Today Jesus upsets some Jews by working on the Sabbath. See, over time the Jews had added hundreds of man-made laws about what people could not do on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are most concerned with holding everyone to those laws verses showing love and compassion for the people.
First Jesus heals a lame man lying by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. When the Jews find out, they seek to kill Him. Jesus tells them that it’s all good bc He is just working like His Father works on the Sabbath. Well, this really infuriates the Jews bc now He is not only working but He is also claiming to be God. “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him.”
But Jesus does not back down.💪 “Then Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner…For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him…he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.’”
Jesus tells them that He has a greater witness than John the Baptist, the burning and shining lamp they were willing to listen to for a time. Jesus’s Father, the Lord, is His witness!
But the Jews are still looking to trap Jesus by catching Him breaking their laws. So later, when Jesus’s disciples are walking through the fields and grab some grain to eat, the Pharisees call them out for working on the Sabbath. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees with a story about King David and the time he unlawfully ate the showbread from the house of God (1 Samuel 2:16). “And He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.’” God gave the Sabbath, a day of rest and worship, for our good bc God is good and His intent toward mankind is for mankind to flourish.
We end the reading with Jesus doing… guess what?! Healing a man on the Sabbath in the synagogue. 🙌 Don’t you just LOVE Jesus!! Well the hard-hearted Pharisees don’t. “Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.”
Tomorrow Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount. Keep reading.
(John 5:1-47, Mark 2:23-28, Matthew 12:1-8, Luke 6:1-5, Mark 3:1-6, Matthew 12:9-14, Luke 6:6-11, Matthew 12:15-21)
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Chronological Bible in Layman's Terms 