1213 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:35 am
tonjun wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:55 pm
....
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
- Matthew 15: 21-24
It's obvious that Jesus does change his mind. Changes from being here for the lost sheep of Israel to now being here for the Gentiles;...
Clearly Jesus is not God.
Firstly, I think it would be good to notice that by what the Bible tells, Jesus is not the one and only true God, for example because:
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
1 Timothy 2:5
This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
John 17:3
...the Father is greater than I.
John 14:28
Secondly, I don't think Jesus changed his mind. He was send to lost sheep of Israel. Helping the woman does not change that.
And finally, changing action does not necessary mean one has changed his mind. It is possible that the situation has just changed, which is why different action is possible.
This is a wonderful example of evasive excuses without thinking it through. Clearly as far as Christian Dogma goes, Jesus is not God, but he draws on knowledge and power from the spirit of God that is operating him. So that God is present in a man's body is not the point. It is whether Jesus, in changing his mind (assuming he actually does), has not wholly access to the mind of God or whether he has and God Himself changes his mind.
That he helped the Syrio -phoenecian (Canaanite) woman (after saying that he wouldn't) is irrelevant to being his sent to the lost sheep of Israel. I think that this is proffered (by Matthew, generally) as an explanation as to why, if God knew that he would turn his back on the Jews and embrace the Gentiles as the 'people who are not his people', he bothered with them at all. Again, it makes no sense unless God didn't know that the Jews would reject Jesus, even though (I believe in Mark and other synoptics) it is implied that God deliberately set up talking in parables so that (with a bit of the heart -hardening that God does at need) the majority of Jews would not listen, turn and be saved. In o.w God set out to ensure that the Jews (mostly) would not be saved.
It makes no sense with a god who does not change his mind, but perfect sense for a religion hi -jacked by Paul, redesigned to suit the gentiles and was then used by them as a weapon against the Jews they clearly hated (unless they had converted). But the excuse or evasion above ignores that Jesus is shown as saying that his mission was to the Jews, and not the gentiles, and that (quietly) explains why Jesus left the mission to the gentiles to Paul and put his efforts into a mission that was not only doomed to fail but seemed intended to fail.
Yes, it is totally an evasive excuse to claim that the 'situation has changed'. It hasn't. True, Jesus is constantly being shown how more Faithful the gentiles are than the Jews (and worthy of being saved, following Paulinist - christian doctrine) and thus he
changes his mind about helping her. It only makes sense (like the agony in the garden and some other scenes) if he does not know everything, even if God does. Clearly to make any sense (as distinct from coming up with irrelevant excuses that explain nothing) much is kept from Jesus.
