This week, we hit 3 questions that might look like they come from 2 stories that don't go together, but they do. And the reason they do is twofold. One, they are addressed to to the Pharisees who accuse Him, and unlike the Disciples whom He asks questions to mold them, and the people whom He asks questions to teach them, He asks these questions of the Pharisees to accuse them. Two, He is showing them over and over the thing they will later call blasphemy, that He IS God.
Let's look at the first question:
Mat 12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
Mat 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath."
Mat 12:3 He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:
Mat 12:4 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 were with him, but only for the priests?
Now first, you have to know the story being referred to. David was the example they declared to follow. This wasn't a bad thing; God Himself only faulted David 'in the matter of Uriah the Hittite'. But, he was a man who made many mistakes, and this incident packed a bunch of them. It was at the beginning of his flight from Saul, and he stopped off at the Tabernacle to beg supplies. He let the priest think he was on a mission for Saul, and then added to the misimpression by lying about the non-existent men under his command who were 'waiting outside'. And then he asked the priest for bread, and all that there was to be had was the Showbread, which had sat before the Lord for 7 days and was about to be replaced- since this occurred on the Sabbath. And he finished it off with an excuse- technically, only the priests could eat the Showbread even after the seven days, but David reasoned that it was "in effect, common", and talked the priest into giving it to him.
If David was truly their example, then they had to see the Showbread as common as well. But what does Showbread have to do with wheat on the head? Here you have to consider- Jesus is God, and the field before Him was just the same as the Showbread in the Temple. It was the Sabbath, and the Disciples hunger, just like David's need, rendered the Sabbath Showbread common. Thus, Jesus' question told them 2 things- He was God, and they don't follow the example of David.
The second question plays on that:
Mat 12:5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
Mat 12:6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.
Mat 12:7 And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.
Mat 12:8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath."
The first question busted them on their twisting of their own tradition; the second catches them on service and common sense. If the priests did no work (by the Pharisees' definition) on the Sabbath, they could not do the most important part of their service before the Lord. The Disciples do the Lord's work, and Jesus as God is greater than the Temple built by hands.
Now, they have been shown their accusations are against the example of "David their father", and against the laws of service to the Lord. But they move on, and Jesus busts them with the deepest cut of all:
Mat 12:9 He went on from there and entered their synagogue.
Mat 12:10 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.
Mat 12:11 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?
Mat 12:12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."
Mat 12:13 Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.
This time, they were busted on their OWN example- how they lived THEIR lives. So three times He used their own tactics to turn their accusations upon themselves, and three times He proved He was God doing it. The were legalists in the extreme, and would be quite at home in many of our churches, fighting over "proper position in worship" and the like. But their way is not what God intended in giving them the Law of Moses. In Mark, Jesus adds this quote...
Mar 2:27 And he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
Their legalism had stripped them of perspective, mercy, and the ability to recognize God right before themselves. He was truly 'answering a fool according to their folly' (Proverbs 26), because even being defeated at their own game didn't change their minds...
Mat 12:14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
But again, Jesus was never trying to teach them. He was just showing them the accusation they would face at the judgment. And our best lesson here is, you can choose faith, or you can choose rules. Faith will get you to heaven. Rules- whether you follow them in a misapplied manner, or outright reject them- That's a different story.
