Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S8 || The Conflict of Faith and Legalism || Mark 2:23 - 3:6 || Session 8 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Can compassion and rule-keeping coexist without conflict, or are they irrevocably at odds? Join us as we explore the tension between these two forces through the lens of Mark Chapters 2 and 3, beginning with the simple yet controversial act of Jesus and his disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath. With this scenario, Jesua challenges the rigid traditions of the Pharisees by asking if human need can, and should, take precedence over Pharisaical Law. Jesus’s reference to David’s actions and his bold claim of being "Lord of the Sabbath" push us to reflect on our own possible entanglement in legalism at the expense of compassion and understanding. This episode serves as a powerful reminder of the balance needed between upholding religious traditions and maintaining the compassion that lies at the heart of faith.
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Today's Reasoning Through the Bible session is going to be in Mark, chapter 2. If you have your copy of the Word of God, open to Mark 2.23. We are following our Lord Jesus as he is going and doing in the Gospel of Mark, a gospel of action, and to the Roman world that only cares about what a person has done, what is their accomplishments? We have here the Lord Jesus presented next in terms of an interface with the Jewish leaders. Throughout Mark, there's a whole series of people that Jesus is interfacing with and we have that yet again as we are reasoning through rules about the Sabbath. Let's go ahead and read.
Speaker 1:Mark 2.23 says this and it happened that he was passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath and his disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain, the Pharisees were saying to him Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry? 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. Jesus said to them the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. So as they were walking along, jesus and his disciples, they would reach alongside the pathway into the farmer's fields and pluck some ripe grain and they would then rub it between their fingers and blow off the chaff for a snack just a little bit of a snack along the way while they were walking along distances.
Speaker 1:Now, the Old Testament law allowed for this in two different senses. In Leviticus 19.9, the farmers were not to harvest the edges of the field and if you think about it, the edges of the field are where the pathways would be when people were traveling between cities. That would provide a little bit of food for a traveler to be able to reach down and have something, simply because it's difficult to bring enough food and water with you when you're traveling. The other sense was in Deuteronomy 23, verses 24 to 25,. Deuteronomy 23, verses 24 to 25, it was legal for travelers to pick what they could eat personally from a farmer's field, as long as they didn't bring a basket and start filling the basket. So it was legal to pick the grain and it was put there for travelers. But what the Pharisees were upset about was what they weren't so much upset at those things. They were upset about what, steve.
Speaker 2:They were upset because he was doing this on the Sabbath. This was something that a lot of their oral traditions circled around was not doing any work on the Sabbath. They had hundreds of oral rules that they had come up with to define what work meant. So here they see Jesus and his disciples coming through these grain fields, picking, rubbing eating To them. It was breaking laws, of working on the Sabbath, of harvesting, of winnowing and storing the grain whenever they ate it. They're more concerned not with the benefit of the human beings themselves, because they're hungry and they're wanting something to eat. They're pointing fingers and saying y'all are doing work on the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:The rules that the Jewish leaders had developed over the centuries got very, very particular and it's still there today. For the people that truly care about such things and Sabbath-keeping, they get into things like can a tailor carry their sewing needle on the Sabbath? Or could a scribe carry a pen? Does that constitute work? Or if you hand something to somebody through a doorway, then that becomes work, things like that. It gets to a very ridiculous sense. In this sense, people were walking along picking a little bit of a snack and oh, you're harvesting, quote-unquote. Well, it's not really work. It'd take more work to argue about it than it would to actually pick the heads of grain. What was Jesus' response? They accused him of this your disciples are picking heads of grain. Now notice, they didn't accuse Jesus of this, it was the disciples. So even this little law Jesus obeyed, but nevertheless the accusation was against those disciples. What was Jesus's response?
Speaker 2:Jesus's response was to use an example from the Hebrew scriptures, what we refer to as the Old Testament of David Whenever David, at a particular time, went into the temple and was hungry because of the activities that were taking place and he was given the showbread from the temple by the priests. In giving this description he's giving to the Pharisees of comparing the Mosaic law to their oral tradition law, their Pharisaic Judaism, because the Mosaic law never prohibited the priests from giving the food to other people. That wasn't a prohibition. It was supposed to be reserved for the priests and the priests were supposed to eat it, but it didn't forbid them from giving the bread away if there was some sort of a need. It was the oral tradition that came along and said oh no, the priest, you can't even give the food away on the Sabbath and you can't do this harvesting and such and such on the Sabbath. So he uses a practical example to them as far as what happened in the past and how it should apply to the time.
Speaker 1:In his he's basically calling out their oral tradition as not being valid Of course, jesus had a divine understanding of the entire Old Testament, he could bring out these things and show these principles. Well, the story he tells is again David was escaping and he and his men were quite hungry, and the idea here was that the hunger of David and his men was more important than this Old Testament rule that only the priest eat the bread. The principle here is that compassion is more important than rule keeping. These Pharisees seem to be more focused on the letter of the law than the actual human compassion. Is it possible today, steve, that we could be possibly even starting out with a good motivation towards living righteously and following the Lord's commands? Can we be guilty of the same thing in the sense that we're so focused on rule-keeping that we ignore compassion?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that focused on rule-keeping. Another name for it is legalism. I think that that's what happens sometimes in our modern day is that extra rules are placed on activities that might have a good motivation, but then they're looked at as separating somebody from God if they break that rule. What's left out of it is what was happening here compassion. There might be certain things that you might have a rule associated with, a denomination or a church that you might go to, but then there might be a need, for some reason, to break that rule for a compassionate reason, but yet the people will just like then will look and say you broke that rule. Therefore, you need to get right with God, regardless of what the actual reason for them to break it was.
Speaker 1:I would think, stephen, let me present this and get your thoughts. There's, to me, two extremes here. One is what Jesus presents here, which is so legalistic that we forget human compassion. We're so focused on rule-keeping Again, these were God's rules. These aren't arbitrary. It was God's rules. These aren't arbitrary. It was God's rules.
Speaker 1:The priest is supposed to eat the bread, but what Jesus is saying is there was a principle that's higher than that, which is human compassion. We should have compassion for hungry people. We have bread here. They can eat it. That's one principle.
Speaker 1:The other extreme would be we're so compassionate that we never mention sin to anyone, and we're so compassionate that we accept any lifestyle and any sin that comes along and we just accept people for what they are and never try to correct them or never try to lead them to Christ. That's an equal extreme, because our Lord, jesus Christ, he gets upset at both of these. The question how can we get in the middle? Don't you think that there's an extreme on both ends? We should be able to judge and use biblical principles to judge and say here's an area where I need to have human compassion and here's an area where, okay, this person's in a spot of need and maybe I'll help them, but the help's going to get cut off if they don't come to Christ. I'm thinking of people that are like addicts, that abuse the privilege that just come along so I can feed my drug addiction. But we don't want to be somebody that's complicit in helping that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:So what you're basically saying is we need to take a sensible approach to it, as we mentioned in our last session.
Speaker 2:As we approach these type of situations, we need to remember that the reason why we're doing it, that we're trying to invite them to follow Jesus Christ, we're giving them a way that they can be reconciled back to God. We need to remember that we're the ones that are in control of that situation and what we're trying to do to reach the sick, the ones who are needing salvation. We just need to be aware that, not get sucked into what they're doing and know to them that they need to again have salvation and have reconciliation back to God. That's the line that we walk. I think if we keep that in our mind as we go into it, to not get pulled into the worldly way of whatever area it is, then we can still minister to them, but we want to do it in such a way that we don't forget why we're there and we stop ministering to them and all of a sudden, we become a part of what they're actually doing.
Speaker 1:Remember the story they're walking along. They do this very minor thing pull off some heads of grain, rub it between their hands and have a snack. The Jewish leaders say well, you're violating the Sabbath. Jesus responds with the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. What does he mean when he says that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think this again comes back to their oral tradition that the Pharisaical Judaism said that there were two laws that were given. There was the Mosaic law that was given the Mosaic law that was given and then there was this oral law that was given, which is something that was completely made up that through the hundreds of years that this oral law that the Pharisees followed became sacrosanct. It became just as important as the Mosaic law that through that, they had this idea that God made Israel, or created the nation of Israel, to show the other people that the Sabbath was a way for them to worship God or to rest. Jesus is towing that back on their head and saying the exact opposite. Israel wasn't made for the Sabbath.
Speaker 2:The Sabbath was made for Israel. It was made so that you could have a day of rest. It wasn't made so that Israel could become greater and become over the Sabbath, which is what they were actually doing through these Pharisaical laws. It became such a great burden to the people to try and follow them. All these different rules you mentioned the ones a while ago of the needle All these different rules. You mentioned the ones a while ago of the needle. Even to this day, there's things in Israel called Sabbath elevators, that on the Sabbath all the buttons are pushed and you just walk into the elevator and once you walk into the elevator, you're going to stop at every floor and then you get off at the one that you want to get off on, because pushing the button of the elevator is considered work that's burdensome, and this is what Jesus is referring to, I think, in the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for Israel. Israel wasn't made for the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:What became burdensome was this huge, long list of rules. As you well alluded to, steve, the leaders had made this huge, long list of rules that now it becomes a burden trying to just keep up with the Sabbath rules. He's saying it's not supposed to be a burden of trying to figure out what you can do and what you can't do. Just rest. That's the principle behind it. Then at the end of that, verse 28, the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. What are the implications of that? I submit that is a quite profound statement. So what does that mean? What is the implications of him saying the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath, the Son of man is a term that's spoken of in the Old Testament prophets.
Speaker 2:That refers to the Messiah and the coming Messiah, and that he's Lord even of the Sabbath. I think is he's equating that God is the one that created it. It was God that rested on the Sabbath after creating in six days. To me, he is equating himself as being the Messiah and also God. I think that's what he's saying there in 28.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, he is Lord of the Sabbath in the sense that he can make decisions about what's allowed and what's not allowed on the Sabbath. Well, why? Well, because he wrote the rule in the first place. He was the one in the burning bush that was giving the Ten Commandments and he was the one on the Mount Sinai giving the Ten Commandments, saying that these are the Mosaic Law, saying that these are the Mosaic law. Therefore, he can interpret whether or not they had kept it or not by saying he was Lord of the Sabbath. It's a claim to deity. This is yet one more claim for the deity of Jesus Christ. The Son of man is Lord, he is ruler, he has authority over even whether or not people are keeping the Sabbath, because the Mosaic law was his to give and his to control.
Speaker 1:Lastly, a minor thing verse 26, when Jesus was talking about David and his men getting the bread from the temple, it says it was in the time of Abiathar the priest. Well, jesus was speaking in general and Abiathar actually didn't become high priest until after the event where David got the bread, but the phrasing here in this passage was in the time of Abiathar. In the age of Abiathar, which I mean Abiathar was alive at that point. He just didn't become high priest until the next one, so he's not any kind of a contradiction there. Let's move on to chapter 3. Next we're going to find Jesus in a synagogue where the Jewish leaders are going to test him. Steve, can you read the first six verses of Mark, chapter 3?
Speaker 2:He entered again into a synagogue and a man was there whose hand was withered. They were watching him to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand Get up, come forward. And he said to them Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill? But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. He said to the man stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out and the hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him.
Speaker 1:The key to this story is where they were and what day it was. Steve, where were they and what day was it?
Speaker 2:They were in a synagogue, so a place where they would assemble to meet to read through the scriptures. And they're also meeting on the Sabbath, then in verse 2, it says they were watching him.
Speaker 1:Well, who's the they?
Speaker 2:These are these Pharisees and scribes that are following him around at this time. Again, they're watching him and challenging him because he's claiming to be the Messiah. They're looking to see where this movement is going, of all these people that are beginning to follow this Jesus of Nazareth.
Speaker 1:In this synagogue. On the Sabbath, of course, people gather at the synagogue to hear God's Word. There's a man there with a withered hand. So even before we're introduced to this man, it says in verse 2, they, the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, were watching Jesus to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. That's why many Bible teachers J Vernon McGee and many others Bible teachers J Vernon McGee and many others really believe this guy was a plant that was put there on purpose so they could see whether will he heal on the Sabbath. What are they trying to do? They're trying to trap him, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 2:Steve. They are trying to trap him because at the very last verse that we read in 6, they ended up going out to kill him. We've seen these conflicts that have been taking place over the last few verses and chapters of this contention of doing things on the Sabbath. This is a continuing theme of these Pharisees that are watching him. So he's directly challenging their authority. They have all these rules of not to do all these different things on the Sabbath. Here he is, he keeps doing the things on the Sabbath and he even just got through telling him that he was Lord over the Sabbath. So it's a direct confrontation to them and to their authority.
Speaker 1:When I read this story, this man with this withered hand I always think of. I knew a girl in college that had a withered hand. She had had it since birth. So this happens sometimes, for whatever genetic reason, but this man had this withered hand and of course that makes life somewhat difficult to get through life, really one-handed. Were the Pharisees interested in this handicapped man?
Speaker 2:No, because I agree with you, glenn. There's inference there that this man was a plant. So no, they weren't interested in him at all.
Speaker 1:We can know that for sure. We don't have to guess. Look at the end of verse 2. It says they were watching him to see what. What does it say at the end of verse?
Speaker 2:2? So that they might accuse him. They were waiting for this to happen so that they could pounce on him and accuse him of doing this healing on the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:They weren't really concerned about this man when Jesus heals him. They're a lot less concerned about the man who just got healed of this genetic defect, this genetic problem, who just got healed of this genetic defect, this genetic problem, that now he's whole again and his whole life's changed. This is a tremendous, tremendous thing for this man. Oh no, did Jesus heal on the Sabbath? Did Jesus do a good thing on the Sabbath? If Jesus were to heal on the Sabbath they're watching him they would hold him to be intentionally violating the Sabbath. Now, what is the Old Testament punishment for violating the Sabbath?
Speaker 2:The Old Testament, punishment is the capital punishment to put them to death.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly. The Old Testament punishment for right there in the Mosaic law, for violating is working on the Sabbath, was stoning to death. This is a very serious thing these Pharisees are trying to do. These are religious leaders. These are supposed to be the most spiritual people in the community. These are supposed to be the older and wiser, level-headed people that are there to shepherd the flock. They were supposed to be the good guys. They're supposed to be the people that are the more spiritually mature. Yet what they were really trying to do is to intentionally hinder this man from being healed. They were using this man with the withered hand as a tool to trap somebody. So then Jesus, in verse four, asks this really obvious question is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or is it lawful to kill? How did the Pharisees respond?
Speaker 2:They kept silent because they knew that if they answered it one way, they were condemning themselves. If they answered it a different way, that they were agreeing with what Jesus was doing and saying. They just kept silent, they didn't give any answer at all.
Speaker 1:Think of it. These people were supposed to be the more spiritually mature people in Jesus was doing and saying. They just kept silent. They didn't give any answer at all. Think of it these people were supposed to be the more spiritually mature people in the room and yet their hearts were so hard that they would not answer an obvious question that, yeah, it's okay to do good on the Sabbath, it's good to do something good. It's not lawful to kill on the Sabbath. They wouldn't even answer such an obvious question. What actions in verse 5 does Jesus do? Because what they're watching for is did he do a work? Right? They're looking for a work that he did and in other places in the gospel. Remember, jesus sometimes would spit on the ground and make mud and rub it on somebody's eyes, so he would. In that sense, he could. Oh, he made a potion or something like that. Did Jesus do?
Speaker 2:anything here? No, he doesn't do anything. He just commands for the hand to be healed. And I think we see two emotions that go on here. One, he's angry, Right. The second emotion is that he is grieved because of the hardness of their heart. I think here in one verse we see two different type of aspects of Jesus.
Speaker 1:What's to me interesting is he intentionally doesn't do anything. He doesn't lay his hands on him, he doesn't make any kind of a potion. He didn't even really say words like cast out a sickness or anything. He just asked the man stretch out your hand. Even in the Mosaic law, even in their traditions, they never had a law against stretching out your hand. There was nothing here. No action, no quote-unquote work that Jesus did. That would give the Pharisees ammo to accuse him with. He intentionally did do no outward sign of doing a work. But yet what are they still trying to do?
Speaker 2:You're right, Glenn. I think I said that. He said that his hand was going to be healed, but you're bringing out a great observation. He didn't say anything of what he had done in the past. He just says stretch out your hand and the hand is healed. This irritates them because they don't have any technicality to come and accuse him of working on the Sabbath. Yet here there's a miracle that has happened, and their immediate reaction to it isn't to rejoice that the man's hand is healed. It isn't to rejoice that the Messiah is there. It isn't to rejoice that there is this person that can heal on command or even without even giving a command. No, their reaction is to go out and conspire to have him killed.
Speaker 1:Isn't it like that today, though, steve? Don't we have people in our churches that have a pet doctrine or a pet belief or a pet sin they really think is bad, and they focus on that, to the exclusion of being compassionate towards people? Here was this man who was now healed of a very major problem His whole life's different. Jesus did no work. He did no work, but these Pharisees were so hard-hearted that they're still going out plotting to kill him. They're still so focused on that that they totally ignore that there's some wonderful human compassion healing here, in order to take even a moment to be happy and joyous for this man. There's no joy here that this man was healed, his whole life's changed. No, they're still just so hard-hearted All they're looking at, all they can see is I'm trying to accuse Jesus, trying to accuse him of violating my little pet doctrine. To me, that is the lesson here. These people were so hard-hearted that they missed the great, joyous healing that I think Glenn is exactly it.
Speaker 2:He is rejecting the Pharisaical Judaism. The Pharisaical Judaism, that's their pet doctrine and he is confronting it and rejecting it. He is admonishing it, he's rebuking it through all of these actions. Their heart is so hard and they're so blinded by it and they just plot to go ahead and assassinate him.
Speaker 1:That's how blinded they are through their hard heart. In the midst of this, don't miss, there's two little words here in verse 5 that I think are really telling Verse 5, after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. We have these two very human emotions which are righteous anger and grieving. We have here Jesus as both God, who's the only one that can do this healing, but he's also man, in the sense that he has anger and grief at the same time. He is grieved, he has a soft spot in his heart for this terrible situation, but he has righteous anger. So he has these emotions, but he has it in a very godly way. He is angry at the things God would be angry about and grieved in a very godly way. Then, in verse 6, they go out and plot, but they plot with whom?
Speaker 2:They plot with the Herodians. This was a group of people that was at the exact opposite of their political spectrum. The Herodians were Jews that were okay with the Roman occupation as long as it would politically go through the house of Herod. They were supporters of the house of Herod. That's why they were called Herodians, and they were okay because the Romans would allow them to rule the way that they wanted to rule, while the Pharisees were at the opposite end. They didn't like the Roman occupation because it interfered with them being able to be rulers over the Israel people, the Hebrew people. We see that later on, whenever they go to actually crucify Jesus, they have to go to the Romans for permission to do it. They can't command it themselves. This is how far they've gone with their hard heart and their blindness. They're willing to work with people that are on the opposite end, where they normally wouldn't work together with them for any reason, but now they're coming together with him for a common cause, because the Herodians would see Jesus as a threat to their political system as well.
Speaker 1:These people generally didn't talk to each other, didn't get along with each other, didn't like each other, but here they are plotting together against Jesus. I find that to be just a tremendous tell, a tremendous lesson here about these people's hearts. Now go back to verse 4 and look at that for a second. Jesus looks around at them and he asked this question is it lawful to do good or do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill? And I find this interesting. He knew he was about to heal somebody, but why would he ask about saving a life or killing a life? Well, what are the Pharisees just about to do with the Herodians? The Pharisees were upset at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, but what were they doing on the Sabbath?
Speaker 2:Well, the term that's used in verse 6 is immediately you get the picture that it's the same day the Sabbath day that they then go out and start conspiring to kill somebody on the Sabbath. What I mean was their talk and their discussion was taking place on the Sabbath day.
Speaker 1:Their talk, and their discussion was taking place on the Sabbath day. So get the picture All Jesus does is heal a man a good thing, and he didn't even really work to do that. It's just okay, stretch out your hand, it's just done. And oh, that's terrible. But they could go make a secret plot to murder an innocent man. Oh, that can happen on the Sabbath, that's okay. What hypocrites. Now, good thing, steve, we're not hypocrites like that in our day, right? None of that kind of stuff would ever happen in our day, would it?
Speaker 2:We would never do that, but what's one of the things of used to be? That after the Sunday sermon you go out to lunch and you roast the preacher for what he just got through preaching in the pulpit. I don't know if that goes on so much today, but that was something that was talked about often in past times.
Speaker 1:The stereotype from non-believers is that Christians are hypocrites. The only reason it's an unfair stereotype. But it's a stereotype because, guess what? The churches are full of hypocrites. I mean, we are as guilty in our day of these things. Hopefully we're not out plotting murder, but nevertheless, that's Jesus's lesson, both here and in other places. Remember the story about the speck and the log in the eye. He says don't be a hypocrite First, get the log out of your own eye first. We all should be aware that we're capable of being hypocritical and we should try our best to get hypocrisy out of our lives, because that's the lesson here in Mark chapter 3.
Speaker 2:We thank you so much for tuning in and watching and listening, as always. May God bless you.
