APRIL 04 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#12 *Who decides what is legal, God or man?* “What man is there among you who has one sheep and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?” (Matthew 12:11-12a)

 

APRIL 04  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  

JQ#12 *Who decides what is legal, God or man?*  

“What man is there among you who has one sheep and if it falls

 into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? 

Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?” 

(Matthew 12:11-12a)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Praise Glory and Honor to the One that is Worthy. Lord Jesus,

 without Your unselfishness, mankind would not know what unselfishness

 means for we are a truly selfish people, without your Patience with us we 

would not know what Unconditional Love looks like! Jesus, thank You for 

the Way of Grace that You have placed before me in this season of pain

 that I may walk before You in a manner that Glorifies the Father and brings

 Honor to Your Name, the Name Jesus. 

Forgive us daily as we seek to walk blameless before Thee!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus called out the Pharisees on the issue of “legality” in Matthew 12:4-5 but

 He was not only calling out the Pharisees for quoting blindly the Jewish law

 but Jesus was illustrating the deep “Truth of God” that all men tend to 

think God needs our help in explaining what He “really” meant to say! 

When Jesus asked the Questions of the Pharisees in verses 4 and 5 and by 

the words He used we can see the “Spiritual Lesson” and the

 “physical accusation” because Jesus immediately tied the words in the

 Question to specific words in the answer leaving no room for doubt that

 the Lesson Jesus was teaching the Pharisees was to address the 

bigger issue of “legalism” in general and 

“God vs man” in specific. 

In this series of Questions Jesus used the words

 “read”, “David”, 

“entered the house of God”, “ate the showbread”, “not lawful for him”,

 and “only for the priests?”, (Matthew 12:4  JQ#12a) which pointed out

 the “spiritual vs physical significance”,  

Jesus used these words in His second question,

 “read in the law”, “Sabbath”, “priests in the temple profane the Sabbath”,

 and ends with the tongue in check question,

 “and are blameless?” (Matthew 12:4  JQ#12b) —

 then Jesus Teaches the 

Lesson on True Authority 

with His answers in the next two verses,

 “Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.

 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’

 you would not have condemned the guiltless.” 

(Matthew 12:6-7) 

By asking the legalist to compare what they have “read in the law” which

 places “blame” on  breakers of laws written by man’s interpretation of the

 “True Authority” of the “One” 

who is greater than the manmade temple and thus greater than the manmade

 laws, Jesus is telling the legalists that they should be looking at 

“the spirit of God’s law” or the “intent of God’s law” 

instead of the “wording of the manmade law”.  

The fact that this problem still exists today is evident as one can pick up 

any modern dictionary and read a similar definition to this: 

“The letter of the law verses the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis.

 When one obeys the letter of the law but not the spirit, one is obeying 

the literal interpretation of the words (the “letter”) of the law, but not

 necessarily the intent of those who wrote the law.” —Wikipedia. 

Jesus 

makes it clear that 

God is the Supreme Authority 

and that 

His Spirit should be followed 

over man’s “interpretation” of what God “meant to say” 

because in the very next statement Jesus summarizes clearly that 

God is the “First and Final Word” 

as Jesus proclaims: 

“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” 

(Matthew 12:8) 

No one can deny that today’s modern world is still dealing with this

 “God vs man” 

issue and since government is full of lawyers and is all about “control” it 

comes as no surprise that all the problems we see in our modern society

 stems from the government imposing their “interpretation” of the law and

 are making it clear that they believe the government alone can

 declare what is “legal”. 

They declare their belief in the same breath that they declare their “authority”

 that there should be “separation” between God and government! 

Perhaps you would agree that

 this modern day  “spirit of separation” sets the groundwork

 for a Godless government? 

Do you want to be ruled by a set of laws written by “legalists seeking control”

 over you or by the 

One True God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

 that desires mercy for you?

APRIL 03 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#12 *Who decides what is legal, God or man?* “What man is there among you who has one sheep and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?” (Matthew 12:11-12a)

 

APRIL 03  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  

JQ#12 *Who decides what is legal, God or man?*  

“What man is there among you who has one sheep and if it falls

 into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? 

Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?” 

(Matthew 12:11-12a)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily  Prayer   

JESUS, Lord I thank You for this ongoing “physical trial” for it is making me

 more aware of just how much we depend on things we take for granted

 when we are “healthy”.  

Jesus, I thank you mostly today for the immediate answer to my prayer 

for “spiritual healing” as my wife and I awoke to our usual “honeymoon” 

attitude and Lord You know I have never taken that “special blessing” 

You have bestowed on our “God-honoring  marriage” and I know it was

 Your Spirit that quickly resolved the issue. 

Lord I do not pray for You to take my pain away but I do pray that You will

 grant me healing and keep me aware of these wonderful blessings that I

 see already as a result of my situation, like being able to “share Jesus”

 with the medical help you have surrounded me with during my physical 

ailments whom I lift up to You in prayer today and ask Your blessings 

as they are Your healing hands for those You place in their paths.     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus, being All-Knowing and the Master Teacher asked this most important

 Question because one can easily see that it is the most important Question 

that any society can ask of the government which the society elects to rule them. 

History reveals that government always rises from or eventually becomes

 the “elite ruling” class in any society. It is either kings and queens 

or presidents or governors but there are very, very few large societies 

that are not ruled by a set of officials normally called the “government”. 

We all know that the single purpose of “government” is to “govern” and 

we all know “who” they govern. In the United States of America our 

“government” was established as a symbolic “Trinity” with three main branches,

 each having a specific responsibility but all all three deal with 

laws and legality as the three branches are known as

 the Judicial, Legislative, and the Executive. 

The fact that Jesus confronts the Pharisees on issues of “legality” 

should get our attention and we should pay close attention because Jesus

 addressed “government” and “legalism” several times in His Teachings. 

Jesus, as always, is consistent in His Teaching of Lessons that are universal

 and timeless so that all societies, all races, all nations, and all peoples 

of the world can benefit from studying the Lessons Jesus puts forth, 

especially when He Teaches on such an important issue such as is addressed

 in Matthew Chapter 12 where Jesus calls out the “ruling judicial class”

 of the Jewish community that called themselves Pharisees. 

We can easily demonstrate that Jesus was asking the specific root Question of

 “Who decides what is legal, God or man?” 

because  the Pharisees were declaring that the actions of Jesus and His disciples

 were “unlawful” according to the Jewish religious law called the Halakha

 and referring specifically to the Jewish Sabbath called the Shabbat laws. 

First of all the Jewish nation is a nation founded by God through a man

 named Abraham, who had a son named Isaac, who had a son named Jacob

 and Jacob had 12 sons who became known as the nation Israel. We know of

 this man named Abraham because God of the Bible called out Abraham to 

“go to a land that I [God Himself] will show you” 

and later God promised Abraham that He would give the land to Abraham’s

 descendants as a “possession”. Further evidence that proves the point of

 the “legality” Question asked of the Jewish law by Jesus is that

 (1) God called Abraham (2) God gave Abraham sons whom God said 

would inherit the land God gave them (3) God changed the name of 

Abraham’s grandson Jacob to “Israel” and Jacob’s twelve sons became

 known as “the twelve tribes of Israel” thus firmly establishing 

the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the God of the land and nation

 of Israel and the Jewish people. 

Add to the fact that the Halakha is called Jewish law (but of “legal note” here: 

all the laws in the Halakha are “man’s” interpretation of “God’s Law”) and

 then it becomes obvious that Jesus is asking the Pharisees, 

“What takes precedent — what ‘God’ declares as ‘Right’ 

or what ‘man’ says is ‘legal’?”  

the Question Jesus asked the Pharisees over 2000 years ago should be asked

 today, or do you think the US government can “legally” take God out of our

 schools, our public places, and out of government itself?