SABBATH SNACK

There are some mulberry trees along a path that I enjoy walking through the neighborhood. 🌳🌳 They are not my mulberry trees. But if I happen to be passing by and the fruit is ripe, I generally stop and pick a handful to enjoy as I continue. Here’s what God said:

“If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭23‬:‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The verse prior says that if you walk by or through your neighbor’s vineyard, you may pick a few handfuls of grapes 🍇 to eat on the spot, but you aren’t allowed to bring a sack and take a bunch of grapes “to-go.” It’s not a free produce section.

This approach strikes a healthy balance between a tight-fisted, strictly private-property Capitalism, and a loosey-goosey Hippie Socialist commune where everything is shared.

It’s definitely your neighbor’s grain 🌾 or grapes or mulberries. You can’t just bring buckets 🪣 to harvest as much as you want. But neither should a land-owner begrudge a mere handful to passers-by.

Jesus and the disciples are CLEARLY within the bounds of the Law. Except that they are “harvesting” on the Sabbath.

Oh yes, they are engaged in full-on farm work as they leisurely stroll along the edge of a field of standing grain 🌾 and snag a few heads to munch on the kernels as a kind of 1st century trail mix.

🤓 You’re being satirical, right?

Of course. Why?

🤓 Just checking. Some of us aren’t fluent in sarcasm.

😏 I am. Sarcasm is my first language.

🤓 What’s your second language?

🙄 I also speak eye-roll.

Ok guys. Focus! We are still only on verse 1.

🤓 By all means. Moving right along…

Jesus does something that arrogant, self-inflated people never like. He exposes their ignorance.

“Have you not read…?” He says.

Of course they’ve read it. But they have completely missed the point of what they read. They are so hyper-focused on the “do’s” and “don’ts” that they cannot see the heart of God.

The text says the people questioning Jesus were the Pharisees – they’re the super strict ones.

🤔 So… how are they always around? Are they like… hiding in the bushes like the paparazzi or something, then jumping out when they see Jesus “breaking the Law” and saying,”AHA! We caught you red-handed!”

I doubt that is the case. Jesus is a rabbi. People follow him; lots of different kinds of people, for different reasons. I don’t think Pharisees were hiding in the bushes. I think they were often simply tagging along under a thin pretense of hearing His teaching just so they could engage in debate. (They were probably all walking to the synagogue together, v9-13)

And it was apparent that Jesus permitted things that they told their students was sin.

It would be like how a conservative Evangelical professor might say to an Anglican teacher, “Why is it you and your students have a pint at the pub 🍺 and smoke pipes 💨 but mine do not?”

Different interpretations of scripture.

Jesus pushes back against their faulty interpretation and also points out that the Writer of the Law is greater than the Law.

Henry Ford was greater than the Model-T. And if he had found one broken down on the side of the road, and chose to make an “unorthodox” repair, who but the most narrow-minded, fusty mechanic would tell him he wasn’t allowed to do so?

In the instance of the man with the withered hand, the Pharisees put Jesus on the spot in public in the Synagogue.

They cared more about their interpretation of scripture than they did about the man, or anyone else, or about actually learning the Truth.

Beware of clinging to a doctrine more than to Christ Himself.

But Jesus didn’t get drawn into debates with the Pharisees. They wanted to eliminate Him, but it’s not the right time yet. So Jesus withdraws.

---

BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Jesus casts out a demon and heals the man who was possessed. He had been in a situation like Hellen Keller – blind and deaf. And now he can see and hear. There are eye-witnesses. A powerful thing has happened, no doubt.

Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit (Lk. 4:1). The works that He did were done by the power of God.

The Pharisees attribute the work of God’s Holy Spirit to Beelzebul, the Prince of Demons.

😐 Boy that’s missing it by a wide margin.

Well, they CANNOT say it was Yahweh’s power doing this mighty miracle because that would mean Jesus (the guy they want to KILL), was sent by Yahweh and what He is doing is sanctioned by Yahweh. Jesus healing people on the Sabbath and picking grain on the Sabbath and telling lame men to carry their beds on the Sabbath and all of His teaching about the Kingdom… must be right.

😐 And all their silly rules about not dragging a chair across the floor and scribes not picking up a pen on the Sabbath… would be wrong.

Exactly. And do you think people will keep following them as teachers when everyone realizes their teaching is incorrect?

😐 Nope.

This is a totally polarizing event. If Jesus is casting out evil spirits by the power of God then the Pharisees and scribes are not just wrong, they are being revealed as the enemies of God.

👳🏻‍♂️ Well, we can’t have that now, can we?

🤨 And who might you be?

👳🏻‍♂️ Phineas Pharisee. And you sweet, naive little Gentiles don’t seem to understand what a problem Jesus of Nazareth is for us.

🤨 How so?

👳🏻‍♂️ We – WEEE – have been the representatives of Yahweh on earth! WEEEE wield the power of God against the forces of EE-VILL. WEEE interpret the Law for the illiterate masses. Jesus breaks the Law. Everyone knows it. There’s no way Yahweh works miracles through a lawbreaker.

🤓 But what if you guys are wrong?

🤨 Yeah… and God doesn’t answer to you. If He wants to heal people on the Sabbath, that’s His business. Are you going to tell God He isn’t allowed to do something?

👳🏻‍♂️ You are an unwashed heathen. I am the seed of Abraham. I don’t need YOU to tell MEEE what the Law says!

👨🏼‍🦳 My offspring, huh? Ho boy…

🤓 Who’s the old guy?

👨🏼‍🦳 Father Abraham at your service.

🚪(Phineas has left the chat)

Many people think that “Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” is making fun of sacred things. If it is, I know a lot of young Christians who are destined for hell with no chance of forgiveness. (And I say that with all seriousness) And all the Christian comedians are doomed.

There’s humor, and then there’s what the Bible calls “mockery.” Mockery is very serious and it’s not a good sign. It tends to indicate either an unregenerate heart or a very fleshly and foolish Christian desperately in need of discipline.

To better understand blasphemy, we need to learn some words.

🤓 Yay! I love words!

It’s a shame that scurrilous and calumnious have fallen out of most people’s vocabularies. Here’s what they mean:

Calumnious (the adjective) comes from calumny (the noun):

The text sets up the charge of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit when the Pharisees make a malicious, false statement against the Holy Spirit; the One working in Christ to perform this miracle.

“But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

If someone verbally accused you of a crime you did not commit, that is slander. It’s defamation. People go to court over it.

The Pharisees just verbally made the false, defamatory claim that the power Jesus demonstrates is demonic.

This is why Jesus gives the “strong man” analogy. It explains the illogic of their claim. In this analogy, Jesus is the “thief” (kinda like Robin Hood) going into the “strong man’s” (the Devil’s) house and taking his stuff (the people he has robbed and enslaved). Jesus can’t rob the strong man and have the strong man be his accomplice at the same time.

Jesus is either a good guy or a bad guy. Or, as he puts it, a good tree with good fruit or bad tree with bad fruit.

Are you ready, class? This is gonna be hard.

Bad guys are bad guys because they do bad things.

🤓 I thought you said it was gonna be hard.

🙄 She was being satirical again.

🤓 Oh.

Is the fruit good?

🤓 Uh… as long as it hasn’t started growing that white fuzz… 🍓

😏 No dufus. She’s talking about Jesus. Jesus cast out the demon and gave the poor man eyesight and hearing. That is good fruit.

Right. So if the fruit is good, then the tree is good. Jesus is the GOOD guy here. He does good things.

Now, let’s ask this…

How does a person get saved?

🤓 They trust in Jesus to save them.

Right. And what does that require?

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”
‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭44‬ ‭ESV‬‬

And how does the Father draw people? By what agency does He convict the sinner and reveal the love of God to the human heart? By what means is the sinner born again and sealed and led into all truth?

☝️🤓 By the Holy Spirit!

Yes.

If the Holy Spirit is convicting a person of sin and dealing with his heart, and that person shuts Him out and says “That’s the Devil!” Or “That’s just a bunch of psychological manipulation!” Can that person be saved? Is there any other way of salvation than to repent and believe the Gospel?

😐 No.

And if he never repents can he ever be forgiven?

😐 No.

The Pharisees attributed the work of God’s Holy Spirit to Beelzebul, the Prince of Demons.

They shut God out. And if you do that, there isn’t a Plan B.

Paul had blasphemed Jesus (1 Tim. 1:13). But when the risen Christ appeared to him and the Holy Spirit convicted him, he repented and was forgiven. He did not shut out the light. So there was still a path to repentance. But if you shut out the light of the Holy Spirit, that’s it. There is no other way to be saved.

I hope this explanation has been helpful. I did not come up with it on my own. This is how my teacher explained it at Bible College and I found it so very helpful.

🤓 Did he have emoji helpers too?

No. That was way back in the emoticon days.

🤨 Emoticons? What are those?

Your ancestors. ;D >:-) 😮 =}