Mark 2:18-3:6
"We Don't Like Jesus!"

Pharisees

1st Centiry Jewish historian, Josephus, “six thousand members and that they were highly respected for their devotion to religious law.”
Matt 23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3 So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. 5 "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries [leather boxes worn on the arm and head, and which contain scrolls inscribed with specific Biblical passages] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.' 13 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 15 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. 23 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices-mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud

V.18 “fasting” The only required day to fast was the Day of Atonement

The Pharisees added to this command and fasted twice a week.

See Isa. 58:3-9

V.19-20 Jesus’ response

Eating and celebrating go hand in hand

•The time would come when fasting would be appropriate (Acts 13-14) but now wasn’t that time.

V21-22

The coming of the Messiah, and His kingdom, cannot coincide with the religious traditions that had been established by the Pharisees

V.23-26

Sabbath- “To rest”, “To cease from work”

Ex 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

By the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had transformed the Sabbath into legalistic bondage.

39 categories of forbidden activity: carrying, burning, extinguishing, finishing, writing, erasing, cooking, washing, sewing, tearing, knotting, untying, shaping, plowing, planting, reaping, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, selecting, sifting, grinding, kneading, combing, spinning, dyeing, chain-stitching, warping, weaving, unraveling, building, demolishing, trapping, shearing, slaughtering, skinning, tanning, smoothing, marking.

In the mind of the Pharisee, the men were
1. reaping as they picked the wheat,
2. threshing as they rubbed the wheat in their hands and
3. winnowing as they blew the chaff away.”

The simple point is that the Sabbath was given for the good of people
The Pharisees had turned it into bondage

•Jesus was not nullifying the use of the Sabbath but the abuse of it

V.3:2 What was their purpose for being there?

Why do you come to church?

V.5
“Stretch out your hand” What a cruel thing to do. Asking a person to do something that’s impossible to do.

When God asks us to do what we think is impossible, it becomes possible.
God will never ask you to do what He doesn’t empower you to do

V.6
He gives them the opportunity to hang their heads in shame and admit their guilt and repent.