Thoughts From the Bible

Read Luke 6: 1-5 -  The Sabbath was considered the day of the week when no work was done. This was done because the scriptures said God rested on the seventh day of creation. The Jewish leaders had allowed this to evolve to something that was more legalistic than realistic. Jesus showed the religious leaders this in verses 3 through 5, '(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?" (5) And He said to them, "The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."'  Jesus was not so concerned about how work was defined in those days, but He was concerned about the reliance on legalism by the religious leaders. He was taking advantage of the situations they encountered to begin to guide the people to seeing their spiritual lives not ...

Read M ark 2: 23- 28-   So, Jesus is presented with another teaching moment for the people.  The rituals of the day were in the  way of  people actually  eating . Jesus showed the people following Him, the traditions  established  by man did not necessarily reflect the principles of God.  Verses 27 and 28 say,  ‘And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So, The Son of Man   is Lord even of the Sabbath.”’   God rested on the seventh day of creation to show us we need to allow ourselves to rest when working. That  doesn’t  mean we are ritually supposed to ab stain from anything that is necessary on any day.  We live in a seven day a week society so there are sometimes things that must be done regardless of what day of the week it is. What is important is that I set aside time for God  regardless of the day  and also  not get hung up by denominational rules that may be go...

Read Matthew 12: 1- 8- Legalism is alive and well in the church world today. There are denominations who cling to certain do’s and don’ts designed to show others one ’s commitment to God. In spite of things written in the scriptures, the religious leaders at the time of Christ, built legalism into their lives . Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders in their complaints about him. That was not the point of the message though . In verses 6 through 8 Jesus said, “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 Sa bbath.” We all probably have certain things we like to do in our spiritual lives that help us recognize the deity of Jesus Christ.  We need to periodically examine what we do and give thought to our acts and determine if they are serving the purpose of bringing us closer to Christ or whether our act...

Read  John 7: 20-24 -  We need to be very careful about our hypocrisy.   We all have places in our lives where we have hypocrisy, and we don’t fully recognize it.   Jesus showed the Jewish leaders just how big their hypocrisy was, and He did it so everyone would be able to see the difference.   Not only did Jesus confront their hypocrisy, but He also showed them how their legalism concerning the Sabbath was misplaced.   Helping someone else in great need was more important than a set of “dos and don’ts” created by man.    There are those who will want to stretch this whole idea of defying legalism to boundaries they want to create for themselves to accommodate their life choices.   God is the one setting the boundaries, not man.   We need to keep that in mind when we are looking for ways to justify our sins or abominations.