Keeping Sabbath and Other Laws – Matthew 12:1-8

Let Us Reason ministries site enumerates the Sabbath requirements according to the Old Testament as no work, no kindling of fire, no traveling, no trading, no marketing, giving twice as much of the daily offering as other days, providing new showbread for the holy place (temple), and death for violating this. The Jews had developed even greater specificity about these requirements, and it happened that Jesus and his disciples came up against this wall.

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. 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 were 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 were 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.” (Matthew 12:1-8 ESV)

As a testimony to His compassion God commanded that the corners of an individual’s field not be harvested so that the poor could find food if they were willing to work for it (Leviticus 19:9; 23:22).  The disciples were doing just that but on the Sabbath, on Saturday, the seventh day of the week.  Centuries of interpretation by Jewish teachers had solidified into requirements that the Pharisees upheld concerning Sabbath observance, seeking to answer the question, “What constitutes work?,” and therefore, what must be avoided on Sabbath. For them, plucking grains to eat even though they were hungry violated the requirement of no work on the Sabbath.

There were three things wrong with their application of this divine law:

(1) They failed to understand all of God’s law, and this one in particular, as an extension of His love and compassion.  The law of the Sabbath was meant to give people rest from work and to teach them that God would provide for them when they did not work on this one day.  It was also meant to sanctify work.  But the Pharisees were using it against the welfare of people, in this case restricting the disciples from feeding their legitimate hunger that the provision of the unharvested field provided relief from. 

(2) They were ready to condemn those who violated their restrictions rather than work with them to help them become compliant or else recognize that perhaps they were wrong in the particular application they were seeking to enforce.

(3) There is a hierarchy of laws, and not working on the Sabbath sits lower on the hierarchy than nourishing yourself with food. The disciples were not sinning by “working” on the Sabbath to feed themselves a necessary food.

Scriptural evidence of this is that God did not condemn David or the priests when they gave David the showbread baked for the Tabernacle holy place to eat, even though it was only to be eaten by the priests (Leviticus 24:5-9).  And He permitted priests to work on the Sabbath.  All this showed that when the higher priority of preserving life or serving God was in play, the priority of keeping Sabbath was sacrificed. 

Jesus was claiming to be the one who had the right to interpret the application of Sabbath in this situation (a clear claim to divine authority) and he declared the disciples guiltless of profaning the Sabbath.  God’s law is for our benefit and a show of His love.  It is our failure to see that whatever leads us to become legalists is a vain attempt to appease God and merit His favor. But that doesn’t mean we give up on law-keeping altogether, thinking we can never keep it or please God.  In Christ, both views are rejected. The law is for our benefit, not a level of performance to merit God’s love. We need His help to keep His laws and He is ready to offer it once we see our own inability to do so and His grace to provide what we lack.

His yolk is light.