Accountable to God: The Good News

A message based on Mark 7:24-37: [Jesus] set out and went away 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, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.  Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin.  She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  Jesus said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  Then Jesus said to the woman, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”  So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.  They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged Jesus to lay his hand on the man who was deaf.  Jesus took the man aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into the man’s ears, and Jesus spat and touched his tongue.  Then looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to the man, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”  And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “Jesus has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”