Rule Breaker!

Each day I will be posting from the daily Bible Reading plan we will be doing at West Side. On weekdays we will be going through the New Testament. On the weekends we will read passages from the Old Testament books of Psalms and Proverbs. We invite you to join along.

Have you ever had a brother, sister, or even your own child who always seemed to break the rules? So far reading through the book of Matthew I have felt this way about Jesus. In today’s reading (Matthew 12) it is no different. Here is Jesus and his disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. This is a no-no for any God fearing Jew. By the time Jesus lived the Law of Moses had been carried to the extreme.

The law did not permit anyone to perform any work on the Sabbath. They were to do all of their cooking the day before. By Jesus’ day they had begun measuring from their houses the distances they were allowed to walk without it becoming work. They had carried the letter of the law to the extreme.

But Jesus told us on the Sermon on the Mount that he came to fulfill the law. Later the Apostle Paul writes that we are free from the law because we are free in Christ. So what Jesus is doing here is foreshadowing and preparing his followers, especially his disciples, for the new life they will have after the cross and after the giving of the Holy Spirit. Today, we live with freedom in Christ that is only possible because of His work on the cross and his conquering of the grave.