Get Real November 23 Devotional
November 23, 2024
MATTHEW 12:6-8| I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.
MATTHEW 15:1-2, 10|Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand.”
MATTHEW 19:6-9 |So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.”
The special authority of Jesus is also revealed in the way he handled controversies. While plucking grain on the Sabbath his disciples were accused of breaking the law against work. Jesus pointed to an instance where David and his companions ate the temple bread and then casually claimed a power greater than that of the temple, and an authority over Sabbath practice itself. In Matthew 15, he asserts the right to set aside food and cleanliness practices. In the 19th chapter he changes Moses’ teaching on divorce.
Notice that sometimes Jesus loosens a provision and sometimes intensifies it.
What do you make of this difference?
