Reflective Bible Study

As we continue moving through Luke’s gospel, we arrive at a point where on the surface, it appears Jesus disregards one of the Ten Commandments on two separate occasions. However, when we look a little closer at what Luke describes in these events, we discover a powerful truth about God’s ideal for His Sabbath day celebration.

Let’s read about what happened. Our passage for this event is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 6, and we will read from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 1, Luke describes what happened:

¹ One Sabbath day Jesus was walking through some fields of grain. His followers picked the heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. ² Some Pharisees said, “Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”

³ Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? ⁴ He went into God’s house and took and ate the holy bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he gave some to the people who were with him.” ⁵ Then Jesus said to the Pharisees, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath day.”

⁶ On another Sabbath day Jesus went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man with a crippled right hand was there. ⁷ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees were watching closely to see if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath day so they could accuse him. ⁸ But he knew what they were thinking, and he said to the man with the crippled hand, “Stand up here in the middle of everyone.” The man got up and stood there. ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath day: to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to destroy it?” ¹⁰ Jesus looked around at all of them and said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” The man held out his hand, and it was healed.

¹¹ But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were very angry and discussed with each other what they could do to Jesus.

In these two events, it appears as though Jesus completely disregarded the Sabbath day. One reason for this was because over the previous few hundred years, the religious leaders had built up the importance of the Sabbath and the significance of it beginning at the time of Nehemiah and the restoration of Jerusalem and the temple.

At that point in history, the Jews realized that their exile had been caused by a rejection of God’s Ten Commandments and it had began subtly as a rejection of the Sabbath commandment. Incidentally, the Sabbath commandment is the easiest commandment of the ten to discount as insignificant.

In response to this realization, the Jewish leaders began building up walls of protection for the Sabbath day to keep people from accidentally or inadvertently breaking the Sabbath and bringing God’s punishment back on the people. By the time Jesus came, there was a complex set of rules around what should be done and what should be avoided on God’s special day. Through the extensive set of rules meant to protect the Sabbath, the religious leaders had sucked out all the joy God had intended for His special day of the week.

With this background in mind, we then come to Jesus stepping into the spotlight. If Jesus had stepped into the spotlight 500 years earlier or 500 years later, we would see Him respond to the Sabbath in significantly different ways. Five hundred years on either side of this issue, the Sabbath was being looked down on and marginalized rather than being overly protected. If Jesus stepped into history at a different point, we would likely get a different impression of what Jesus believed for the Sabbath.

Or would we? Would the impression Jesus gives us about the Sabbath be different?

As I think about this, I don’t think it would be. From our passage and these two events, we discover two huge themes Jesus believed about the Sabbath.

From the challenge the Pharisees give Jesus about His disciples picking grain on the Sabbath, we discover Jesus’ reply doesn’t really defend the disciples’ actions, it simply frames the actions of a highly regarded historical figure in a different light. It is as though Jesus counters the seemingly horrible act the disciples are accused of by saying that David, a great king from Israel’s past, did an even worse thing by eating special bread. However, following this illustration, Jesus makes a startling claim in verse 5, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath day.”

This is significant because Jesus uses the phrase “Son of Man” to refer to Himself, and He tells us that He is Lord of the Sabbath day. As followers of Jesus, we would do well to pay attention to how Jesus acted towards the Sabbath day, because He has laid claim to the Sabbath day in this verse. From this point forward, we should look to Jesus for our cues on how to relate to the Sabbath.

Fortunately for us, Luke follows this first event up with a second event focused on the Sabbath. In this Sabbath-day healing, Jesus asks the religious leaders a question that helps to frame what He believes the significance of the Sabbath is. In verse 9, Jesus asks the religious leaders present, “which is lawful on the Sabbath day: to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to destroy it?”

Jesus frames the Sabbath as a day to do good, not to do evil; and a day to save lives rather than destroy them. Regardless of what you believe the significance of the Sabbath is 2,000 years after Jesus made this claim, the truth Jesus hints at in this question should be a common foundation for believers.

Jesus intentionally healed the man’s hand on the Sabbath day, in a way that could not be even remotely considered work, but because these religious leaders only saw Jesus as a doctor who healed people, and not a teacher or prophet, Jesus’ healing must be classified as work. The religious leaders’ hostility towards Jesus over how He treated the Sabbath was not because Jesus didn’t take the Sabbath seriously, it was because Jesus openly challenged their traditions and rules regarding the Sabbath and Jesus elevated the Sabbath as a day to worship God and to be a blessing to others.

The Sabbath was a memorial of God creating this world and everything in it, and the Sabbath was also given the status as a memorial of God saving His people out of slavery. In the same way, Jesus elevates the Sabbath and gives it the significance of remembering when He came to save us from sin. Just like God finished His work of creation on the sixth day of the week by creating humanity before resting on the Sabbath, Jesus finished His work of redeeming humanity on the sixth day of the week on the cross before resting on the Sabbath. Jesus modeled the Sabbath and taught it was a day to rest and a day to remember what God has blessed us with, and that it is a time to celebrate just how much God has done for us!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life, and choose to let Him lead and guide you forward. If you haven’t done so recently, look at the Sabbath in the Bible and discover how this might just be one of the most significant forgotten gifts God has ever blessed us with. While many today believe the Sabbath is simply any day that is set apart, realize that the Bible teaches us that the Sabbath is a specific day of the week, and while the term sabbath is used to describe other special celebration days, it is also the name of a specific day of the week.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, purposefully pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow your relationship with God. Decide to study the Sabbath out for yourself. Don’t take my word, or anyone else’s word for what the Bible teaches at face value. Determine to study this out for yourself. I’m certain that you will be surprised with what you discover!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving through Matthew’s gospel, and specifically through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus comes to a challenging message, but unlike some of the previously challenging messages, this challenge is about something that isn’t specifically a sin, but a challenge related to trust.

Let’s read what Jesus told the crowd, before unpacking how this is relevant in our lives over 2,000 years later. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 25, Jesus continued preaching, saying:

²⁵ “So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. ²⁶ Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. ²⁷ You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. ²⁹ But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. ³⁰ God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don’t have so little faith! ³¹ Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. ³³ Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. ³⁴ So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In this passage and message to everyone present, Jesus challenges us on the validity of worrying about things in our lives. Jesus basically says in these few verses that worry is worthless. Worry does not gain us anything positive.

So then why do we worry if it isn’t productive or positive?

I don’t have a good answer for this question, except to give the theory that worry comes from a lack of trust. For those who believe in God, worry comes from not trusting that God will have all the details worked out. For those who don’t believe in God, worry is simply not trusting that things will work out in the end.

Sometimes this fear is warranted. Sometimes, God, or life, doesn’t make things work out for us. Sometimes bad things do ultimately happen. While this could be a great place to talk about why bad things happen to good people and bad people alike, I will resist the urge to do so here.

Instead, our passage focuses us on the singular topic of worry. Jesus directly gives us the challenge in verse 27, “You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.”

Worry is not productive. Worry does not benefit our lives in any way. In contrast to worry, we might spend a few minutes planning some “what if” scenarios, but after we have decided on the various courses of action, then we move forward with life ready to take whatever action is planned out based on the outcome of what we are concerned about.

This strategy balances planning and trust. If we are concerned about something we cannot change or affect, then worrying about it doesn’t do any good. Instead, we should plan what we will do when an outcome to the situation happens. Having a plan lessens worry.

In contrast, the things that cause us to worry where we can change the outcome are not things worth worrying about. Instead, we must intentionally work to improve the situation and to bring about the change we would like to see happen. While most situations have more variables we cannot control than the variables we can, we must focus on doing only what we specifically can and then trusting God will work out the other details.

There is no getting around trust being the antidote for worry. However, when we are tempted to worry, there is something else we can do can help grow our trust if it is weak. This other thing will seem obvious and maybe a little cliché when I say it, but that doesn’t change its validity.

When we are tempted to worry, we should turn to God in prayer and ask Him for two things: We should ask Him to help the situation we are worried about in the best way possible from His perspective, and we should ask Him for help trusting that He knows best.

While we might have an idea of what outcome we would like to see in any given situation, our perspective isn’t God’s, and it is better to defer some of the big decisions and big challenges to God because some of these things are better left in His hands.

Remember that above everything else, God wants each of us to ultimately end up with Him in heaven. This means two things. First, this means that we have faith in Jesus and that we have a saving relationship with Him. Secondly, this means that we must actually want to go to heaven. While the first is obvious for most people, the second is where things get challenging.

If God were to take every single piece of bad out of this world, there would be very little desire to go somewhere better. In a way that I don’t understand all that well, when bad things happen in this world, one outcome that is positive is that we are reminded that God has a better place in mind for our future, and that we can trust He will take us there when He returns.

Remember that when bad things happen or when we are tempted to worry about a potentially bad thing happening, trusting in God is the antidote for our worry. We can mix this trust with a few minutes planning some “what if” scenarios, but after we have these plans in place, we trust God will work things out as He knows best. We can even pray for His best outcome to happen and that He will help us trust that whatever happens is for the best from an eternal perspective.

Worry by itself is worthless. However, if worry prompts us to plan, act, and trust in God even more, then it accomplished what it was designed to do. Worry is only present to remind us we are not trusting God, and when we trust God, worry get’s pushed away.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue to seek God first in your life, and when worry wants to challenge your trust in God, take your worry to God in prayer, asking for more trust, and asking for guidance moving forward. While we can make plans for what could possibly happen, regardless of what happens, we want to follow the path God knows is best when He brings resolution to what we are concerned about. Prayer is the best way to ask God for help with trust when worry wants to invade our lives.

With our prayer, we should also be sure to regularly study the Bible for ourselves to learn how God has worked in the past and how He has promised us He will do the same in our lives. While our lives and our world are very different from the world and lives of those who lived back then, trusting God when challenges come is always relevant.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or be scared away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving through Luke’s gospel, we come to an event, specifically a miracle, where it appears as though Jesus uses this event to prove a point. However, this event does more than simply prove a point that most Christians currently believe today. In this event, we discover just how powerful faith in Jesus is and we discover something amazing about who Jesus was.

Our event and passage for this episode is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 5, and we will read it using the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 17, Luke tells us that:

¹⁷ One day some Pharisees and experts in the Law of Moses sat listening to Jesus teach. They had come from every village in Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem.

God had given Jesus the power to heal the sick, ¹⁸ and some people came carrying a crippled man on a mat. They tried to take him inside the house and put him in front of Jesus. ¹⁹ But because of the crowd, they could not get him to Jesus. So they went up on the roof, where they removed some tiles and let the mat down in the middle of the room.

²⁰ When Jesus saw how much faith they had, he said to the crippled man, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.”

²¹ The Pharisees and the experts began arguing, “Jesus must think he is God! Only God can forgive sins.”

²² Jesus knew what they were thinking, and he said, “Why are you thinking that? ²³ Is it easier for me to tell this crippled man that his sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up and walk? ²⁴ But now you will see that the Son of Man has the right to forgive sins here on earth.” Jesus then said to the man, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk home.”

²⁵ At once the man stood up in front of everyone. He picked up his mat and went home, giving thanks to God. ²⁶ Everyone was amazed and praised God. What they saw surprised them, and they said, “We have seen a great miracle today!”

In this event, three big ideas jump off the page at me.

First, it is amazing in my mind how Luke describes Jesus meeting this crippled man. Verse 20 describes this moment for us by saying, “When Jesus saw how much faith they [referring to this man’s friends] had, he said to the crippled man…”

While we are quick to jump to the message Jesus shared with the crippled man regarding this man’s forgiveness, it is very easy to skip over the detail that Luke alludes to. This man didn’t have significant faith in Jesus. Instead, this man’s friends had the unstoppable faith that, one way or another, they would get their friend in front of Jesus.

This is significant for us to pay attention to because it tells us that our faith can impact the lives of unbelievers around us. This man’s friends, while they were not receiving much of any personal benefit from carrying their crippled friend to Jesus, made a huge impact on the crippled man’s life. This miracle happened entirely because this man’s friends had faith in Jesus!

Second, when we look at Jesus’ message, the reaction of the religious leaders, and then at the miracle that happened, we are left to conclude something powerful. If Jesus had spoken outside of God’s will, God would not have allowed the man to be healed. Because of this, Jesus’ teaching was validated by God regardless of whether the religious leaders believed Jesus had the power or authority that He claimed to have.

This detail is significant for us to pay attention to because sometimes God will validate a message He sends with a miracle. However, don’t expect this to be God’s default method. In the gospels, this might be the only time Jesus uses a miracle to prove a spiritual point. In every other case I can think of right now, the miracles were given to help people and to cause people to pay attention. Once people were paying attention, Jesus then teaches a message that stood on its own.

Regardless of whether you believe Jesus’ message here, I don’t believe God would have let this man be healed if this teaching negatively impacted the impression those present had of God.

The third big idea I see in this passage comes in what Jesus’ key idea is. While Jesus does ultimately claim the right to forgive sins, this is not the key piece of His message. The key part of Jesus’ message is that this man’s sins were forgiven. Luke writes Jesus’ words in verse 20, saying, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.”

Looking at the details of what is said and what isn’t said here, Jesus does not say, “My friend, I forgive your sins” even though Jesus potentially could have said this. While the way the Pharisees and religious leaders respond seems to appear that they heard Jesus directly forgiving sins, Jesus’ message to this crippled man was one that assured him that his sins were forgiven.

From the earlier details that Luke includes, Jesus saw faith in the actions of this man’s friends. Luke does not indicate this crippled man had any faith. From the context of the message of forgiveness Jesus shared with this man, part of me wonders and could logically conclude this man believed God was punishing him for some sin in his past, and because of this sin, there was no hope that God loved him enough to heal him. The man’s friends had faith in Jesus’ healing ability, but this man doubted that God even wanted him to be healed. If God was punishing this man for a sin in his past, there would have been no way for Jesus to heal him against God’s will!

Jesus’ message to this man was not, “I forgive your sins”; Jesus’ message to this man was that his sins were forgiven. God was not holding a grudge against this man and punishing him by keeping him crippled. Instead, God loved this man enough that He led four friends to carry this man to Jesus, and to not be discouraged or give up when a crowd was not interested in letting them through.

Jesus ultimately does challenge those present regarding His authority to forgive sins, but the bigger message here is that Jesus came to assure us that our sins have already been forgiven and that God is not angry with us. God loves us and that is the entire reason why Jesus came to this world! God loves you and me and Jesus came to help us understand just how much God loves humanity!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to accept that He has forgiven you of your sins. Accept this truth through what Jesus came to this world to accomplish. Choose to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus and His sacrifice for you and me on our behalf.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God. Through prayer and Bible study, discover just how much God loves you and I and discover what He was willing to give to redeem us from being trapped in sin. Don’t let your relationship with God be based on the opinions of others. Study out God’s truth for yourself from the Bible to discover what God wants you to learn from His Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or doubt yourself out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Picking back up where we left off in our last episode, Jesus continues sharing during His famous Sermon on the Mount about the importance of doing things privately for God rather than publicly for the praise of others.

But before Jesus picks back up with this focus, He has a short, challenging message for all of His followers. Of all the challenging messages and difficult ideas Jesus shares, this one is one of the most challenging and difficult, if for no other reason than because of its subject matter.

Let’s pick up reading where we ended off last week in Jesus’ sermon. Continuing in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6, using the New International Reader’s Version, immediately following Jesus finishing the model prayer, He tells us starting in verse 14 that we should:

¹⁴ Forgive other people when they sin against you. If you do, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive the sins of other people, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Pausing briefly, I want to emphasize this huge, challenging idea. If we do not forgive other people, God will not forgive us. This makes forgiveness one of the most significant characteristics of God’s people, and some might say that this is the most significant.

If you struggle with forgiving others, then perhaps this challenge from Jesus is a wakeup call for you to ask God for His help to forgive others, to forgive a specific situation, or to simply let go of a past issue that keeps coming to mind. If we hold on to the past, this unforgiving spirit hurts us more than we realize and it ultimately damages our relationships with others and our relationship with God.

After challenging those present with this message of forgiveness, Jesus continues preaching. Picking back up in verse 16, Jesus told the crowd:

¹⁶ “When you go without eating, do not look gloomy like those who only pretend to be holy. They make their faces look very sad. They want to show people they are fasting. What I’m about to tell you is true. They have received their complete reward. ¹⁷ But when you go without eating, put olive oil on your head. Wash your face. ¹⁸ Then others will not know that you are fasting. Only your Father, who can’t be seen, will know it. Your Father will reward you, because he sees what you do secretly.

¹⁹ “Do not gather for yourselves riches on earth. Moths and rats can destroy them. Thieves can break in and steal them. ²⁰ Instead, gather for yourselves riches in heaven. There, moths and rats do not destroy them. There, thieves do not break in and steal them. ²¹ Your heart will be where your riches are.

²² “The eye is like a lamp for the body. Suppose your eyes are healthy. Then your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But suppose your eyes can’t see well. Then your whole body will be full of darkness. If the light inside you is darkness, then it is very dark!

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters at the same time. You will hate one of them and love the other. Or you will be faithful to one and dislike the other. You can’t serve God and money at the same time.

We’ll stop reading here. In this section of Jesus’ sermon, He reemphasizes the importance of doing things for God in secret, and in a way that only God will see what you are doing. He extends the living, giving, helping, and praying in private to also fasting in private. When we do things secretly for God, we trust that He will reward us.

Jesus compares our doing good for others and doing things secretly for God like making deposits in a heavenly bank account, or like gathering riches in heaven. While we understand the importance of saving and earning money in an earthly sense, Jesus tells us that all the money in the earth is not as safe as a single penny in heaven.

Money on earth can erode, it can decompose, or in our highly digital society, a seemingly insignificant computer glitch can take our money from abundant to absent. While this isn’t a statement for or against a cashless society, Jesus does make the challenge that money acquired here on earth is temporary at best. Instead, we should focus on growing money in heaven.

While this sounds great on the surface, growing money in heaven works differently than growing money on earth. Giving all your money away here on earth can earn some riches in heaven, but heavenly wealth is measured in different terms than earthly wealth, and there is no guarantee that giving money on earth will earn treasure in heaven.

Some might wonder how we earn treasure in heaven, since Jesus appears to place great emphasis on this here in His message. The answer has been what we have been subtly focusing on over the past couple of episodes. We earn treasure in heaven when we do things privately for God, when we give in secret, when we help anonymously, and when we pray privately. When we live for God in a way that gives God the glory, and when we do things for God in ways that cannot be praised or rewarded by others, then we earn treasure in heaven, and treasure in heaven cannot decay, treasure in heaven cannot be stolen, and treasure in heaven does not disappear over time.

Treasure in heaven gains heavenly interest, and while treasure in heaven doesn’t earn us a place in heaven, we can only earn treasure in heaven when we are living for God and have accepted His sacrifice on our behalf.

Ultimately, Jesus tells us that the most valuable part of our treasure in heaven is our hearts, because when our hearts are focused on our heavenly treasure, we live for God in more significant ways than if our hearts are focused on the things of this world.

Jesus finishes by challenging us that we cannot serve two masters. We cannot be looking for and seeking after things in this life while also being 100% dedicated to God in heaven. The challenge Jesus ends with is deciding whether you will serve God, or whether you will chase money or wealth here on earth. We cannot do both, and while society tells us we should choose wealth, Jesus has already framed wealth as not lasting past this life.

God wants us to be rich in heavenly riches, and this comes through focusing on God, serving Him, and living our lives in ways that secretly and publicly honor Him!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue seeking God first and choose to place Him first in your life. Choose to grow riches in heaven by serving God in secret ways while also publicly acknowledging Him. Help others anonymously, give secretly, live subtly, pray privately, and when growing close to God through other spiritual disciplines, do so in a way that others won’t be able to tell. What we do for God in secret is what God will reward us for when we reach heaven!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and move closer to God. While learning from others is good, always take what you learn and filter it through your personal, private time in prayer and in the Bible. It is through this personal prayer and Bible study where God wants to grow a personal relationship with you and He will teach you what is worth focusing on when we bring what we learn to Him in prayer and study!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or stop moving towards where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!