Here’s an event from the life of Jesus that’s hard to understand unless one remembers that there is almost always a “second audience.” What do you think?

Now Jesus stood up and went away from there to the region of Tyre.

And when He had entered a house, He was wanting no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice. But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet. Now the woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician descent. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.” And He said to her, “Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left.

And again He went out from the region of Tyre, and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of the Decapolis. (Mark 7.24 – 31, LSB)

Second audience? “Now Jesus stood up and went away…” Stood up from what? A conversation with the disciples (Mark 7.17 – 24). When Jesus goes to “the region of Tyre” to have this conversation with a Gentile woman, the disciples are with him. Point #1.

Point #2: It’s a good 25 miles one way from where he was to Tyre. They walk the 25 miles (8 hours?), have a conversation with the woman and heal her daughter, maybe spend the night – it doesn’t say – and walk 25 miles back. What do you think they talked about on the way back?

It was a hard lesson for good Jewish boys. Peter was still having trouble with it after the resurrection:

And [Peter] said to them [a room full of Gentiles], “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.” (Acts 10.28, ESV)