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[Vivian]

There was an interesting comment I saw on another post that I never really thought of before. Essentially it asks, “Were the Jews actually wrong to question the validity of Jesus?”

For instance, Jesus in Luke 6:1-2 is found working during the Sabbath (picking grain).

In the Old Testament (Numbers 15:32-36) a man picks up sticks during the Sabbath and is executed. There is also an OT law that states a man working during the Sabbath will be executed. (Exodus 31 something)

So essentially, Jesus was doing something that DID warrant the death penalty, and the Jews were following Mosaic Law in asking for his execution. So why are Jews considered the wrong ones when they were following the words of the OT as God commanded?

[jimwalton]

I don't think it's every wrong to question the validity of something on initial perception. Doubt motivates us to investigate. We learn by questioning. Those are good things. Where it becomes wrong to question is after the evidence has been presented and the conclusion is clear, and yet one still rejects.

> Luke 6:1-2

Picking up sticks and harvesting grain are very different things in the Jewish mind. Deuteronomy 23.24-25 shows where it's OK to harvest grain the way the disciples were doing. So it was a judgment call. The Pharisees in their strict legalistic viewpoint perceived what the disciples were doing as reaping, threshing, winnowing, and preparing food all at once (Mishnah Shabbath 7.2), and yet such was allowed in Deuteronomy. The law permitted anyone (but particularly the poor and needy) to do what the disciples were doing as long as they did not use a sickle. Rabbi Jehuda, who was also a Galilean, had said it was permissible to run grain in one's hand. So Jesus was following a Galilean rabbinic tradition and was not guilty of violating the law, as had been the case in the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath contrary to the law Moses had just given (Numbers 15.32-36).

> So essentially, Jesus was doing something that DID warrant the death penalty,

So Jesus is NOT doing anything to warrant the death penalty. You'll notice that the Pharisees in Lk. 6.2 don't call for his death (as they did at his trial), but instead are questioning the behavior.

And Jesus never rebukes them for asking the question of him. His answer is basically that sometimes human need supersedes these borderline judgment calls in the Law.

But He doesn't even stop there. Then He ups the ante by declaring Himself as the Lord of the Sabbath, an audacious claim to Messianic authority and even deity.

[Pastor]

No, Jesus was not violating the law. The verses you cited do not prove that he did.

There is no record of Jesus picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Rather he was a faithful Jew who attended synagogue every Sabbath. (This law was about stoking your house fire rather than prioritizing God's house).

Picking grain, as Jesus did, is not "work." What God forbid on the Sabbath was labor (i.e. whatever you did for money/livelihood). People still had to eat. Dinner still had to be cooked, etc.

The Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking God's law but he never did. He broke their laws.

[Righteous One]

Those Pharisees were considered the wrong ones that day because they were evaluating "a hungry man picking a fruit off a plant in order to quell his hunger" as "desecrating the Sabbath".

Jesus said to them, in Matthew 12:7, "And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless."

[Vivian]

Thank you