Bible Study series: Luke 6:1-5. He owns it.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Luke 6:1-5
1 It happened that on the Sabbath he was going through grain fields, and his disciples were plucking heads of grain and rubbing them with their hands and eating them. 2 But some Pharisees said, “Why do you do what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” 3 In reply to them, Jesus said, “Have you not read that which David did, when he and his companions were hungry, 4 how he went into the house of God and took and ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful to eat except for the priests alone, and gave it to those with him?” 5 And he proceeded to tell them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6:1-5)
Comments:
1:
The law allowed for a man to walk through his neighbor’s grain field and pluck the heads with his hands for a little food, but not with a sickle (Deut. 23:25). But the disciples were doing this on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15), but those verses do not describe how to keep it. In Num. 15:32-36, people found a man gathering wood, and Moses ordered them to stone him to death. So what kind of interpretations can come from that illegal act and punishment? Was plucking heads of grain the same thing? But the disciples—not Jesus, incidentally—were eating them, so does that excuse them, since they were saving their own lives (if we stretch things)? Apparently not, because healing on the Sabbath was questionable behavior, too (Luke 6:6-11). Or in the next passage, maybe the man with the withered hand was not in a life-or-death situation, while the disciples were.
Here are the Mishnah’s thirty-nine categories of work that were not allowed. This comes from the second century, but it does reflect the times of Jesus:
- Sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking.
- Shearing wool, bleaching, hackling, dyeing, spinning, stretching the threads, the making of two meshes, weaving two threads, dividing two threads, tying [knotting] and untying, sewing two stitches, and tearing in order to sew two stitches.
- Capturing a deer, slaughtering, or flaying, or salting it, curing its hide, scraping it [of its hair], cutting it up, writing two letters, and erasing in order to write two letters [over the erasure].
- Building, pulling down, extinguishing, kindling, striking with a hammer, and carrying out from one domain to another.
These are the forty primary labors less one.
(Source)
The rest of the tractate at another source goes on to define the parameters more precisely.
Religious teachers debated these issues endlessly. In effect, these strict teachers of the law said it was better that people should virtually do nothing on the Sabbath. It is better to be safe than sorry, to be severe and austere than risk too much questionable behavior before a holy God. This is called building a wall or fence around the Torah, so that people would not really break the Torah, but the traditions. Problem: the extra-rules became so strict that people felt oppressed.
And plucking and rubbing and eating and walking on the Sabbath was just too risky, as if the disciples were harvesting, like the executed man had been gathering (= harvesting?) wood. Jesus and his crew were walking on the tightrope between breaking the Sabbath and breaking the interpretations of the religious leaders. Today we could perhaps argue over whether Jesus really did break it from a human point of view, but not from a divine one, because he was Lord of the Sabbath.
The goal in these rules is to build a wall around the Torah, which does not specify what keeping or breaking the Sabbath was (one man was stoned to death for collecting wood in Num. 15:32-36). So if a man did any of those activities, he would not be stoned to death. The goal may have been noble, but the rules and strictures kept building and accumulating, become oppressive. The Pharisees and teachers of the law “are only interested in saddling him with the charge of Sabbath breaker, an offense worthy of death (Exod. 31:14). In their zeal to protect the law, they do not use it to set captives free but to bind them ever tighter. They have no power to heal, only to deal out death” (Garland, comment on 6:6-7).
In church debates today, we question flashing lights, worship leaders bouncing on the platform, and tight clothes women (and men) wear, particularly the women who dance, and holey jeans. Just now on Christian TV a woman was speaking on the platform and wore extra-tight pants. Right or wrong? Holey = unholy? That depends on how strict you are. Extra-strict believers say innovation is wrong, while the “freer” ones say go for it. These issues have to be hammered out about every decade.
“disciples”:
2:
Apparently, the Pharisees were following Jesus’s company around, or maybe the Pharisees saw them at the edge of the grainfield and were waiting for them to come out. Stalking, anyone?
“Since they are his disciples, they are seen as following his example” (Bock, p. 523). So in the Pharisees accusing his disciples, they are criticizing Jesus.
“Pharisees”: You can learn more about them in this post:
Quick Reference to Jewish Groups in Gospels and Acts
They were the Watchdogs of Theology and Behavior (cf. Garland, p. 243). The problem which Jesus had with them can be summed up in Eccl. 7:16: “Be not overly righteous.” He did not quote that verse, but to him they were much too enamored with the finer points of the law, while neglecting its spirit (Luke 11:37-52; Matt. 23:1-36). Instead, he quoted this verse from Hos. 6:6: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:13; 12:7, ESV). Overdoing righteousness damages one’s relationship with God and others.
“Sabbath”: it is in the plural, but most translators just have it in the singular, “Sabbath.” We should not interpret the plural to mean he regularly tweaked the traditions of the Pharisees on all the Sabbath days. Some Sabbaths were uneventful, without conflict.
What Does the New Covenant Retain from the Old?
Do Christians Have to ‘Keep’ the Ten Commandments?
Ten Commandments: God’s Great Compromise with Humanity’s Big Failure
One Decisive Difference Between Sinai Covenant and New Covenant
3-4:
On the consecrated bread, see Lev. 24:5-9. It was the bread of the Presence (of the Lord). Twelve loaves were stacked up in two stacks of six, put out fresh each Sabbath. Indeed only the priests were allowed to eat it.
Death Penalty in Leviticus 24 from a NT Perspective
The story of David and his men doing this is found in 1 Samuel 21:1-6 and 22:9-10. In the first passage, David is not shown to have entered the tabernacle, but neither is he said to stand outside. Jesus is paraphrasing the scene in the OT. David did break the rule. The logic is obvious: David was the greatest king, and the Pharisees were much less than he, so they should stop judging Jesus and his disciples. If you condemn the disciples, you should condemn the greatest king. Jesus is greater than his accusers. It was David as David who took action, and now Jesus places his own authority on the same level as David’s. Jesus is acting outside of religious tradition, and the leaders of this tradition resented it. Luke will later say that Jesus is greater than David (Luke 20:41-44). He had to go—be killed, eliminated.
Jesus is arguing from analogy. “In effect, the argument becomes, ‘If you condemn my disciples on this one, you also condemn David and his men!’ … Jesus’ point is clear: in the OT, there is an apparent violation by David. Even if the details are not the same, the key principle makes the point … The law should not restrict people in their basic tasks, but should encourage them, in the case of the Sabbath, to honor the day. There are situations in which the law can be waived or transcended. David and his men had such a moment. Such a situation faces the disciples. One can overdraw the law’s scope. By mentioning the men with David, Jesus’ establishes the link to the disciples” (Bock, p. 525).
5:
In an extra-strict religious environment, this is a remarkable statement. In these few words, first he says that he is greater than David, because in 1 Sam. 21:1-6 David submitted to the priest Ahimelek and asked for food. Ahimelek gave the bread to David, who did not refuse it, even though he knew it was consecrated. However, David never said that he was the Lord of the consecrated bread and of Lev. 24:5-9. Second, Jesus proclaimed that he was the Lord of the Sabbath, when that sacred day is listed in the mighty Ten Commandments. He owned the Sabbath; it did not own him. He stood above the Sabbath, it did not hang over his head like the sword of Damocles.
For a little apologetics on David and Ahimelek, see my post here:
Did Mark Confuse the High Priest Abiathar with His Father Ahimelech?
In any case, Jesus’s declaration must have stunned the Pharisees to silence.
“Son of Man”: it both means the powerful, divine Son of man (Dan. 7:13-14) and the human son of man—Ezekiel himself—in the book of Ezekiel (numerous references). Jesus was and still is in heaven both divine and human.
4. Titles of Jesus: The Son of Man
GrowApp for Luke 6:1-5
1. Have extra-strict strict religious church members ever made you feel uncomfortable? How? What did you do?
2. Study Rom. 14:5-6 and Col. 2:16-17. Must New Covenant believers keep the Sabbath by law? What about by their free choice?
RELATED
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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