Luke 6:1-5 Grain
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: July 13, 2018 Luke 6:1-5
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
(Understanding the Text) The SDA commentary says that this was most likely A.D. 29 in late spring. It was Sabbath, so they must not have been walking far. The Pharisees observed them, so they were either walking with them, or this was near the destination where the Pharisees were, or the Pharisees just happened to be walking in the same direction. I think they were probably either going to or from the synagogue. I always pictured this in the morning on the way to synagogue, but maybe it was afternoon when they left. In fact, according to the SDA commentary, the Desire of Ages indicates that “Jesus and His disciples were on their way home from the synagogue as they passed through the grain field.” I wonder if the disciples were doing this because it was simply normal for people in the backwoods far away from the synagogues to do, or if they had seen Jesus do it and were simply following His example. Evidently, Jesus was not doing it then, or the Pharisees would have been criticizing Him directly. I sort of think it was something that people away from the Pharisees did all the time, and the disciples simply did it without thinking.
Rubbing the grain was considered harvesting. Harvesting was not lawful. The Pharisees were right in their overall understanding of what was lawful, but they had decided to nitpick every situation until it no longer made sense. They made something that was not harvesting into harvesting. The disciples were not breaking God’s Sabbath. God would not have made such silly distinctions, especially when it would hurt people. This is what happens when we try to legislate behavior. We end up making rules for the slightest infractions and then someone feels that those rules need to be enforced. They replace God’s intent with human rules.
(Revelation of God) Jesus does not argue with the Pharisees by dissecting where their Sabbath rules stopped making sense. Instead, He approached from the bigger picture that man’s needs are more important than man’s rules in God’s sight. God’s rules are for the good of mankind. If we modify God’s rules so that they hurt people, then we are not following God’s rules. If we use God’s commands to inflict harm or hurt, or if we use them to justify neglect, we are breaking God’s commands because His intent is the basis of the command.
(Revelation of God / Application) Jesus ends by claiming Lordship of the Sabbath. Jesus, Himself, gave us the Sabbath as a beautiful gift of communion and love. The Pharisees were making it into a dry dusty punishment that made people think that God was a nitpicky tyrant who was impossible to please. They were doing Satan’s job for him. If we want to know if something is approved by God whether Sabbathkeeping or any other behavior, we need to look at Jesus’ character, words, and actions and see that God is not out to “get” us, but instead, wants to be with us and protect us from harm. We need to look at the intent of our actions rather than just our outward behavior. Mark adds more to Jesus’ comments. “And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28). This important principle that the Sabbath was made for man and should meet man’s needs rather than man being made for the Sabbath and having to fit into arbitrary rules is an important guideline. When the rules for keeping Sabbath hurt someone, we need to look at the rules and see if they are arbitrary and go against the intent of the Sabbath.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is to not hem in myself or others with rules that distort God’s character. I need to be careful not to judge someone else’s actions when they differ from mine. God may have guided me to one way of following His commands because I needed it, but He may be guiding someone else to another way. On the other hand, there is a right and wrong, and in the past, I slid across the line of tolerance and acceptance all the way over to sin. I pray for the wisdom and love to know the difference and respond in the way that You would have me respond. I pray to never turn anyone away from You through legislating behavior and giving judgments or through neglecting them. On the other hand, I pray that I will never allow someone to slide over into sin if it is in my power to keep them connected to You.