Sunday
Morning Bible Study
June
21, 2015
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel preached? Does it address the
person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid to die? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it
build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church
loved? Regular: 2900 words Communion: 2500 words Video=75wpm
Israel Update – The
trip cost has been lowered to $3851 per person, and we can add more of you up
until September 16. There are new brochures on the back table.
Happy Father’s Day
Luke was a doctor
and a travelling companion of the apostle Paul.
He wrote this book
while Paul was in prison.
In writing his
book, Luke made use of other older documents like the Gospel of Mark, as well
as extensive eyewitness accounts.
Jesus’ ministry has
begun.
The people are
amazed at both the things He teaches as well as the miracles He performs.
Jesus has been
offending some of the religious leaders by the way he’s done things.
When the paralytic
was brought to Jesus, Jesus pronounced the man’s sins to be forgiven.
To the Pharisees,
only God can forgive sins (which is true).
The Pharisees
prided themselves on being sinless and not defiling themselves by hanging round
sinners.
Jesus ate and drank
with sinners.
Jesus called
sinners to follow Him.
Jesus will continue
to correct the wrong thinking of the Pharisees.
6:1-5 Sabbath
Working
:1 Now it happened
on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grainfields. And
His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them
in their hands.
:1 the second Sabbath after the first
This phrase only occurs in the King James and New King James due
to differences in manuscripts.
Scholars aren’t sure what it means. This is the only place in Scripture that this
word (deuteroproto) is found.
:1 grainfields – sporimos – fit for sowing, sown; sown fields, growing crops
:1 plucked – tillo –
to pluck, pluck off
:1 heads of grain – stachus – an ear of corn or of growing grain
:1 rubbing – psocho –
to rub, to rub to pieces
:1 plucked …
rubbing them in their hands
Jesus and His
disciples are either going through wheat or barley fields.
The disciples were
plucking the ripe heads of grain, then rubbing them in their hands to knock the
chaff off, and eating the grain.
If you were hungry,
it was allowed under the Law of Moses to pluck and eat kernels of grain from
your neighbor’s fields.
(Deuteronomy 23:25 NKJV) When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck
the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s
standing grain.
What was illegal
was to go through your neighbor’s fields and harvest the entire field for your
own profit. But if you were hungry, you
could pick enough to feed yourself.
:2 And some of the
Pharisees said to them, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the
Sabbath?”
:2 some of the
Pharisees
Again we see the religious
leaders, the very strict, legalistic branch of Judaism speaking up about what
Jesus and His disciples are doing.
:2 the Sabbath
The fourth law of
the Ten Commandments says,
(Exodus 20:8–11 NKJV) —8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor
and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall
do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor
your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within
your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and
rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
The Hebrew word
“Sabbath” means “to rest”.
The seventh day is Saturday, and God commanded His people to rest
on the seventh day.
The principle is
based on creation – God worked for six days and rested on the seventh.
Lesson
Take a break
Before we talk
about whether Jesus broke any “Sabbath Laws”, we need to realize that the
concept of Sabbath rest is a really good idea.
A couple of years
ago I came across an interesting list of things to do in order to join the “Coronary
Club” (those who have a heart attack). I
am a member of that club now, and I know it’s not as simple as this list
suggests. There are several factors
involved in predicting a heart attack such as diet, exercise, family history,
and even the size of your waist. But my
doctor has assured me that stress is also a sizeable factor.
Illustration
How to Join the
Coronary Club: Membership Requirements
1. Never say No to a request -- always say YES.
2. Your job comes first; personal considerations are
secondary.
3. Accept all invitations to meetings, banquets,
committees, etc.
4. Go to the office evenings, Saturdays, Sundays and
holidays.
5. Golf, bowling and hobbies are a waste of time.
6. It is a poor policy to take all the vacation time which
is provided to you.
7. Never delegate responsibility to others; carry the
whole load at all times.
8. Do not eat a restful, relaxing meal -- always plan a
conference for the dinner hour.
9. If your work calls for traveling -- work all day and
drive all night to make your appointment for the next morning.
10. Take the briefcase home on the evenings when you do
not go to the office. This provides an
opportunity to review completely all the troubles and worries of the day.
Some of us worry
that the world is going to fall apart if we take a day off.
We think that if we
take too much time off from work, we can cause trouble for ourselves.
Illustration
I heard that the other day a pastor felt like he needed to
take a day off, so he called up his assistant and made it sound like he was
really sick. “I think I have a bad case
of the flu, I think you better preach for me today…” he said to the
assistant. Then the pastor packed up his
golf clubs and went off to the golf course.
In heaven, one of the angels asked God if God was going to do something
about this pastor calling in sick when he wasn’t. “Sure, I’ll do something about it, I’ll make
him miserable,” God said. When the
pastor got up to the first tee, he swung, and for the first time in his life he
had hit a hole in one! The angel said to
the Lord, “But Lord, I thought you said you were going to do something!” The Lord replied, “Well, who is he going to
tell about it?”
We can certainly
abuse the time off principle, but God was only asking to take one day off out
of seven.
Yet when Israel was
wandering in the wilderness for forty years, God taught them He would provide
for them to take a day off.
Six days God would provide that miraculous manna from
heaven to feed their families.
He taught them that if they took one day off from
gathering manna, He would give them extra manna on the sixth day.
:2 what is not
lawful to do
The Pharisees
suggested that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath law.
Lesson
Tradition or Scripture
Though the concept
of rest is pretty simple, people begin to ask questions.
Just how much can I
do on my day off?
Is it considered “work” to cook my food on the Sabbath?
Is it considered “work” to get dressed on the Sabbath?
Because of these
kinds of questions, the Jews began to develop their own detailed list of laws
to define just what was work and what wasn’t.
These rules were
handed down from generation to generation and eventually written down in a
document known as the “Mishnah”.
The Mishna has an
entire volume dedicated to the finer points of the Sabbath Law (the entire section has 24 chapters)
One example – it was against the law to tie a rope to your
bucket at the well on the Sabbath, but it wasn’t against the law to tie a knot
in your wife’s girdle on the Sabbath.
What do you do if you need water on the Sabbath? Tie your wife’s girdle to the rope and then
tie it to the bucket!
When Jesus talked
about the “traditions” kept by the Pharisees, He was talking about the rules in
the Mishnah.
Mark records at another
time Jesus was not following the traditional, ceremonial washing of hands
before meals.
(Mark 7:6–9 NKJV) —6 He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you
hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far
from Me. 7 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of
men.’ 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of
men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” 9 He said to them, “All
too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.
Jesus and His
disciples were not breaking the Law of Moses when they ate grain on the
Sabbath, but they were breaking the traditions.
There are some
churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, where they have their own set of
“traditions” which they hold to be of equal authority as the Scriptures.
These “traditions” may include things that the various
popes have said through the centuries.
There are times when the Roman Catholic Church teaches
things contrary to the Scriptures, because they hold their traditions as equal
or sometimes even greater authority than God’s Word.
:3 But Jesus
answering them said, “Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry,
he and those who were with him:
:4 how he went into
the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with
him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?”
:3 what David
did when he was hungry
Lesson
Legal vs. Need
David and his men
were being pursued by King Saul. They
had fled in such a hurry that they hadn’t brought any food or weapons with
them. David and his men were hungry.
They ran to the city of Nob, where the Tabernacle and the priests were, looking
for help.
(1 Samuel 21:1–6 NLT) —1 David went to the town of Nob to see Ahimelech the priest.
Ahimelech trembled when he saw him. “Why are you alone?” he asked. “Why is no
one with you?” 2 “The king has sent me on a private matter,” David said. “He told me
not to tell anyone why I am here. I have told my men where to meet me later.
David is lying to
the priest Ahimelech. The king hasn’t
sent him on a mission, he is running for his life.
3 Now, what is there to
eat? Give me five loaves of bread or anything else you have.” 4 “We don’t have any
regular bread,” the priest replied. “But there is the holy bread, which you can
have if your young men have not slept with any women recently.” 5 “Don’t worry,” David
replied. “I never allow my men to be with women when we are on a campaign. And
since they stay clean even on ordinary trips, how much more on this one!” 6 Since there was no other
food available, the priest gave him the holy bread—the Bread of the Presence
that was placed before the Lord
in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread.
At the tabernacle, twelve
large loaves of fresh bread was prepared every week to place on a golden table
in the holy place. It was called the
“showbread” or the “Bread of the Presence”. The Law of Moses said this bread
was to just be for the priests and their families (Lev. 24:9).
(Leviticus
24:9 NKJV) And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a
holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual
statute.”
Jesus said that
David broke the law by eating bread that was meant for the priests.
David was never condemned for having eaten this bread,
perhaps because he ate it with the priest’s blessing.
The point seems to
be that sometimes a person’s need can override a law.
Keep in mind, Jesus
Himself doesn’t seem to have ever broken the Law, but what He tended to break
were the traditions that the Pharisees had heaped up on people.
Matthew records another argument of Jesus:
(Matthew 12:5 NKJV) Or have you not read in
the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and
are blameless?
Every Sabbath, the priests themselves did quite a bit of work in
performing the sacrifices required for the Sabbath day (Num. 28:9)
(Numbers 28:9 NKJV) ‘And
on the Sabbath day two lambs in their first year, without blemish, and
two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour as a grain offering, mixed with
oil, with its drink offering—
The priests still performed
sacrifices in the temple, yet were not considered as breaking the Sabbath
Law. There were some inconsistencies to
the traditions that the Pharisees had come up with.
:5 And He said to
them, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
:5 The Son of
Man is also Lord of the Sabbath
The word order in
Greek is kind of interesting:
“Lord is the Son
of Man, also of the Sabbath”.
In English, our
word order helps us understand the sense, like telling us what the subject and
object are in a sentence.
In Greek, subject
and object are determined by the ending of the word itself. Word order is more about showing emphasis,
what’s important in the sentence.
In the Old
Testament, it was the LORD, (Heb. Yahweh)
who established the Sabbath, and it would seem that Jesus is claiming to be
that very same LORD.
If He is the Lord,
then He can do on the Sabbath whatever He wants.
Mark records Jesus
saying just a little more here:
(Mark 2:27 NKJV) And He
said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath law was
meant to give people a day off to rest and worship God. It was meant for their benefit.
When certain
interpretations and traditions become so strict that there is no benefit,
something’s wrong.
Ultimately, as the
“Lord”, Jesus has authority, even over matters of the Law.
6:6-11 Sabbath
Healing
:6 Now it happened
on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught. And a man
was there whose right hand was withered.
:6 whose right
hand was withered
Dr. Luke gives us
the preliminary diagnosis.
withered – xeros (xeriscape) – dry; of members of the body deprived of their
natural juices, shrunk, wasted, withered
:7 So the scribes
and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that
they might find an accusation against Him.
:7 watched – paratereo –
to stand beside and watch, to watch assiduously, observe carefully; to watch,
attend to with the eyes
:7 whether He
would heal on the Sabbath
It’s hard to think
that it would be unlawful to heal someone on the Sabbath, but that’s what a
Pharisaical mindset can lead you to.
:8 But He knew
their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, “Arise and stand
here.” And he arose and stood.
:8 thoughts – dialogismos – the thinking of a man deliberating with himself;
inward reasoning; questioning about what is true
Jesus knew what
they were wrestling with in their heads.
:8 Arise and
stand here
here – mesos – in the midst of, amongst
Jesus makes sure
the man with the withered hand is right in the middle of everyone’s view. He’s going to do something that He wants
everyone to see.
Jesus knows that
these guys are going to question what He’s going. But He knows that He’s doing what is right
and proper. Jesus doesn’t shy from doing
what is right just to keep from offending these Pharisees. He is teaching them about what is right.
:9 Then Jesus said
to them, “I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or
to do evil, to save life or to destroy?”
:9 on the
Sabbath … save … destroy
Jesus is giving
them the exact picture of where their legalistic ways have led them.
They would rather
do evil or destroy someone than they would to do good or to save someone.
:10 And when He had
looked around at them all, …
:10 looked around– periblepo – to look around; to look around about one’s self; to
look round on one (i.e. to look for one’s self at one near by)
He made sure He had
all their attention before He healed the man.
…He said to the man,
“Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as
the other.
:10 stretch out – ekteino – to stretch out, stretch forth; over, towards, against one
:10 restored as whole – apokathistemi – to restore to its former state; to be in its former
state
:11 But they were
filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
:11 they were
filled with rage
rage – anoia – lack of understanding, folly; madness expressing itself in
rage
Lesson
New Thinking
The closer you get
to Jesus, the greater the possibility that He is going to challenge some of the
ways you think.
We were married for
nine years before we started having kids.
I remember when our first child was born, what a change in thinking took
place in my mind. At the time the only
thing I could describe it was like your thinking went from black and white to
color.
When you take
fatherhood seriously, you start to think differently.
You realize that there’s a little life that is depending
on you.
You learn to be less selfish because you don’t get to play
video games as much as you want when there’s diapers to change.
Video: Dove – Calls for Dad
Just like becoming a
father for the first time, when you become a Christian, you find you will be
challenged to think differently.
As a new Christian,
He’s going to challenge some of the ways you’ve acted in the past.
Some of the things you’ve thought were okay are no longer
going to be okay.
It’s just like what Paul wrote,
(Colossians
3:5–7 NLT) —5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have
nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t
be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this
world. 6 Because of
these sins, the anger of God is coming. 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this
world.
As an older
Christian, He’s going to continue to challenge the way we think.
Older believers can fall into the trap of becoming like
the Pharisees – mired in our traditions of what is right and what is wrong.
Don’t misunderstand me – Jesus isn’t going to challenge
the clear teaching of the Scriptures, but He’s going to challenge the way you
apply them.
Older believers become rigid and judgmental.
Like the Pharisees, we don’t smoke, we don’t chew, and we
don’t go with girls that do.
We probably don’t hang out with sinners much now either.
Yet we find that Jesus doesn’t just hang out with the
“safe” people at church, He goes and hangs out with sinners.
He came to seek and save the lost.
Are you someone who
is lost today?
Are you struggling
with guilt and condemnation? Do you feel
empty inside? Are you afraid to die?
When Jesus died on
the cross, He paid the penalty for our sins, and now we can be forgiven.
Jesus didn’t just
hang out with sinners 2,000 years ago, He’s here today to help you.
(John 3:16 NKJV) For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.