63 Why the Pharisees Wanted to Kill Jesus over the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-14)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for downloading the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're going to study Matthew chapter 12, verses 1 through 14, and this is the 63rd talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, or you can find them directly at wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 6.3. Glad to have you along. We're starting Matthew chapter 12 today, and we're in a section of Matthew's gospel where he's focusing on the largely negative reaction of the Jewish people to Jesus. In chapter 10, Jesus sent the 12 out to preach the gospel, and he warned them that they would face hostility and persecution. By and large, the people were going to reject the 12 because they also reject Jesus. Then in chapter 11, we saw how even John the Baptist became confused because Jesus was not acting like the Messiah he expected. After assuring John that he was the Messiah, Jesus turns to the crowd and tells them how to think about John. John is the last great prophet. He is right to tell them repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But like everyone else, he himself has to come to terms with the Messiah and learn to trust Jesus, even if Jesus is not what he expected. Then Jesus pronounced woes on some of the Galilean cities because they failed to repent, even though they saw more of his teaching and more of his miracles than any other place. And he ended chapter 11 with an invitation to all those who are weary and burdened to come and follow him and become his disciples. That brings us to chapter 12. And in chapter 12, Matthew starts off with two stories that involve the Sabbath, and they highlight the growing hostility of the Pharisees toward Jesus. In the first story, the Pharisees accuse the disciples of Jesus of breaking the Sabbath, and in the second story, Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees and accuses them of being the real Sabbath breakers. Now it's been a while since we've talked about the Pharisees, so let me remind you who they are. The Pharisees were the religious and intellectual elite of the day. They excelled in their observance of the law. In addition to the written Mosaic law, they kept a constantly refined oral law, which they considered just as binding as the Mosaic law, and they were very popular with the people. They were a political force to be reckoned with. Today we're used to thinking of them as the bad guys, but in their day they were the good guys. They were the religious elite and the people who taught everyone else how to understand the law. The Pharisees organized themselves into brotherhoods. Each brotherhood had a scribe who taught the law to others. All scribes were Pharisees, but not all Pharisees were scribes. Now in our first story, the Pharisees ask a regular question and they receive, I think, a thoughtful answer. The text does not suggest that there is anger, hostility, or confrontation from either the Pharisees or from Jesus, but that's not the case in the second story. Let me read the first story. This is Matthew twelve, verses one through eight. At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who are with him? How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who are with him, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here, and if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Okay, first let's start with some background on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was extremely important at the time of Jesus. What is it? Well, I have a separate podcast series on the Sabbath if you want to explore in more detail why God gave it to us, what it means today and so forth, and I'll put a link to that in the lecture notes. I'm only going to give you a brief explanation here. Essentially, Sabbath was a command not to work on the seventh day. As a tradition, Sabbath goes back to creation with God resting on the seventh day, and then it was established in the Mosaic Law as one of the Ten Commandments and was a sign of the covenant. It was an integral part of the history of the Jewish people. We see it in the Exodus. God gave the people a double portion of manna on the sixth day so that they could rest on the seventh day. After the Babylonian exile, keeping the Sabbath took on even greater significance. The people realized God sent them into exile because as a people they didn't keep the law, including the Sabbath. They wanted to avoid another exile, so they started a serious attempt to keep the law. And my understanding is that the Pharisees arose as a party out of this desire to keep the law and avoid another exile. Following the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah when the people are back in the land after the exile, the Pharisees developed a rigorous code of regulations and restrictions governing the Sabbath. This was the oral law, and they considered that just as binding as the written law of Moses. The word Sabbath is simply a transliteration of the Hebrew word for rest. One day a week, Jews were to cease from their labors. To make sure they complied with that rest, the rabbis developed a painfully minute and complicated set of rules about just what constituted work. In an attempt to preserve the holiness of the Sabbath day, they very painstakingly defined every possible form of work in order to make sure that no one did any. Following the prescriptions about the Sabbath was so important that breaking them was punishable by being stoned to death. At the time of the Maccabean Revolt, which is around 168 BC, the Sabbath was so important that many Jews chose to die rather than defend themselves on the Sabbath and thus break its holiness. By the time of Jesus, the Sabbath had become the chief marker which identified the children of Israel as the people of God. A rabbi's views on the Sabbath were quite important. It was kind of a litmus test, similar to the way a politician's views on abortions can be a litmus test today. And at this point, Jesus is not just an ordinary citizen. He's teaching like a rabbi, he's preaching like a prophet, and he's healing with the authority of God. He's been making these bold claims about his authority to forgive sins, and he's claiming the kingdom of God is at hand and he can tell you who's going to enter it. What he thinks of the Sabbath is of great interest to the religious leaders of the day. Did he or did he not follow all the scribal interpretations of the Sabbath? Which rules, if any, did he think were the most important? Which rabbis' interpretations did he think carried the most weight? All of those questions were deeply important to the Pharisees. We see a number of times in the other gospels where the Sabbath plays a role in the worsening relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees. Matthew gives us only these two, but in these two we see that the Sabbath is such an important issue to the Pharisees that by the end of the second story they are planning to destroy Jesus. John records a similar story in chapter five of his gospel, where the leaders in Jerusalem react to Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath. Here in Matthew, I think we're dealing with the Pharisees from the region of Galilee, but in John's account, he also notes that their response is they want to kill him. So Jesus has just healed a lame man on the Sabbath, and John tells us in five, sixteen through eighteen. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now, and I am working. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father and making himself equal with God. So in this section where Matthew is focusing on the relationship between Jesus and the Jewish people, especially their leaders, Matthew also tells us Sabbath is a particularly significant aspect of that relationship. Now it may seem strange to us and kind of harsh that they want to kill Jesus for his actions on the Sabbath, but in the law breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death. Let's walk through the first story. At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they begin to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. Okay, so here's the situation. The disciples are following Jesus. They are nowhere near their home. As they travel from town to town, they become hungry, so as they travel through a grain field, they reach out, pluck the heads of grain, and eat them. As the disciples do this, move along plucking heads of grains, they broke at least two, maybe four or more different rabbinical laws, depending on your interpretation. They could be accused of breaking the Pharisees' rules against reaping, winnowing, threshing, and preparing a meal. Now these aren't laws in the Old Testament. These are the traditions and the rules that the Pharisees developed in order to keep the law. It's interesting in this exchange, Jesus doesn't comment on whether the Pharisees' understanding of work is right or wrong. He seems to grant them their premise. They say, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath, and his response is to remind them of a story about someone else who did something that wasn't lawful on the Sabbath. Let's read 12, 3 through 8. And he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who are with him? How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who are with him, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here, and if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Whenever Jesus says, Have you not read, and he refers to some story in the Old Testament, the first thing we want to do is go read it. And Jesus is referring to the story of David that is found in 1 Samuel chapter 21, verses 1 through 6. Let me set the stage for you. Where are we in biblical history? We are past Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are past Moses and the Exodus. The children of Israel have been living in the promised land for several years, and they ask God for a king. God gave them Saul as their first king, but Saul did not follow God, and so God anoints David to be king instead. At this point, Saul is still occupying the throne, but the prophet Samuel has anointed David as the new king. Saul is jealous and outraged, and he is seeking to take David's life. So David and a few of his men flee for their lives. And that's where we're picking up the story. This is first Samuel twenty one, one through six. Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech came to David, trembling, and said to him, Why are you alone and no one with you? And David said to Ahimelech the priest, The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you. I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here. And the priest answered David, I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread if the young men have kept themselves from women. And David answered the priest, Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy? So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the presents, which is removed from before the Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away. David is fleeing for his life. He has left Saul's court in a hurry. He's a fugitive, and he doesn't have any provisions for his journey. His first stop is at the tabernacle at Nob. There he meets Ahimelech, the high priest, and asks for food, but the only food available was the holy showbread, which is also called the bread of the presence. So to understand this story, we have to know what the showbread is, and we find that in Leviticus 24, verses five through nine. This is God speaking to Aaron, and he's giving him directions about how things are going to go in the tabernacle, and this is what he says. You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it, two tenths of an epha shall be in each loaf, and you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord, and you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly. It is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever, and it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual dew. Okay, so this was also called the bread of the presence or the show bread. Every week the priests baked twelve loaves of bread, one for each of the tribes of Israel, and the loaves were typically round and flat and thin. This bread was presented and shown in the temple of Jerusalem in the presence of God, and the loaves were a symbolic acknowledgement that God is the one who provides for and sustains Israel, and it's also an act of thanksgiving and gratitude. The bread was placed on a golden table in front of the Holy of Holies, and once a week it was switched for new bread. When the old bread was switched out on the Sabbath, it then became the property of the priests, and the priest could eat it, but they were not to remove it from the holy place, they were to eat it there. Now there are a couple of interesting things about this exchange. David and Ahimelech, the priest, have a discussion about whether David and his men are clean. Ahimelech is willing to give David the bread, provided his men have kept themselves ritually clean. Presumably that's in a similar fashion to the way the priests would keep themselves clean before performing their duties. Leviticus doesn't really make any provision for whether the men are clean or not. As I said, the priests were expected to be clean before they performed their duties. When the bread is replaced, it is to be given only to the priests, not to anyone else. But notice how David responds. David responds that the journey he is on is holy. In other words, David is doing what God wants him to do. He's the anointed king in exile, and his men are following him. They are on a mission from God, and it is more important that they obey God than that they obey the religious rituals of the Sabbath. The priest agrees, and he gives David the bread, and he and his men take it and eat it. And then here we have Jesus commending him for it. Now remember this is David, the king from whom the Messiah is descended. The New Testament often draws a connection between events in David's life and events in the life of Jesus, because Jesus is the final Davidic king who will establish the throne of David forever in a reign of peace and righteousness. As the Messiah, Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises made to David. At this point in David's story, he is the anointed king, but he does not yet have his throne. David is waiting on God to fully grant him the kingship. David is on a long journey through the wilderness where most of the time the powers that be, which is King Saul and his men, are trying to kill him. He needs food and he needs a weapon. And if you go on in the story, you'll find that what David ends up with is the holy bread for food and the sword of Goliath for a weapon. So in the story, we see that God has provided unique food and protection for his king, and that God is more concerned with protecting his anointed king than he is with keeping the ritual rules about the bread. Now Jesus, the Messiah, the true Davidic king, is here. He also does not yet have his throne, and as we'll see, the powers that be, the Pharisees, are seeking to have him killed. Like David, Jesus is waiting for God to fulfill his promises and fully grant him his kingship. So Jesus refers to the story where David and the priest disobey the law, they break the Sabbath, and they did the right thing. And I think his point is something like this. I'll grant you the premise that it's unlawful to eat this grain. But the fact is I am the Messiah, and these are my disciples. We are on a mission from God, and my disciples are supporting themselves on that mission. Just as the priest recognized the unique place of David and gave him food and protection, you ought to recognize my unique role as the Messiah, the true Davidic king, and offer me food and protection. Then he goes on to develop this point. Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests and the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you something greater than the temple is here. Now what's his point here? Priests have to work on the Sabbath. The very nature of being a priest requires you to work on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath, the priests break the Sabbath and they're innocent. That teaches us that the Sabbath is not some kind of absolute that must be kept at all costs because we have this whole class of people who regularly work on the Sabbath. The same God who said, Don't work on the Sabbath, said to the priests, work on the Sabbath. This makes it clear that God values something more than the Sabbath. Like David, the priests in the temple are doing something that is more important than keeping the Sabbath rules, and Jesus is implying, so am I. He goes on, I tell you something greater than the temple is here. The Messiah is here. The work of the Messiah is greater than the work of the temple. The work of the Messiah is greater than the work of David. The disciples of Jesus are plucking grain while they are following the Messiah in his work. It is more important that they learn from and follow the Messiah than that they go home and rest on the Sabbath. And then Jesus makes one more point. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. This is the second time we have seen Jesus quote this passage from Hosea 6 6. The first time was in Matthew 9, verse 13. The word mercy here is the Hebrew word for Hesed. The Greek translation of this word is the word. For mercy. And we talked about this before in chapter nine, but let me review. I understand this Hebrew word Hesed to have three flavors: active love, loyal, trustworthy, steadfast love, and merciful love. All three flavors are present every time the word is used, but the context may emphasize one or other of the flavors. Usually this word describes God's steadfast, faithful, merciful, compassionate acts of love, especially in fulfillment of his covenant promises, as opposed to a kind of general love for all humanity. In Hosea 6.6, God wants people to have Hesed more than He wants them to keep the ritual requirements, and Hesed is in parallel with the knowledge of God, while sacrifices are in parallel with burnt offerings. Hosea 6.6 reads, For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. I think by knowledge of God here in this context, he means understanding and knowing who God is, what he values, and what he wants. It's possible that God is describing our relationship to him in Hosea, and that God is saying something like, He is steadfastly faithful to us, and we should be steadfastly faithful to him. But I don't think that's the point in Hosea or Matthew. I think it's more likely he's describing the way we deal with other people. God acts with steadfast, compassionate love toward us, and we should treat others with the same kind of compassionate love. God's merciful actions toward us are a model for our actions toward other people. And God desires that you be like him in pursuing this kind of steadfast, merciful, compassionate love rather than merely complying with the ritual requirements of the law like sacrifice and burnt offerings. And Jesus is saying, if you understood Hosea, you would recognize that it's more important to be faithful to God and treat others with merciful compassion than it is to follow the rules. It's more important that the Messiah continue his mission and his disciples with him than that they keep the rules of the Sabbath. The disciples are showing their faith and loyalty in following Jesus, and that is more important to God than keeping Sabbath rules. They are innocent in their actions. They are in this situation of having no provisions on the Sabbath because they're following the Messiah. Following the Messiah shows their steadfast, faithful love of God, and God wants that kind of loyal love more than outward obedience to the rules. And then he concludes, For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. We have the same story in Mark chapter 2 and Luke chapter 6, and Mark gives us an additional detail. This is Mark 2, 27 and 28. And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Now, one common way to interpret this text is that Jesus is offering a legal ruling saying human need takes precedence over religious observance. Thus the reasons David's actions were permitted was because he was hungry and hunger takes precedence over the laws of the Sabbath. And the Pharisees would have understood that line of reasoning. Their own detailed oral traditions held that danger to life took precedence over the Sabbath laws. But only the life of an Israelite, if the life of a heathen or a Samaritan was in danger, that didn't count. But in their own reasoning, they made exceptions to their own rules to preserve life. And I think there is truth that the idea that human need takes precedence over religious observance. But in this context, both in Matthew and in Mark, I don't think that's the force of Jesus' words. First, that's not the line of reasoning David gives in Samuel, which Jesus refers to. David says he can break the rules because he's on a holy mission in obedience to God. And second, we've seen Jesus concludes his account with a theological explanation, not a legal ruling. Mark tells us the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In other words, the guidelines are there to help us and to teach us something. They are not there as a master for us to serve or a burden for us to bear. And we can make a distinction between laws that are fundamentally and morally necessary and laws that are provisional or intended to benefit or teach us something. For example, the commandment to love God with all your heart and soul is fundamental. It's not like the Sabbath. Mankind was made to love God. The commandment to love God is not made for man. The fundamental moral necessity of loving God is not going to change, and we must adapt to it. That law is not going to adapt to us. But the Sabbath is not the same kind of law. The Sabbath is the kind of law that was made for mankind. God gave it to us for our education and for our benefit. It teaches us something we need to know and we benefit from obedience. It was made for us in order that we might learn something about God. So when Jesus says he's Lord of the Sabbath, he's saying he is the Messiah. He tells us and shows us who God is and what God wants. As the Messiah, Jesus can show us, teach us, and explain to us what the Sabbath means and what we're supposed to learn. Jesus couldn't come along and say, you know, you don't have to love God anymore. I'm going to nullify that law. He doesn't have the authority to nullify that kind of law. But he does have the authority to say, this is what the Sabbath is all about, and here's what it looks like to take it seriously. Essentially, I think all these arguments add up to this. Like David's men, the disciples of Jesus are doing what God wants them to do. They are following the Messiah. Following the Messiah does not give them time to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. They don't have time to prepare food in advance or ritually wash themselves and so forth. In their situation, to obey God puts them in conflict with the Sabbath laws. It is more important that they obey God than that they follow the rules of this religious practice. That's the same argument David used. David was a representative of the new kingdom which would topple Saul. As the new king, David was on a mission from God. He and his men had to flee for their lives, and that put them in conflict with the Sabbath laws. It's more important that they obey God than that they follow the Sabbath laws. And that's Jesus' point to the Pharisees. If David's men can violate the laws of the Sabbath because they are obeying the commands of their king, how much more can the disciples of the Messiah violate the laws of the Sabbath because they are serving the Messiah himself who is Lord of the Sabbath? So Jesus could have answered the Pharisees in legal minutia. He could have explained they were breaking human traditions and not the real intent of the Sabbath, but he doesn't. Instead, he answers them in terms of who he is. He is the new David, the anointed but not yet enthroned king, abroad on an urgent mission, ushering in redemption and ultimate Sabbath rest. When that day dawns, not just one day, but all the days and all time will be holy. His disciples, like David's men, can violate these rituals when they conflict with obeying their king. The Sabbath was a shadow, a symbol of the reality to come, and the reality is here, and the symbol must give way to it. All right, let's look at the second story. This is Matthew twelve, nine through fourteen. He went on from there and entered their synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him? He said to them, Which one of you has a sheep if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep, so it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand, and the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him. Now notice the difference in tone in this story. Mark tells us in his version in chapter three that the Pharisees were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. They're watching him closely. Matthew tells us that they asked this question so that they might accuse him. It's quite likely they planted the man with the withered hand there on purpose so they could set Jesus up for this question. The setting for the story is much more confrontational and hostile. Jesus enters the synagogue, finds a man there with a withered hand. He's probably up front and center where everyone could see, planted there by the Pharisees to see what Jesus would do about it. Would he heal on the Sabbath or not? And just to make sure he has to deal with the situation, they ask him if it's lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Now notice the irony of that question. Jesus is restoring life while the Pharisees are plotting to kill him. Which act do you think breaks the Sabbath? Healing someone or killing someone? Now remember, rabbinical law made exceptions to their own rules when life was in danger. What constituted danger was open to some debate. The rabbis had whole sections of their oral tradition which limited and defined which ailments constituted danger and which didn't, and which ailments could supersede the Sabbath. For instance, according to one rabbi, a person with a toothache was not allowed to gargle with vinegar, but he could use an ordinary toothbrush and dip it in vinegar. But another rabbi disagreed, claiming gargling was lawful. As long as you swallowed the substance afterwards, you couldn't spit it out. They had rules about whether or not you could remove a splinter on the Sabbath or a thorn from a body, and they had all kinds of rules for various ailments. So they may have debated whether the man with a withered hand was seriously ill enough or not to break the Sabbath, or whether this could wait until the next day. But at least they would have understood helping him at some level and probably grudgingly acknowledged that some rabbis would classify his hand as a danger to life and allow treatment. The very fact that they debated how much danger to life constituted danger and thus was allowable on the Sabbath implies that it is lawful on the Sabbath to do that which saves a life or prevents death. To teach otherwise would be to virtually involve murder. In a negative sense, they must have allowed that preventing death was allowable on the Sabbath, but could they go one step further and take the positive side and say it's allowable to do good? After all, the omission of good could involve the doing of evil. Well Jesus answers, this is twelve, eleven through fourteen. He said to them, Which one of you who has a sheep if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand, and the man stretched it out, and it was restored healthy like the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him. Rabbinic law allowed food and drink to be lowered to a sheep that had fallen into a pit. The Talmud discusses cases where it's lawful to lift an animal out of a pit on the Sabbath. Now, even if these laws were not strictly in place at the time of Christ, there were other laws about preventing death on the Sabbath, and surely a human being is worth more than livestock. So imagine this scene. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue. The place is probably crowded because everyone wants to hear what this amazing rabbi has to say. The man with a withered hand has probably been placed in a position where everyone can see him, right up front probably in Jesus' line of vision. And then the Pharisees casually ask Jesus if it's lawful to heal on the Sabbath, hoping to get him in trouble no matter which way he answers. They want to accuse him and discredit him. The Pharisees are eagerly awaiting Jesus' reaction, and Jesus takes the challenge, but he turns the tables on them. He says, If one of your sheep fell into a pit on the Sabbath, of course you would lift it out. Imagine that sheep was one of your neighbors. A man's life is much more valuable than a sheep's life. Of course you'd help your neighbor out of a pit. It is always lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he asked the man to stretch out his hand. The man does so and is healed. Notice that Jesus has broken their Sabbath law, and yet he has not broken their laws. The man is healed, so Jesus did heal him on the Sabbath, but Jesus didn't move a muscle. He did no work at all. He didn't touch the man, he didn't lift the man, he didn't move him, he didn't apply any outward force or remedy, he only spoke. The man stretches out his arm and he's healed. So the rabbis had painfully detailed regulations of what constituted work, but all their definitions and debates about work involved actions. Jesus takes no action here. He does nothing. He merely speaks and the man is healed. He has broken their rules and regulations all without moving a muscle. Now I think it's significant that Jesus deliberately heals on the Sabbath. I think there is great symbolism in the fact that he heals a man with a withered hand. A man with a crippled hand was excluded from the priesthood, according to Leviticus 21. A man with a withered hand is unable to reach out and do good works, and in a way he's kind of symbolic of a nation with a withered heart, unable to reach out and serve and do good. In a sense, he's symbolic of the Pharisees who are so caught up in their rules and regulations that they want to kill the Messiah who is standing in their midst. This is the one who can usher God's people into the wondrous Sabbath rest that is more than a symbol and a shadow. He can heal not only their withered hands but their withered hearts. He can grant them the rest that comes more than once a week, but is the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. And they reject him. They want to kill him. And in fact, Mark tells us the Pharisees go out and join forces with their arch rivals, the Herodians, to plot Jesus' death. To wrap this up, I want to look at how Jesus is handling the Old Testament and what that teaches us about good Bible study. Jesus says, Have you not read? The Pharisees are building their understanding of the Sabbath by looking only at the passages that give rules about Sabbath. But Jesus says, in order to understand what God's doing, to understand what God wants and his values and why he would give you the Sabbath, you can't look only at the commandment itself. You must also understand the command that required priests to work on the Sabbath. You're not a priest, so it may never have occurred to you to look at the rules concerning priests, but think about the significance of the fact that God commanded the priests to work on the Sabbath. And you must also understand the story of David and the show bread. And furthermore, you must have understood and read Hosea. Hosea isn't talking about Sabbath at all, but he is talking about compassion and sacrifice. You must understand all these various passages to understand how God thinks about the ritual requirements like the Sabbath. Well, I think that is a hugely important model to us students of the Bible. If we want to understand God better by reading His Word, then this tells us the methodology that sort of grabs a verse here and a verse there or takes a phrase out of context, that methodology is lacking. We cannot just say, look, I've got a verse that says this, end of story. We have to understand the verse in context, and we have to understand the context in the whole of Scripture. We are trying to understand the mind of God as He has revealed Himself in His Word. And that requires us to understand what He has said and done in history, how He treated His people Israel, what He said through the prophets, and most importantly what He has said through His Son Jesus Christ. If we want to know God, we have to be committed to the larger work of searching and understanding the Scriptures, all of them, not just pulling a verse out of context here and there. Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees, the experts in the law, and saying, haven't you read this? You can't just pull out a verse here and there and speculate on what it means to you today. You have to seek to know what God meant. And that means you have to study all of it and put all the pieces of Scripture together. Now thankfully, the Bible is very clear on the fundamentals. Scripture is very repetitive when it comes to the big themes that we must know. I worry sometimes that I teach the same things over and over again because the main themes appear repeatedly in so many different passages. But at least here we can see that Jesus takes a very dim view of proof texting. He rebukes the Pharisees for pulling out a verse here and there and trying to understand them in isolation. Have you not read is a rebuke to all of us who rarely read or study our Bibles.InTheWord.com lately, I encourage you to stop by. Rather than being covered with advertisements, my website contains a wealth of Bible study materials designed to help you improve your Bible study and your understanding. It's all free. There are no ads and no donations. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list, subscribe to the podcast, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find his music and listen to his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.