The Gramazin Blog
24
Jun
Jesus in Galilee - Disciples in Grainfields
Take Every Passage to Prayer - Volume 2, The Gospels
Monday June 24, 2024
Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, Luke 6:1-5
Father, I confess that I often struggle with judging others. I see them disobey Your law and Your commands. My heart breaks about that because I love Your ways. I tend to judge them in my heart, if not with my words and actions. Father, please help me to look beyond people’s sin and to love their hearts so much that I want to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to them no matter how they disobey You. I want to show them the love of Christ by ministering to their needs. Once they become believers, I want to disciple them about living obediently to Your law. In the meantime, help me to encourage them to embrace the gospel by demonstrating to them how much You love them. Amen.
Father, it is another Sabbath day and Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grainfield. His disciples, who were hungry, picked heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and then ate the kernels. The text tells us that the Pharisees were watching.
I can imagine them shouting to Jesus from the edge of the field:
“Hey, Jesus. We’ve caught You in violation! Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath law!”
Jesus’ response was to inform them that the Father permits violations of His rules when mercy is called for. He cited the account described in 1 Samuel 21:1-6 when David and his hungry men were permitted by Ahimelek , the priest, to eat the consecrated bread that had been before the Lord in the temple because there was no other bread available.
Citing Hosea 6:6 once more, where the Father says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”, Jesus conveys the moral principal that the needs of people, such as the hunger of His disciples, come before a rigid adherence to the law (not to prepare food on the Sabbath). Jesus states that He, being the Son of God, who is greater than the temple because the temple was made to worship Him, is the ultimate authority on what is right and wrong to do on the Sabbath. He permits His disciples to gather and eat the kernels of grain. Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for the benefit of people (resting from work, worshipping God). People were not made for the Sabbath, as if the Sabbath were an idolatrous god to fear. Amen.
The text does not indicate where these grainfields were located. However, we can safely conclude the grainfields were near the Sea of Galilee. We know this from examining the text that occurs before these passages. Matthew 11:1 places Jesus near the Sea of Galilee. Mark 2:1-22 places Jesus near the Sea of Galilee. Luke 5 places Jesus near Capernaum where He healed the man lowered through the roof and He called Matthew.
The grain family includes millet, maize, sorghum, barley, oats, rice, rye, wheat, chia, peas, beans, soybeans, mustard, sunflower, flax, and poppy seed.
It is reasonable to believe the Pharisees and teachers of the law were highly suspicious of Jesus and His disciples. He was a threat to their prestige and authority. In “war” you spy on the “enemy”. It is likely a conspiracy of sorts coordinated a continuous watch over Jesus’ activities, whether He was in Judea or up north in Galilee.
What laws were Jesus and His disciples allegedly breaking? Stealing was not one of them. Deuteronomy 23:25 states that it is lawful to walk through a grainfield and pick up with the hand any kernels that had fallen to the ground (God’s sovereignty). This allowed the poor and travelers to find something to eat. However, it was unlawful for anyone but the landowner to use a sickle to cut down standing grain. The charge against Jesus was that the disciples had reaped, threshed, winnowed, and prepared food on the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders had concocted an elaborate system of dos and don’ts from the Old Testament command not to work on the Sabbath. Similarly, the 21st century Amish have made restrictions on the use of cars, telephones, electricity, zippers, and more based on 2 Corinthians 6:17, “Come out from among them and be separate (NIV).”
