| Church School Lesson: A Question of Authority |
"A Question of Authority"
July 13, 2025
Background: Matthew 12:1-14; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-11
Print: Matt 12:1-14; Key Verse: Matt 12:6; Devotional: Luke 13:10-17
Matthew 12:1-14 (ESV)
1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”
3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:
4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.
7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
9 He went on from there and entered their synagogue.
10 And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him.
11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?
12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.
14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
Matthew Chapter 12 (Commentary)
12:1-2 The Pharisees were known for their knowledge of Scripture and their love of rules. When they saw Jesus’s disciples picking and eating grain on the Sabbath (12:1), they said, “They’re breaking the law!” (12:2). According to the Mosaic law, you couldn’t work on the Sabbath, but the Pharisees had created so many additional regulations and introduced so many scenarios to the way the Sabbath was handled that they considered the disciples’ actions equivalent to working in the grain fields.
12:3-4 Notice Jesus’s response to the judgmental Pharisees: Haven’t you read what David did? (12:3)—that is to say, “Don’t you know your Bibles?” To mention David was to mention a Jewish hero. When David and his men were running from Saul, he took the bread of the Presence from the house of God—the tabernacle—for them to eat, even though it was only for the priests (12:4). Scripture itself, then, testifies that God’s laws were never meant to get in the way of taking care of the necessities of life. The Sabbath was for the benefit of man, not for his destruction (see Mark 2:27).
12:5-8 Jesus also reminded them that the priests . . . violate the Sabbath all the time! They have to do God’s work on the Sabbath (12:5). The Pharisees were legalists, serving to remind us that whenever the commands of God prevent you from loving and serving God, you’re using his commands inappropriately. Jesus quoted from Hosea 6:6 to show that the Lord is a God of mercy, not judgmentalism (12:7). He’s not impressed if you know your Bible but have a heart of stone.
Finally, Jesus finished with the clincher: Something greater than the temple is here (12:6). The only thing greater than God’s house is God; therefore, Jesus was letting them know who he was. Then he added, The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (12:8). And since it’s his show, he gets to decide how the Sabbath is honored.
12:9-10 On another occasion, Jesus saw a man with a shriveled hand in a synagogue, and the Pharisees asked if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. However, they weren’t asking an honest question but looking for an opportunity to accuse him (12:10).
12:11-14 So Jesus turned the tables on them—as he so often did. Who wouldn’t help his sheep if it fell into a pit on the Sabbath? (12:11). No one, of course. The Pharisees, then, were willing to do for a sheep what they wouldn’t do for a hurting man! Jesus reasoned that acts of mercy don’t dishonor the Sabbath—especially since people are more valuable than animals (12:12). Then he mercifully healed the man (12:13), while the Pharisees showed their true colors by plotting to kill Jesus (12:14).