Matthew 12

Click here to read Matthew 12

In the first verses of Chapter 12, we see Jesus at odds with the Pharisees. In particular, they are arguing over the Sabbath laws. Now, the commandment in scripture is to keep the Sabbath holy, and not to work on the Sabbath (for those who are not familiar with the concept of the Sabbath, it is the 7th day of the week. The Jewish people are not permitted to work on that day).

There is some vagueness in this commandment, however. What is "work" exactly? Now, as I pointed out last night, the Pharisees beleived that God would only bless the Jews if the followed the law perfectly. So, with some of the laws that were kind of vague, they put what is called a hedge around the law. In this case, the law is to not work on the Sabbath. So, what they did was create a system of rules based on the actual commandment that, if you followed them, then there was no question that you didn't break the actual commandment itself. For example, on the Sabbath, a Jewish person could only walk 3/4 of a mile. There is no law in the old testament limiting how far you can walk. But, the Pharisees figured that if you kept it to that, then you would be safe. There were many such rules they had created like that.

Which isn't a bad thing, per se. But, as you can see in this passage, the Pharisees began to give these rules the same importance as the commandments. In the case with Jesus' disciples, the Pharisees were accusing them of working on the sabbath as they were picking grain and eating it. To the Pharisees, this was the same as "harvesting" on the Sabbath. It's a bit of a stretch, but that's what the Pharisees did . . . they didn't take chances. For the disciples, this was their only shot at a meal that day. And that's the issue Jesus had: the Pharisees, in their efforts to enforce the law, lacked compassion on people who were gathering food just to survive that day.