Luke 6:1 - 11
On a Sabbath,[a] while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Questions:
ReplyDelete1. v2 - Were the disciples doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath?
2. v3 - How does David's example apply?
3. v5 - What is the significance of Jesus' claim to be lord of the Sabbath?
4. v7 - Now what did Jesus do "wrong"?
5. v11 - Why were they so angry?
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-6-commentary says:
ReplyDeleteSABBATH SCENE #1 - He was initially well received ("gracious words" - Lk 4:22+), but after speaking of the healing of a "Gentile dog," "Naaman the Syrian," (Lk 4:23-26, 27+) such opposition and rage arose that the hometown Jews cast Him out of the city and took Him to the brow of the hill (cf modern Mount Precipice) in order to throw Him off the cliff (Lk 4:28+).
SABBATH SCENE #2 in which He taught in the synagogue in Capernaum, a city in Galilee, (Lk 4:31-36+) where He cast out a demon from one of the men attending the synagogue (so much for church being a place of holy people), with the result that "the report about Him was spreading into every locality in the surrounding district."
SABBATH SCENE #3 in the grain fields - disciples doing "work"
SABBATH SCENE #4 "another Sabbath" in the synagogue - healing a withered hand
SABBATH SCENE #5 in the synagogue - healing a woman ill 18 years
SABBATH SCENE #6 in the home of a leader of the Pharisees - healing man of dropsy
SABBATH SCENE #7, so to speak, was the description of Jesus' tomb (Lk 23:54-55+), in a sense symbolizing that as the God-Man, the Lord of the Sabbath had accomplished His work of providing the "rest" found in His redemption and was Himself "resting on the Sabbath," and so the women who had visited the tomb also "rested according to the commandment."
He knew that the seventh day of the week was the weekly day of rest and worship for Jews and therefore His Sabbath confrontations did not occur by chance (see more on this below) for in so doing He was confronting one of the four major distinctives of Judaism - (1) Sabbath keeping, (2) Circumcision, (3) rules about eating clean and unclean foods and (4) worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-6-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteMacArthur specifically states that "the disciples were guilty in the eyes of the Pharisees of reaping (picking the grain), threshing (rubbing the husks together to separate the chaff from the grain), and winnowing (throwing the husks away), and thus preparing food." Is it not absurd how far legalism will go when it veers from what is stated clearly in the Word of God! In fact what the disciples were doing was permitted by the Law, for Moses stated only one Sabbath restriction and that was that one could not fill a vessel or use a harvesting implement! "When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your basket. “When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain." (Dt. 23:24-25)
Think for a moment of what it must have been like to be a Jew ever in the watchful eyes of the Pharisees who served as "legalistic police!" For law-keeping Jews, there was a frantic need to know a mountain of traditional regulations concerning it and a constant dread lest some minor infraction of an unknown rule might bring divine disfavour on their heads. They had even prescribed the amount that could be plucked and eaten on the Sabbath and it need be no larger than the size of a dried fig, hardly enough to satisfy ones hunger but large enough to convict a sabbath-breaker should they gather more than a fig-sized portion! This was a law of the rabbis, not a law of Moses, the law of God. God cared for men and had made allowance for hungry travelers (Dt 23:25), but the Pharisees could care less!
"You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" Jesus was saying that the Pharisees picked out the smallest and least points to focus on (which in fact were not even God's commandments but men's additions - see the "addition" in "B.(1)" above), while completely ignoring the most important matters, like compassion (they could care less that Jesus' disciples were hungry!).
"The Talmud devotes twenty-four chapters to Sabbath regulations, describing in painfully exhaustive detail what was and was not permitted to be done. The result was a ridiculously complex system of external behavior restraints—so much so that one rabbi spent two and a half years studying just one of the twenty-four chapters! For example, traveling more than 3,000 feet from home was forbidden. But if one had placed food at the 3,000 foot point before the Sabbath, that point would then be considered a home, since there was food there, and allow another 3,000 feet of travel. Similarly, a piece of wood or a rope placed across the end of a narrow street or alley constituted a doorway. That could then be considered the front door of one’s house, and permit the 3,000 feet of travel to begin there. There were also regulations about carrying items. Something lifted up in a public place could only be set down in a private place, and vice versa. An object tossed into the air could be caught with the same hand, but if it was caught with the other hand, it would be a Sabbath violation. . .
We are not saved from sin by faith in Christ plus keeping the Sabbath. We are saved by faith in Christ alone.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-6-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteThe basis of the law was the Ten Commandments. These commandments are principles for life. They are not rules and regulations; they do not legislate for each event and for every circumstance. For a certain section of the Jews that was not enough. They desired not great principles but a rule to cover every conceivable situation. From the Ten Commandments they proceeded to develop and elaborate these rules.
Note two things. First, for the scribes and Pharisees these rules were a matter of life and death; to break one of them was deadly sin. Second, only people desperately in earnest would ever have tried to keep them, for they must have made life supremely uncomfortable. It was only the best people who would even make the attempt.
Jesus had no use for rules and regulations like that. For him, the cry of human need superseded all such things. It was the irony of things that the best people of the day ultimately crucified him.
Jesus' point was that the God of the OT allowed David to eat food to meet their need, but the Pharisees had far less concern for human needs than in protecting their manmade (often uncompassionate) regulations! In the parallel passage in Matthew, their apathy to human need and lack of compassion led Jesus to remind them that God desires compassion over sacrifice (and what they were doing was not even sacrificing, but simply defending human rules.) The hardness of their hearts blinded them to the true meaning of God's Word and His heart behind His Word.
The context is that David had fled from King Saul who was opposed to David and tried to kill him (1 Sa 20:31–33). David went into hiding as a fugitive, taking a few men with him and while in the wilderness, they became hungry. Ahimelech came to understand that the preservation of David's life was more important than the ceremonial regulations concerning consecrated bread! In short, the priest discerned the spirit of the law, not just the letter of the law!
Notice that David broke a definite law given by Moses, for the consecrated bread was meant to be eaten only by the priests (Lev. 24:5-9), but Jesus' disciples had violated only a man-made rule!
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-6-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteMatthew 12:4+ how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5 “Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? 6 “But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 “But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
Mark 2:26+ how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Vincent on the consecrated bread - Lit., the loaves of proposition, i.e., the loaves which were set forth before the Lord. The Jews called them the loaves of the face, i.e., of the presence of God. The bread was made of the finest wheaten flour that had been passed through eleven sieves. There were twelve loaves, or cakes, according to the number of tribes, ranged in two piles of six each. Each cake was made of about five pints of wheat. They were anointed in the middle with oil, in the form of a cross. According to tradition, each cake was five hand-breadths broad and ten long, but turned up at either end, two hand-breadths on each side, to resemble in outline the ark of the covenant. The shewbread was prepared on Friday, unless that day happened to be a feast-day that required sabbatical rest; in which case it was prepared on Thursday afternoon. The renewal of the shewbread was the first of the priestly functions on the commencement of the Sabbath. The bread which was taken off was deposited on the golden table in the porch of the sanctuary, and distributed among the outgoing and incoming courses of priests (compare save for the priests). It was eaten during the Sabbath, and in the temple itself, but only by such priests as were Levitically pure. This old bread, removed on the Sabbath morning, was that which David ate.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-6-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteThe Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath - By using the phrase Son of Man Jesus Jesus is in essence claiming that He is the Messiah and all three synoptic Gospels have this important Messianic declaration.
By doing this, Jesus is in fact claiming that He is equal with God. As an aside we know from Paul that "by Him (Jesus) all things were created," (Col 1:16, cf John 1:3, Heb 1:2) thus Jesus actually was the Creator of the Sabbath. To put it bluntly, Jesus' Lordship trumps the man-made rules of the Jews! Jesus has the authority over the Law! If David could override the Law without blame, how much more could the greater Son of David, the Messiah himself, do so?
Rod Mattoon applies this truth to our lives - Christ is our Sabbath, He is our rest because He supplies everything that the Sabbath day was meant to give to men: peace, rest, restoration, renewal, regeneration, and communion with God.
but Mark has the little word "even" (kai) not in the others, showing that Jesus knew that He was making a great claim as the Son of Man, the Representative Man, the Messiah looked at from His human interest, to lordship (kurios) even of the Sabbath. He was not the slave of the Sabbath, but the Master of it.
But surprisingly, Jesus did not point out that His critics were following the commands of men rather than the commands of God. Instead, He took an incident from the life of David (1Sa 21:1-7) in which he violated the letter of the law in order to meet human needs. Jesus’ point is that legitimate human need (hunger) superseded the letter of the ceremonial law. People take precedence over ritual, even if that ritual is ordained by God.
Legalism always kills the joy of the good news that Jesus came to bring. It is a common problem in our day, but there is a lot of confusion about it. So we need to be careful to understand what it is and what it is not. In the first place, obedience to God’s commandments is not legalism. Being under grace does not mean that we are free to disobey God or hang loose with regard to His moral commandments.
Secondly, keeping manmade rules is not necessarily legalism. There are many areas not specified in the Bible where we need some rules to function as a Christian family or church. While these human rules are not as important as the commands of Scripture, there is a proper place for them and keeping them is not tantamount to legalism.
So what is legalism? Essentially, it is an attitude of pride in which I congratulate myself for keeping certain standards and condemn those who do not keep them. Usually the legalist thinks that his conformity to these rules makes him acceptable to God, either for salvation or sanctification. Invariably, these standards are not the great commandments of the Bible, such as loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Most often they are external things which the legalist is able to keep (see Mt 23:23-28).
The legalist judges spirituality by external conformity to certain rules. Legalists ignore motives and inner righteousness. What matters to them is outward conformity. God hates that sort of thing, because it stems from the flesh (Is 1:11-14). God is concerned that we please Him from our hearts.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-6-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteAs MacArthur observes the Scribes and Pharisees knew that according to their man-made additions to God's holy law "The most a physician or relative was permitted to do on the Sabbath was keep the sick person alive, or maintain the status quo of their condition, until the following day. Anything more than that was regarded as work, and therefore a violation."
As John MacArthur points out "Ironically, these self-appointed guardians of the Sabbath system did not want to stop Jesus from breaking their Sabbath rules; they actually wanted Him to perform a healing, so they would have cause to indict Him. Christ’s performing a healing would thus best suit their heinous hatred. Interestingly, never throughout His entire ministry did they doubt His ability to heal (cf. Lk 5:17-26+), which proved His ability to forgive sin (Lk 5:24+). Yet the convoluted reasoning in their sinful, prideful, obstinate hearts was that if Jesus did heal, the consequence would be that they could charge Him with breaking the Sabbath."
Do you see the horns of the dilemma of the Scribes and Pharisees? To agree that it is lawful to do good and to save a life on the Sabbath would have left them with no basis for accusing Jesus of wrongdoing. On the other hand if they agreed that it is good to do harm and to destroy a life on the Sabbath, they would be going against the clear teaching of the Old Testament, not to mention that they would in essence be admitting that they were filled with evil instead of mercy (In fact they were filled with evil, but refused to vocalize it in this situation). And so as Mark 3:4 says, they did the only wise thing they had done up to this point - they kept their mouth shut! Wouldn't it have been great to have been a fly on the wall! And imagine what the rest of the Jews in the synagogue must have been thinking when they heard Jesus' question! Not only was Jesus' teaching amazing (Mt 7:28-note), His arguments and logic were "watertight"
Questions and findings:
ReplyDelete1. v2 - Were the disciples doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath?
Only according to the traditions of the elders, which had subverted the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law specifically allowed them to eat grain from the field.
2. v3 - How does David's example apply?
Just like in this case, David broke the law out of mercy towards his men. David was the king and had authority to do this. Jesus had more authority than David and was Lord of the Sabbath. If Jesus allowed it, it was automatically the right thing to do.
3. v5 - What is the significance of Jesus' claim to be lord of the Sabbath?
He was making the claim that He was equal with God and greater than David.
4. v7 - Now what did Jesus do "wrong"?
By healing on the Sabbath, Jesus was breaking the tradition of the elders (but not Moses Law).
5. v11 - Why were they so angry?
Because Jesus was so popular, He was taking attention away from them, plus He was making a mockery of their traditions. When one defies a legalist, there is no one who becomes more filled with rage.
I would add that David's example applies because it deals with hunger/need. Jesus, as one of the commentators says, puts compassion for need above ritual demands. He is ALWAYS pointing to love for others and love for God, not feeling good about ourselves.
ReplyDelete