Lesson 15 – The King’s Program Challenged
Read Matthew 15 – www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.15 

In this chapter Jesus answers some questions from the leaders showing how He was directly opposed to some of their traditions and religious practices. He demonstrated how their practices even directly disobeyed God’s laws – and that only for their convenience. He called them exactly what they were – hypocrites. In showing the details of His own kingdom, He had also contrasted His with the kingdom they had built for themselves with their religious practices.

Jesus then openly named the true nature of defilement, showing the people how God’s intent in the Law had been changed. The leaders had tried to name as sin only those things THEY couldn’t be charged with. Jesus called them blind guides trying to lead blind people. For unless the heart of the person is changed, nothing is changed!

Then Jesus did another unthinkable thing – He left the Jewish cities and traveled to the city of Tyre, a Gentile area. Here he met a woman who asked Him to heal her daughter. Jesus’ questions to her were not rude, but instead were meant to put her faith on display.

When Jesus returned to His home town, crowds of people followed Him. They had heard the exchanges between Him and their religious leaders, and they wanted to follow Him – angering the leaders even more.


Jesus again fed a large crowd with only a small meal for one person, showing how much He cared for the common people – again a striking contrast to the religious leaders who thought of themselves as better than the people in their care.

By His actions, Jesus showed the people He really cared about them – He had compassion on them. As we will see in following lessons, this made the religious leaders very angry because Jesus was doing for the people what they refused to do, and the people began to turn away from them and their teachings to follow Jesus. Jesus was also showing His disciples how He wanted them to treat people – with the same compassion He had, rather than just the interest in personal power the religious leaders were showing.

Twice now we have seen Jesus feed the people by miracles. Yet in John 4:15 and 6:34, people asked Him for water and food and His reply was the same in both cases – He said He was living water, and He was living bread. Jesus did not supply a miracle of water for the woman so she wouldn’t have to carry it anymore, nor did He give the people manna so they wouldn’t have to work anymore.

*Why did Jesus do the miracles some times and not other times?
*Thought question – why do you think the disciples didn’t remember this time how Jesus had fed the multitude last time? What lesson does this teach you for your faith in Jesus?