
Say it again.
Say it again.

“Please, Lord. I know I’m unworthy. But I have nowhere else to go.”

And finally, finally, He spoke.

“It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

She froze.

Not because it shocked her. She’d heard worse.

But because He said it to her face.
Not behind His hand.
Not wrapped in parable.
Direct. Deliberate.

She could’ve cursed.
Could’ve left.
Could’ve flung back pride like a blade and walked away.

But her daughter’s screams still rang in her head.

“Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

It wasn’t clever.
It was true.

Jesus smiled.
Just a fraction.
The faintest shift of gravity around His mouth.

“Woman,” He said, “your faith is great. Go. The demon has left your daughter.”

That was it.

No ceremony.
No lightning.
No laying on of hands.

Just a word.
A yes.

Feeling Like a Dog Before God?

Have you ever felt unworthy before God?
Not the polite, “Oh, I know I’m not perfect,” but the deep soul wrenching shame. The kind that settles into your bones. Like you’re too stained, too strange, too far outside the popularity circle. You watch others lift their hands in worship, speak fluent prayers, and you wonder if maybe God has a place for them, but not for you. So, you learn to shrink. To sit quietly. To settle for crumbs.

Shame teaches you how to disappear.

But that woman, the one from Tyre, she didn’t stay hidden. She stepped out of her silence, knelt at His feet, and placed her whole, unwashed hope in front of Him. She wasn’t clean. She wasn’t invited. But she was brave.

She dared to believe that even the crumbs from Christ’s table held power.

And in that collision of boldness and brokenness, Jesus said yes.
Not because she qualified,
But because she came.

Even the dogs qualify.

Even you.

Rejection vs. Faith – When Silence Tries to Define You

She also knew what it meant to be socially outcast.
Not just overlooked but studied and dismissed.
Marked by her accent, her skin, her gender, her story, her ethnicity – a dog.
She was the wrong kind of person from the wrong side of every map.

She didn’t need anyone to say it out loud.
The silence was loud enough.

And maybe you know that feeling.
Maybe you’ve walked into rooms where the conversation shifted the moment you entered.
Maybe you’ve sat in pews or meetings or family dinners and felt the air tighten because you’re too foreign, too complicated, too much.

Rejection doesn’t always raise its voice.
Sometimes it just forgets your name.

But the woman didn’t hesitate.
She brought her outsider-self right into the center of the room
and straight to the feet of Jesus.

He didn’t blink.
Didn’t shuffle her aside.
Didn’t ask for credentials.

He looked at her faith. That was it.
No pedigree required.

He saw her, really saw her,
and He responded.

And the same is true for you.

Whatever label the world sticks on you
does not come from God.

He sees the faith buried inside your story.
And He says: Yes.
Yes to you.

Tenacious, Relentless Faith

Jesus didn’t commend her because she quoted Scripture.
Or because she lined up her theology like polished shoes outside a synagogue.
She wasn’t from the right family.
She didn’t have the right vocabulary.
She didn’t even sound like she belonged in the room.

But what He saw was a woman who refused to walk away.
A mother who had decided, somewhere in the raw, sleepless hours of her child’s suffering, that pride was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

She pushed through her fear of rejection.
Through insult.
Through everything religious culture had built to keep people like her out.

Her faith wasn’t dignified.
It was messy.
Uninvited.
A faith with dirt under its nails.

And that’s what moved Him.

She didn’t come asking for a throne.
She came asking for a crumb.

Just one crumb of grace
And she believed it would be enough.

And it was.

Enough to heal.
Enough to change everything.

That is the faith Jesus called great
Not because it was polished,
But because it held on
When everything else said: go home.

The Faith That Made Heaven Move

Jesus could have said, “I healed her.”
And He would’ve been right.
He is the Healer, after all.

But instead, He said, “Your faith has healed her.”
Not to downplay His power
but to spotlight her participation.

He didn’t just do something for her.
He honoured what she brought.

Her faith wasn’t fluff.
It wasn’t passive.
It reached through insult, silence, and exclusion.
It held on.

And Jesus let the miracle pass through her tenacity
like sunlight through stained glass.

That day, faith wasn’t a theory.
It was a door.

And when she opened it,
heaven walked through.

You Still Qualify – Faith Beyond Your Past

Here’s the truth:
You qualify for God’s goodness,
even if everything in you says otherwise.

Maybe you don’t have the background.
Maybe you’ve blown it more times than you can count.
Maybe you feel too late, too far gone, too far away from God to be noticed—let alone blessed.

But none of that disqualifies you.

The Syrophoenician woman wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t polished.
But she was persistent.

And that’s what Jesus responded to.
Not her résumé,
but her refusal to walk away.

So be bold.
Be courageous.
Don’t quit just because heaven is quiet
or the crowd rolls its eyes.

Your faith, whether trembling or tenacious, still opens the door.
Not because it’s loud.
Not because it’s impressive.
But because it’s yours.
Because it’s real.

Jesus is not irritated by your insistence.
He’s moved by it.
He honours it.
He stands behind it.

And when your faith walks in,
even barefoot, even late,
He meets it with an Amen.

Your Step of Faith Starts Here

If something in you stirred while reading this
don’t smooth it down with distraction.

That ache.
That prick of hope.
That whisper of maybe it’s not too late

that’s faith, trying to stand up inside you.

You don’t need a crowd.
You don’t need permission.

Just like the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7,
all you need is the nerve to move.

Bold faith doesn’t wait to be invited.
It walks into the room unannounced,
hair a mess, heart in pieces,
and falls at His feet.

And the God who knows every hidden place in you?
He doesn’t withdraw.
He responds.

So start somewhere.

Whisper a prayer that’s more groan than poetry.
Scribble your miracle on the back of a receipt.
Crack open Mark 7 like it’s a letter written to you.
Tell a friend.
Ask for prayer.
Cling to the hem of heaven with every thought you’ve got.

Because here’s the wild, upside-down truth of the Gospel:
Even the dogs qualify.

And when your faith shows up
tired, trembling, audacious
Jesus meets it with healing.

With you in the dust and the crumbs,

If you felt the hush of recognition, share it with a friend and widen the circle.

To keep the flame going, please buy me a candle 🙏🏻

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