Click here to see the sermon discussion questions or see them listed below. We highly encourage you to listen, think, and talk about the sermon. These are questions you can reflect on by yourself, with your family, or with your small group.

Sermon Discussion Questions:

1. Our passage this week revolves around a Canaanite woman who came to Jesus begging for Him to have mercy upon her.  Think about the word “mercy”. Describe how the woman’s cry for mercy reveals the way she viewed herself and Jesus. 

2. This woman also referred to Jesus multiple times as “Lord” and also calls Him “the Son of David”.  How does her use of these terms expand our understanding of this woman and how she viewed Jesus?  

3. Jesus’ response to the Canaanite woman’s desperate plea is silence.  How does this make you feel, knowing that God sometimes remains silent to our cries for mercy?  In times when we may feel unheard by God, what do we learn from the Canaanite woman?

4. The disciples are bothered by the woman and want her sent away. Jesus finally responds to her plea by saying “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Does this sound like rejection to you?  If so, what do you think most people would do?  What was the woman’s response (v.25)?

5. Jesus then responds to the woman’s second plea for help by saying, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  Surely by now the woman should have gotten the hint and just walked away but instead, how does she respond?  What is Jesus’ surprising response to the woman?

6. What should this story teach us about persevering faith and what should we learn about how we are to approach God when we are suffering?