Today in Sunday school we were speaking about Matthew 12 and how the Pharisees accused Christ's disciples of breaking the sabbath day. Christ then explained that His disciples were doing His work and that their actions were justified.
Our Sunday school teacher then mentioned how the Pharisees took the commandment and put parameters around it. This caused the Pharisees to focus more on the parameters of the commandment than the actual commandment itself.
I had the insight that often, we like the pharisees, become so obsessed with not breaking the commandments that we lose sight of making sure that we are keeping the commandments. As we become so focused on not breaking the commandments it becomes easier for us to judge other people.
A good example of this would be that if we were driving to church and saw a man working in a yard pushing a wheelbarrow of dirt, many of us would automatically assume that he was not keeping the Sabbath day holy. But in reality we don't know his real situation. He may be helping out a neighbor, who has to get the yard work done before a certain deadline. In this case the neighbor is really loving and serving his neighbor, an appropriate Sunday activity. In this example, the man appears to be breaking a commandment when in reality he is living them; perhaps even better than we are ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment