What does Tribe teach about canceled jesus?
Drawn from the message where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on canceled Jesus starts with an honest admission: a lot of what Jesus said and did would get him in serious trouble today. Brian Sauvé has been walking the church through those moments in a summer series, asking people to push past the surface-level offense and look at what Jesus was actually doing. The series has covered Jesus telling his followers to lay down their lives to find them, Jesus claiming to be the only way to God, and then the story in Matthew 15 where he appears to ignore and then insult a foreign woman begging for her daughter's healing.
That third story gets the most direct treatment. Brian worked through Matthew 15:21-28 and argued that the offense in the text is the point of entry, not the conclusion. To read it fairly, he said, you have to hold a Jewish mindset and recognize every layer of cultural exclusion pressing down on this Canaanite woman at once. She was a Gentile, a woman, an outsider. And yet before any of the tension with Jesus plays out, she names him correctly in verse 22, calling him Son of David, a messianic title. A Gentile woman outside Israel confessed who Jesus was while crowds inside Israel were following him for miracles or out of curiosity. The disciples heard someone being annoying. Jesus heard a confession. When Brian reached the dogs comment, he was direct: "Jesus wasn't insulting her identity by calling her a dog. He was creating a moment to demonstrate her devotion."
The larger point the series keeps returning to is that Jesus was not interested in managing his reputation. As Brian put it, "Jesus did not come to Earth for a popularity contest. Jesus came to fight and win a long standing cosmic battle." That frame runs underneath all three weeks: the things that would get Jesus canceled are not mistakes or rough edges to explain away. They are the shape of who he is and what he came to do.
Taught from Matthew 15:21-28 · John 14 · Luke 9
“Jesus wasn't insulting her identity by calling her a dog. He was creating a moment to demonstrate her devotion.”
From You Can't Say That About Women, Jesus
The passage taught · John 14
1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.
3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.
4 Where I go, you know, and you know the way.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- August 23, 2026 You Can't Say That About Women, Jesus A Canaanite woman refuses to be dismissed, and Jesus calls it great faith. Brian Hunter looks at what Jesus really meant when he said things that would get him canceled.