It’s a Dog’s life!
Oscar only wants to know two things: what are you eating and where are you going? His appetite is insatiable and his energy boundless. So, he is a typical three year old, all would agree. Green vegetables he will not abide, but nothing else will he reject. He will go where you go, and as he goes, he will do what he does best: learn by discovery. You might think that Oscar will be pleased one day that I have written a small biological piece on him, but, I assure you, in such vanity he will not glory or waste his time. Golden Retrievers know what they want and focus their energies on getting it. He doesn’t even care that ‘Dog’ in the Bible hardly gets a positive mention, and that it is a by-word for lots of horrible stuff.
The nearest it comes to something ‘positive’ is 4-fold. Firstly, only if you attribute the ‘positive’ as used for the ‘fulfilment part’ of Elijah’s prophecies against the evil husband and wife team, Ahab and Jezebel – Ahab’s blood was licked up by dogs and most of Jezebel’s body was eaten by dogs. Secondly, on the list of almost ‘positive’ mentions is when Hazael (2Kgs.8:13), and later Mephibosheth (2Sam.9:8), use the term to highlight their unworthy state before God and man. Third, Gideon’s ‘lap like a dog’ test for his 300 (Jdg.7:5). And lastly, in a backhanded compliment sought of way: “Surely a live dog is better than a dead lion” (Eccl.9:4). Otherwise: 1. ‘Dogs’ is the title given by Paul the those who are considered as ruthless church wreckers (Phil.3:2); 2. They are disgusting in their eating habits (Pro.26:11); 3. An unclean animal (Lev.11); 4. Fit to eat an unclean animal (Ex.22:31); 5. A name for male prostitutes (Dt.23:18); 6. Noisy (Psa.59:6) and 7. Vicious (Psa.22:16)…, to name some uses.
But it’s three passages in the New Testament that make my hair stand on end for their starkness. The first two: “Do not give what is holy to dogs [vicious wreckers of the gospel]” (Mt.7:6) and “A dog returns to its own vomit [for those forsaking the Lord it is re-eating the vomit of sinfulness]” (2Pet.2:22), are proverbial sayings that are coupled with the uncleanest of Bible animals – the pig. The third NT passage has Christians puzzled to this day. Jesus told a non-Jewish woman, who had come to beg him to drive a demon out her daughter, “Let the children [Jewish people of God] be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs [gentiles]” (Mark 7:27).
We can only conclude that this was a deliberate testing of the faith and resolve of Syrophoenician women. If so, she passed it with great distinction. Her love for her daughter was not about to allow a common insult (that Jesus was obviously repeating to make a point), get in the way of the healing that she knew could come at the hands of Jesus. Our western culture has brought dogs up to human standards – we see it wasn’t so in Biblical times. Oscar has been bred and trained to fit into our family. To interpret the scripture with Oscar as the ‘model’ of a dog, is to get it all wrong. It’s no dog’s life of Biblical times for him, I assure you!
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