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| RICHARD ROBERTS |
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DAILY GUIDE TO MIRACLES from Oral Roberts Ministries Monday, August 23rd, 2004 www.orm.cc Healing Is Not A Luxury Richard Roberts Oral Roberts Ministries www.orm.cc "When Jesus told the woman from Canaan that healing was the children's bread (Matthew 15:26), He gave us a powerful truth. Bread is basic to human existence. Throughout the world, most people eat some type of bread. So if healing is bread for God's children, that means it's not a luxury. It's a necessity. It's a basic provision God has given to all believers to sustain us in this life. In other words, healing is not a sideline of the Gospel. It's the mainline! It's God's supernatural provision for all of His children!" ON DOCTRINE NOTE: Richard Roberts resorts to an illogical and unrelated progression of relationships in order to prove his point. 1. The "children's bread" is said to be healing, which is an 'a priori' (before the fact) assumption.Richard Roberts manages to extract 9 conclusions from two words - "children's bread," which is an amazing accomplishment. However, his entire premise is predicated on his initial definition of "children's bread" being healing, and the comparison to the human uses of bread all leading back to his original definition of "children's bread" being healing, which is essentially circular reasoning. Jesus associates Himself more closely with the "children's bread" than any comparison with healing, because He was the subject of the discussion: 1. The request was made to Jesus Christ, " Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David,: vs. 22. 2. He "answered her not a word," vs. 23. 3. He stated, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," vs. 24. Jesus Christ is the object of the woman's pleadings, to which He did not answer. When He did answer, He gave the woman no hope, stating that He was sent to Israel and not to her. The request was made to Jesus Christ and the response was in relation to Himself, "I was not sent (to you) . . ." It is at that point that Jesus Christ interjects the concept of the "children's bread" in relation to His interaction with the woman. "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," therefore, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Jesus Christ is the true bread of the world, just as He is also the water of life: "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst,'" John 6:35 (NAS). "'I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the read which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which comes down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.' Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, 'How can this man give us His flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. this is the bread which came down out of heaven; no as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever,'" John 8:48-58 (NAS)However, the bread in Matthew 15:26 is an analogy that Jesus used; a comparison to an incident that would be considered improper and could also be applied to His interaction with her which would also be considered improper by Jews. There was a saying, "You don't feed the puppies under the table until the children have eaten what they want." So the picture is of children eating a meal who have been given bread that is meant only for them. It would have been improper to give the bread meant for them to the dogs, or more properly the puppies who were pets in the household, until the children had eaten what they wished. The translation of Matthew 15:26 is, "It is not PROPER to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Also, Mark 7:27 should read, "And He was saying to her, 'Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not PROPER to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." There is a set of improprieties associated with the incident, since the woman was a Canaanite and a woman. It was not proper that she should associate with a Jew or a Jew associate with her. As a Gentile, the woman was considered to be ceremonially unclean and unworthy of consideration, and so Jesus Christ states the case to her, pressing her to see what kind of an answer she would give to justify the granting of her request. It has been asserted that Jesus Christ called the woman a dog, but this is really not the case. He was using an illustration to compare what would be proper to what would be considered improper. What would be proper is what He was sent to accomplish in relation to Israel as their Messiah, and what would be improper would be to deal with a world apart from what He was charged to do by God. It was Jesus Christ who was the "children's bread" and to deal with issues in the Gentile world would be to feed the "children's bread" to others not of Israel, something that He was not charged with to do.. The illustration is not of people who are children of God, as opposed to everyone else who are simply worthless dogs, but of proper action in relation to an improper action as related to His commission by God, which was to go first to the people of Israel and present Himself as their Messiah, and so was the gospel carried to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles, Romans 1:16, Acts 3:26. Until His commission was fulfilled, all other people and nations must wait and it was improper that he would present Himself as a savior to others unless there was a compelling reason to do so. The woman understood the comparison and acknowledged the reality of what was being illustrated, but also understood and acknowledged that Jesus Christ was actually the Messiah, something that Israel did not recognize. In reality, although the woman was not an Israelite by lineage, she was a true child of Abraham through her faith in Jesus Christ the Messiah, But, in relation to the illustration of the children's bread, she was not asking for the main meal that was meant for the children, but only those crumbs associated with their meal that accidentally fell to the floor while the children were eating, from which, like the household puppies, she could benefit. She seized the implication inherent in the illustration and presented it to Jesus Christ as the justification for her request. The direct benefits of the presence of Jesus Christ as the Messiah may not be meant for her, but, perhaps those incidentals might be granted to her as an overflow or an accidental crumb falling to the floor as a result of His gracious consideration. If Jesus Christ was the true Messiah, as she believed He was, then perhaps the residual blessings that the world would inherit, Genesis 22:18, might be hers through His compassionate mercy, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David!," vs. 22. Jesus Christ did not miss the point, which He had designed into the illustration, and her response resulted in a commendation and the granting of her request: "And He said to her, 'Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter,'" Mark 7:29.If, as Richard Roberts says, "healing was the children's bread," and "the mainline" of the gospel, then there is a problem with defining the nature of the crumbs that fell to the floor, which the woman considered to be the benefits of which she wished to take advantage, and it must be explained why Jesus Christ was unwilling to grant healing to a person who acknowledged Him as Lord and Messiah, and was also a person of belief and faith. Richard Roberts definition is designed to justify the nature of his ministry and that of his father, who both have ministries where the "mainline" is based on claims of healing. SEE: ORAL ROBERTS "Does God Still Heal" "For What Did Christ Atone In Isa. 53:4-5" [Requires Adobe Acrobat® Reader] |
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