Searching for Wrongs

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

SEARCHING FOR WRONGS

Luke 6:1-5

6:1 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" 3 Jesus answered them, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."  5 Then Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."  

NIV

The first thing we need to clear up is this Sabbath. We do not understand why the King James version is the only one that we find records of this was the second sabbath after the first. Then our scholars of old, perhaps having only that version, and not going back to the Greek or even the transliteration of the Greek version, which never have anything to say about a second Sabbath after the first. But they make so much hay about this time of the second after the first. However, the point is that on one Sabbath, which makes no difference which Sabbath it was, he and his disciples were walking through a grain field. We do not even know if this was a wheat or barley field, but it was the type of grain that the head of the plant had small kernels, which were the part of the plant that would be harvested. Taking a few of the heads of the plant and rubbing them in their hands produced the kernels that were edible. As seen by the law, that would have been a form of harvesting that the Pharisees understood was unlawful to harvest on the Sabbath. We wonder why the Pharisees followed Jesus and his disciples through a grainfield. We would think that on the Sabbath they would be in the synagogue praising and worshipping God. But they were more interested in following after Jesus and his disciples for the express reason to charge them as sinners. Just another thought, did the Pharisees count their steps as they were following Jesus, for on the Sabbath they were only allowed, by their own rules, a certain number of steps. That brings us to a truth in our time, in our churches as we live in the new creation time and have our citizenship in the kingdom of God. Do we approach our life as the Pharisees did, in that we are looking to find some fault in someone else, just to make the point that we are so holy, and they are committing a wrong? The Pharisees were judging Jesus and his disciples, condemning them in a sense as committing a sin against the law, while they, the Pharisees, remained holy and pure. Of course, they may not have heard the teaching of Jesus that we consider the Sermon of the Mount when he taught about the log and the speck in our eyes, and that we should look for that log, the sin in our own lives, before we go following after someone to see if we can find a speck in their eye. That is what Jesus was telling the Pharisees. They did not see the truth about the Sabbath, and even the great King David ate consecrated bread, and about Judging instead of knowing the truth. How careful we need to live, first making sure we are living for God, and giving attention to the cleansing blood of Jesus over our sins, the forgiveness of God, and His grace we should not be looking for wrongings in others, especially when we have not overcome wrongs we commit, perhaps on purpose or inadvertently without knowing we did so. As we live in this new creation with love and forgiveness, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, and we won't see those specks, or search for wrongs.