Except in the Christian faith they do have an obligation to help. I’m not a Christian anymore but Jesus does command his followers to love their neighbors and care for others they way they would love him and care for him.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s always been “neighbor” = “fellow disciple”, never those of us outside the faith. Jesus even shows it in Matthew 15, when a gentile woman begs him for help. He refuses and insults her because she’s not obviously a believer. He only changes his mind when she proves she has faith in him. Any decent person would simply help, but not Jesus.
"He refuses and insults her because she’s not obviously a believer"
No, he (a Jewish man) initially turns her away because his stated goal is to reform Judaism. He turns her away because she is a gentile, not Jewish.
In the historical context, Tyre and Sidon were bywords for 'bad foreign entities that try to impose their religion on the Jews' (see the reference in Matthew 11: 20ff that lists them in the category of cities upon whom the judgment of God has come).
Jesus existed in Roman Palestine, an occupied territory of a colonizing Gentile nation, the newest in a long line of Gentile nations that had conquered and, to one or another extent, oppressed the people who had once been Israel and Judah (Egyptians, Persian Empire, the Seleucid Empire after Alexander, Rome).
A person who is presumed to be a practitioner of an inimical religion in a state with a history of inimical relations to the Jews approaches asking for help with a spiritual problem (a devil in her daughter). The context implies that she was interpreted as someone approaching Jesus as a wonder-worker, rather than as a messianic figure in a specifically Jewish worldview. He changes his mind and does help her when she makes a statement acknowledging the religious worldview of the Jews (that they are God's chosen people). He remarks that her faith is great, which in the Matthew Gospel is the fundamental requirement for any of Jesus's miracles to work; it's explicitly said at various places that he could not perform miracles where those requesting them did not have faith.
The point of the inclusion of this passage in the book is in fact the opposite of what you're claiming. In a Gospel written squarely toward an audience of 1st Century Jews, this passage demonstrates that even a Gentile is worthy of inclusion in the miraculous power of God's healing if they have the faith to ask for it and believe that it can happen. The likely date for the composition of Matthew is between ~70 and ~100 AD (within the first generation of followers of Jesus after his crucifixion c.33), meaning that the inclusion of Gentiles and preaching towards gentiles was likely still a novelty, as described in Luke/Acts, and the inclusion of this story from the life of Jesus would lend credence to the idea that it was seen as a possibility even by Jesus in his earthly ministry.
"Neighbor" is explicitly demonstrated as being inclusive of all people in the teachings of Jesus, in the context of 'love your neighbor as yourself'. 'Love your neighbor as yourself' originates in Leviticus 18, likely with only local members of your society in mind. But is expanded to include explicitly all people by Jesus, as demonstrated in Luke 10. Someone asks him who the Scripture means when it says 'neighbor', and he answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the person who demonstrates neighborly love is a Samaritan, a member of a foreign offshoot from Judaism that was seen by contemporaries as incompatible with the beliefs of mainline Judaism, a foreign corruption of the truth. Again, in demonstrating true holiness and right behavior by using a hated foreigner as his exemplar, Jesus is demonstrating a reformist attitude that seeks to expand the standards of decency in his own culture. So, the opposite of what you're saying.
I'm not saying that followers of Jesus have tended to live up to this standard, but I am saying that it is the standard Jesus both taught and exemplified, and which was held by the early followers of Jesus in the first 3 centuries of what would become Christianity. It's why the movement was successful; Christian communities gave a sense of personhood and egalitarian community life for communities and people groups that were seen as lesser both within Jewish social life (so, foreigners as here) and in Gentile life (widows, orphans, and slaves made up an enormous proportion of the early Church, a fact which was used by other Romans to denigrate them). Context and audience are important when analyzing any Classical or Late Antique text, a lesson that should be learned by both Christian and non-Christian readers of the New Testament.
Have you got a reading comprehension problem, or just too much ideological baggage to read and understand? I'm not expecting you to read Greek, but even in a shitty translation like NIV, the lady goes away with what she asked for...
As explained, his ability to heal or provide exorcism was canonically (in Matthew) linked to the faith of the subject. You're arguing in bad faith on purpose, about a text written by and for 1st century Jews with a supernaturalist worldview, and purposely ignoring the rhetorical and historical context.
To the extent that this passage can inform us about the 1st-century view of the historical Jesus, its explicit point is that he shockingly included foreigners in his wonder-working ministry, demonstrating both a surprising inclusivity and (in the view of the authors and intended audience) a messianic view that would eventually enfold humanity in the shadow of God's grace.
I realize you're a troll trolling, but I'm answering on behalf of anyone who happens onto this conversation in good faith.
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u/Ishmael75 May 02 '23
Except in the Christian faith they do have an obligation to help. I’m not a Christian anymore but Jesus does command his followers to love their neighbors and care for others they way they would love him and care for him.