Model Minister and Ministry (Luke 6:12-19)

Luke 6:12-19

After the two Sabbath confrontations w/ the Pharisees earlier in chapter 6, Jesus spent the entire night on a mountain in prayer to the Father before He chose the Twelve. The magnitude of Jesus next two acts - appointing of the twelve apostles and the Sermon on the Mount - is really underscored that He spent the entire night in prayer. I probably would have went to bed early so I'd be rested for the big day!

In 6:13 and 17, Jesus presumably had a fairly large following of disciples, but from the larger group, He chose the Twelve. And "whom He also names as apostles." In Greek, apostle means "one sent out." Mark 3:14 clearly gives the purpose for Jesus' selection of the Twelve: ... so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach; this is consistent with Luke's account here.

Picture in your mind what is happening here: Jesus goes up to the mountain to pray. He called His disciples to Him and chose Twelve. Then He and the Twelve come down from the mountain. And "there was a large crowd of His disciples and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon." It is interesting to note the intimacy level of each group. From the most intimate to the least:

1. Jesus and the Father. (ratio of 1:1)
2. Jesus and the Twelve. (1:12)
3. Jesus and the large crowd of disciples. (1:Many)
4. Jesus and the throng of people. (1:Lots More)
   

A criticism I've heard of pastors is that sometimes people or groups of people feel neglected: "He's never called me on the phone or visited me at home." "He spends so much time with this group, but not with that group." Perhaps sometimes these criticism have some basis, and I'm not even going to argue from a practical standpoint if a pastor can give each of his congregants equal time and attention. But observing Jesus' example, He clearly spent more time with some disciples than with others. Even within the Twelve, we see that He spent more time w/ Peter, James and John (ratio of 1:3).

My desire is to follow Jesus' ministry model. As a disciple, I seek to spend time w/ my discipler and for him to send me out to teach. Likewise, as a discipler, I want to spend time with my disciples and send them out to teach. (Although, I may be discipled by someone and I may disciple some people, Jesus is the true discipler of us all.)

Nitpicking the Son of Man (Luke 6:1-11)

Luke 6:1-11

Luke 5 ends w/ the metaphor of the new/old wine and wineskins. Appropriately, this metaphor is demonstrated in real life at the beginning of Luke 6 where Jesus declares himself the Lord of the Sabbath.

I love the "feel" of Luke 6:1, "Now it happened that..."- so matter of fact... like, "It just so happened that..."

Well, it just so happened that Jesus and His disciples were passing through grain fields on the Sabbath and some of them were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands and eating them. Note how Luke phrases the action here. To make the sentence concise, I'd write that "some of them were picked heads of grain to eat." But Luke records it as three actions:

1. Picking the heads of grain.
2. Rubbing them in their hands.
3. Eating them.
   

Now the disciples have gone and done it- they've broken the Sabbath! The Pharisees have caught them with their hands in the cookie jar, or in this case, the grain fields. "Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" some said (Luke 6:2).

Jesus' begins His response in a very peculiar way, "Have you not read..." The focus is put back on the Pharisees! In fact Jesus answers their question with a question in return! Essentially, Jesus is saying, "Do you not know if you are the teachers of the Law?"

The incident of David eating the consecrated bread, which only the priests were allowed to eat, was in fact a breaking of the Law (Leviticus 24). Yet the Pharisees would not speak against the great King David. (At the time of the incident, he was not yet officially king over Israel.) If it was OK for David and his men to break the law, then isn't it OK for Jesus and His disciples? His very next statement, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." What does this mean?

In the parallel account in Mark 2:23-28, v27 gives us a hint. Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." In fact Jesus is indirectly testing the Pharisees most basic understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Pharisees were completely caught up in what they thought could and could not be done on the Sabbath that they missed the whole point. In fact, they defined work so strictly, it was a burden to keep the Sabbath. In Mark 2:27, Jesus sheds the light on the Sabbath by going all the way back to Genesis 2! God didn't institute the Sabbath as an extra burden for man, but rather the Sabbath was created as a good thing for man. God, in His omnipotence, certainly did not need to rest, but the 1st Sabbath was an example for us. Certainly, Jesus, being God, and through whom all things were created (John 1), is greater than King David, and the one who instituted the Sabbath, would know it's original intent better than anyone else.

Now why does Jesus refer to Himself as "the Son of Man" in Luke 6:5? This title is a Messianic reference from Daniel 7:13-14. Hence the Messiah, God the Son Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, defines what is the Sabbath.

Proceeding to Luke 6:6-11, the story picks up on another Sabbath. As was His custom, Jesus entered the synagogue to teach on the Sabbath. Yet again, the Pharisees were waiting for Him to slip up. Jesus commands a man with a withered to get up and come forward and then He poses a question to the Pharisees- "I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?" They didn't answer Him, but I don't think the question was meant to be rhetorical since He looked around at them (v10) presumably waiting for an answer. Is it not right to do good on any given day than to do harm, let alone on the Sabbath? Any child would easily answer it is better to do good on the Sabbath. But the teachers of the Law did not give any response!

Hearing no response, Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" This is utterly hilarious- for the Pharisee are waiting for Jesus to break the Law again to find cause to accuse Him. Jesus could have healed the man's hand by touching it, or saying "Be healed," etc., yet all He did was ask the man to stretch out his hand. And it was healed! Now, if I were one of the disciples and knew what was going on, I probably would have been gnawing at my tongue to avoid busting out laughing in the middle of synagogue! As legalistic as the Pharisees were, they had nothing on Jesus. Technically, all He did was tell the man to stretch out his hand!

From this story, we see how Jesus declared that He was indeed the Messiah, not only in title (the Son of Man), but by demonstrating His deity as creator of the Sabbath, as author and preeminent authority of His Word, and as healer.

The application from all this is to learn from how the Pharisee completely missed the point of the Law and were so short-sighted that they did not recognize the Messiah when He was right in front of them. The Pharisees were the ones interpreting the Law, dictating what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. Now, the author of the Law, and the One who instituted the 1st Sabbath to be a blessing to man was here to set the record straight.

Today, I miss the mark on the Sabbath as the Pharisees did in their time. Our Sabbath is celebrated on Sundays and it is a good reminder that it is to be a day of rest as God originally intended it to be- a blessing for us rather than a burden. Truth be told, recently I've been so enmeshed in "ministry" on some Sundays that it had become a burden for me rather than a day of rest and of blessing. Pray that I would heed the instruction of the Son of Man, the Lord of the Sabbath.