Matthew 15:21 · World English Bible
Matthew 15:21 Meaning Jesus Went Out From There
Jesus went out from there, and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon.
What does Matthew 15:21 mean?
He turns away from the region that raised him and walks toward the pagan coast, and the direction of that walk carries the whole teaching. His own townsfolk had measured him against his origin, against the carpenter's son they thought they already knew, and found nothing there.
From the Clinical Psychology reading below.
Matthew 15:21 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Clinical Psychology
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Clinical Psychology
He turns away from the region that raised him and walks toward the pagan coast, and the direction of that walk carries the whole teaching. His own townsfolk had measured him against his origin, against the carpenter's son they thought they already knew, and found nothing there. So he goes where his past means less. The kingdom he announces cares about who a person could become, not about the family or the failure that person was assigned at birth.
The rejection at home is instructive. People who file you under what you have already been will resent the claim that you might be more. Departure is sometimes the only honest response to that. A man who moves toward the strangers is betting that possibility outweighs pedigree, and he stakes his mission on the wager.
Clinical Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
Clinical Psychology lens
Live Matthew 15:21 today
- Try the thing you have told yourself you are not the kind of person who does. Start the class, open the document, make the call, in a room where nobody has an old file on you.
- Next time someone you know says something that does not fit the version of them in your head, let the new thing stand. Say so, even. People become what they are allowed to be.
- When a group chat or a family table pulls you back into who you were at seventeen, do not argue with it and do not perform it. Answer as the person you are now and change the subject.
Who are you still treating as the person they used to be, and is one of them you?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen · beginner's mind
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few. The people who are sure they already know you have the fewest of all.
Tao Te Ching 78
Nothing is softer than water, and nothing is better at wearing down what is hard. It does not fight the rock, and it still gets past it.
Buddhism · Dhammapada
No one is noble by birth or by rank. What you do is what you are, which is why the Buddha took students from every caste.
Free · No account needed
Read all of Matthew 15 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store