Transcription

Chris
Well, today, Jeff, we’re talking about harvesting on the Sabbath. I didn’t really know how. You know, a funny way to introduce that, because we’ve been talking about the Sabbath. Yeah, we’ve been talking about Jesus’s claims. Yeah. And today he’s going to just lay it down.

Jeff
Harvesting on the Sabbath. Have you ever harvested.

Chris
Uh, I’ve picked my own strawberries. Yeah.

Jeff
Good job. Okay, well, that’s it. Harvesting on the Sabbath. So he’s Chris, and I’m Jeff, and we’re the Bible guys. Yeah, I spent half of my summers and all of my falls helping harvest growing up. So yeah, for like 15 years.

Chris
I went to Kroger and I purchased that. Which you picked probably. Yeah.

Jeff
No, we we ate most of what we, we did. We had a our our garden was an acre. Wow. A full acre garden. And we that’s what we lived on through the winter. We’d freeze and can most of it. And then whatever was left over, we’d sell on the side of the road. So if you ever drove by our house on Elba Road. Yeah, in Lapeer County, Michigan, we then we would sell you our corn or our strawberries. We had tons of strawberries, um, pumpkins, all that stuff.

Chris
I’ve gone to an orchard and I’ve picked my own apples. Oh, there you go. And that was such a treat. Yeah. Oh, look at us picking apples. Strawberries? Uh, I think I’ve done blueberries. Um, that’s about it for me. We did.

Jeff
We did cucumbers and carrots and onions and okra and green beans and peas and potatoes and just going down the line. All the stuff that you need in your cellar. My wife is.

Chris
My wife is getting ready for work. She’s putting on her makeup while you’re saying this, and she’s thinking, I want a garden. So thank you. Thank you Jeff.

Jeff
That’s one of my goals to make you work more.

Chris
Yeah. Give you more work. So I would say I want this whole section in the back.

Jeff
Let’s plow our whole back yard. Yeah, yeah.

Chris
And she’s thinking it. She thought it. She’s mad at me right now.

Jeff
Liz, I agree 100%.

Chris
You do love you, honey.

Jeff
You want one of those? Stop it, stop it. Okay, so, uh, today, what are we. Oh, we’re doing a draft. I like the drafts.

Chris
Yeah, we’re drafting ice cream flavors.

Jeff
Important things. Yeah.

Chris
Important things. Well, we’ve never done this before. I don’t think so. So let’s do rock, paper, scissors.

Jeff
Ready? Ready. One.

Chris
Two. Three. Shoot.

Jeff
Ooh, he did paper. I did, uh, scissors. So it’s rare. It’s rare that I beat you on white paper scissors. So that was good. Um, okay, so I get to do first. My very favorite ice cream is Moose Tracks.

Chris
Oh, wow. Yeah, well, you’re a chocolate lover. Oh, I love that. Makes sense. Love it. I don’t like chocolate that much.

Jeff
And I love the kind of moose tracks that has, like, the veins of chocolate. Like the slivers of chocolate.

Chris
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Jeff
I love it.

Chris
When you said veins. Yeah.

Jeff
Hey. Yeah.

Chris
That’s a that’s a weird word. I do like moose tracks.

Jeff
Veins like veins of gold I.

Chris
Know, I know, I know, I know, yeah I just well.

Jeff
You lived with a nurse forever.

Chris
That’s true.

Jeff
Your wife, by the way. Not just some nurse. She should cover that. Just to be clear.

Chris
So random.

Jeff
All these comments. Chris lives with a nurse. Yeah, sorry about that.

Chris
Okay, so, um, my number one favorite is butter pecan.

Jeff
Really?

Chris
Butter pecan. So check.

Jeff
This out. That’s my dad’s favorite.

Chris
So check this out. How old.

Jeff
Are you.

Chris
I know right? Yeah, but listen to this. So we have a thing in Youngstown, Ohio where I grew up. It’s called handles. And it’s like, world famous. And so my world.

Jeff
Famous in Youngstown.

Chris
No no no, not at all. Oh, so they just put out, uh, the times put out the top 100 flavors in the world, including Italy’s Gelato. Wow. The top 100 flavors in the world. And toward the top was handles in Youngstown, Ohio. Yeah, just the flavor. Butter pecan. Really?

Jeff
Yeah. Butter pecan.

Chris
Is it in the top of the world? In the.

Jeff
World. Yeah.

Chris
Yeah. And it’s pretty crazy.

Jeff
Well that’s it, it’s definitive. Well, then why are we even voting on the rest of these? You just pick the best. One of the best ice creams in the world.

Chris
Well, that’s one of my favorites.

Jeff
Okay, uh, let me see. My next one would be, uh, Rocky Road.

Chris
Oh, yeah. Of course I love Rocky Road. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s just another chocolate mosh posh.

Jeff
If I could bathe in Rocky Road, I would.

Chris
That is a great visual. I could have done without.

Jeff
Just wall around in it. Yeah yeah.

Chris
Yeah yeah. Okay. Let’s let’s let’s, uh, let’s change the visual to. Okay. Uh. I like black or, uh, cherry black cherry ice cream.

Jeff
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Chris
That’s good. Yeah, it’s that pink ice cream. And it has, like, the huge bits of, uh, cherries in it. Yeah. And by the way, uh, none is better than up in Traverse City. So in Traverse City, you know, they’re famous for cherries, right? And then you go to pretty much like any one of the, uh, what’s the mu the mu uh, it’s called mu something.

Jeff
I don’t know, uh.

Chris
Our listeners know it. Uh, but anyway, our listeners from Michigan or listeners from Michigan know it.

Jeff
Anyway, our listeners in India have no idea what you’re talking about right now. Correct. Ireland. They’re like, what is he talking about anyway?

Chris
Uh, Traverse City is known for cherries, and it’s wonderful. Go ahead. Okay.

Jeff
Number three. Uh, let me see. So my next one would be, um, I man, I don’t. Oh, a really good vanilla bean.

Chris
Oh yeah, I like, I like it has to be.

Jeff
It has to be a high quality vanilla bean. But I love it because it’s the best base for, like, if you have a good hot, uh, chocolate chip cookie. Yeah. Or a nice hot brownie. You get that good vanilla bean. Yeah. So good.

Chris
So I think my third favorite is going to be, uh, and it actually might be my second favorite, but they might be interchangeable. But I’m going to go with Oreo. Oreo.

Jeff
Oh, Oreo. Like an Oreo based.

Chris
Yeah, like Oreo flavored ice cream. Yeah. Which is pretty much everywhere now. Sure, it wasn’t when it first came out. Right. But it’s it’s it’s almost everywhere. And I just absolutely love it. Okay.

Jeff
So hey, you want to just shut the podcast down? Go get some ice cream. No doubt. Thank you for joining us today.

Chris
And let’s pray we’re done. That’s funny.

Jeff
Okay. Well, hey, um, so what have we been talking about lately? We’ve been talking a lot about the Sabbath. Yes, yes.

Chris
And there’s a lot that’s, uh, connected here.

Jeff
So we’ve referenced this passage every time we’ve talked about the Sabbath, so we should just get to it, maybe. Yes. And read it.

Chris
And by the way, this passage is found in the harmony of the Gospels. Yeah. In Matthew 12, Mark two and Luke six. Yeah. So we’re going to read all three of those and they’re pretty short. Yeah. They’re not very long, but they’re really the same event recorded in three different gospels.

Jeff
So the cool thing about it is looking for different details in the three different tellings of it. Right. So what’s telling the same story? There’s different details and it really helps bring the story alive. So Matthew 12 verse one says, at about that time Jesus was walking through some grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, so they began breaking off some heads of grain and eating them. But some Pharisees saw them do it and protested, look, your disciples are breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath. Jesus said to said to them, haven’t you read the scriptures? What David did when he and his companions were hungry, he went into the house of God, and he and his companions broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat. And haven’t you read in the law of Moses, that the priests on duty in the temple may work on the Sabbath? I tell you, there is one who is even greater than the temple. But you would not have condemned my innocent disciples if you knew the meaning of this scripture. I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices, for the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath. Then in Mark two it says, One Sabbath day, as Jesus was walking through some grain fields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat. But the Pharisees said to Jesus, look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath? And Jesus said to them, haven’t you ever read in the scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He went into the house of God during the days when Abiathar was high priest and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat.

Jeff
He also gave some to his companions. Then Jesus said to them, The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath. And then in Luke chapter six it says, One Sabbath day, as Jesus was walking through some grain fields, his disciples broke off heads of grain, rubbed off the husks in their hands, and ate the grain. But Pharisees said, why are you breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath? Jesus replied, haven’t you read in the scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He went into the house of God and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests can eat. He also gave some to his companions, and Jesus added, The Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath. So it’s interesting how Mark gives the little detail that it was during the days of Abiathar. Right? He mentions that Luke says that they picked off the grains and they rubbed them their hands, got the husks off, ate the seeds. It just kind of makes it a little bit more precise in time, and then also a little bit more human in the interaction. Right? So it’s neat to read how they they all cover different elements.

Chris
And then Mark included the most detail because he also said that Jesus, it was the only gospel. It was recorded where Jesus made the comment that we referred to, which is the Sabbath is made to meet, uh, you know, made for the people. The people aren’t made for the Sabbath. Yeah. And, uh, you know, it is one of those things where, uh, you know, Jesus is making a claim for you and me. We were like, oh, okay, that sounds right. But back then, that’s a huge deal, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah, that’s a huge deal. So this is one of the biggest governing rules. I mean, you know, just like you said there were even they went as far as to count how many steps a person should walk. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And they weren’t even allowed to travel like, great distances on the Sabbath because there was a certain threshold where they apparently clear, uh, classified it as work. Right. Like, you can go so far and it doesn’t feel like work. Right. But you take one more step and that’s. And it’s like, now it’s work, right?

Jeff
You’re not allowed to pick up too many sticks to carry in for a fire, right? Right. You’re not allowed to start a fire so you can have a fire. You couldn’t start a fire. So you on the Sabbath.

Chris
So you started at like, uh, you started at 559. Yeah. Yeah. On the previous day.

Jeff
Yeah. Or they would or they would take the coals just like, you know, humans, humans have done throughout history make a little packet full of coals. That way. The fire was still technically going because the coals were fire. And you could open that packet back up and you can have another fire. Uh, as long as you didn’t have to do the work of actually setting up the wood so the wood would be set up, and then all you’d have to do is open the thing up, and then you have another fire so that you could have, you know, heat the soup that you made yesterday because you can’t make the soup today because you’re not allowed to chop the vegetables today, but you can lift the pot up onto the fire and heat the soup, okay. And ladle it out. Right. They had all these odd rules.

Chris
So let’s let’s talk about this. So, uh, so I grew up in, uh, a place that was so rules based that, um, that I didn’t have dancing at my wedding. Did you know that? Yeah. Yeah. We didn’t have dancing.

Jeff
No.

Chris
Yeah. And so, uh, and there’s and there’s a joke. There’s a joke that. Why do Baptists. Um. Why do why are why are Baptists against premarital sex? Have you ever heard this?

Jeff
Because it might lead to dancing. Because it.

Chris
Might lead to.

Jeff
Dancing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
That’s it’s it’s just a funny joke because that’s how high it was on the list. You know, dancing for, for whatever reason was wrong. Right. So, you know, Footloose.

Jeff
Well, there’s a lot of vulgar dancing.

Chris
Oh, for sure, for sure.

Jeff
A married couple that’s wanting to dance.

Chris
There’s a lot of vulgar. Everything. Sure. Right. Yep. Uh, you know, just there’s a lot of vulgar. There’s a lot of bad beverages, but we don’t get rid of all beverages, right? Right, right. There’s a lot of bad movies, but we don’t get rid of all movies, right? There’s a lot of bad books, but we don’t stop reading all books, right? Right. And. But the idea of, uh, uh, of rules based, uh, is, uh, something that I just never quite understood. And, uh, when I was actually growing up, I actually grew up in an environment where there were actually sort of no rules. So my mom and dad got divorced when I was only ten. Right? And then my mom worked three jobs, so she was gone. Let me think. Um. Always right. Always right. So you guys were just feral?

Jeff
Yeah. You were feral. Running. Running buck wild. Yeah. Bunch of boys. All that testosterone in the house with no rules.

Chris
So, you know, I did my own laundry at ten years old. Uh, you know, we just sort of packed our own lunches, and we we went. And now I’m not saying my mom didn’t do a good job, right. In fact, I would.

Jeff
She was doing the best she could do.

Chris
I would say she did a great job, uh, in terms of doing the best she could do. Yeah. And she gave and sacrificed and everything else. Uh, but in terms of, you know, you know, growing up, I just felt like there were no rules. So I remember there were times where I would be gone three days in the summer, and then I would call home, and my mom didn’t know where I was. And she said, well, I figured you were over Jeffs. And I’d say, well, I’m over Jeffs. And it’s like, well, you know, Chris, I’d appreciate it if you called me and didn’t wait 72 hours, right? You know, so there were no rules. Then I went to college and, uh, and I told you, like, if you went to a single movie, you got expelled.

Jeff
I went to the same kind of school.

Chris
Well, you know, but I’ve heard of my good friend John Burkett. He’s an attorney, and he went to oral Roberts University, and he said that there were actually sidewalks that were painted, uh, pink and and and blue and blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the boys.

Jeff
One of the schools I went to didn’t allow men and women to walk outside together. We were never allowed to be outside together unless we had a permit. Yeah. So so you’d have to be like on a date that had that, that they gave you a pass for, and then your chaperone had to be with you. Then you could be outside walking together. Yeah.

Chris
So, so again, this is the, this is the, uh, uh, somebody who grew up in a sort of a normal culture.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. So so you had no rules, and suddenly you felt like you were put in prison? Yes.

Chris
See what I’m saying? Like, like whereas you had sort of structure, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You grew up on a farm.

Jeff
Well, and I grew up with those rules in my life already. Yes. So. So I grew up without a TV. We didn’t go to movies, we didn’t dance before I went to college. Right, right. So all the all the rules when I went to college, it was just an extension of the life I grew up in. Yeah.

Chris
By the way, how many people did you have at your wedding?

Jeff
About 455.

Chris
Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s really big compared to most weddings. Yeah, yeah. So for some reason I remember the number 591. So 600 people show up big Italian family. Right. And all they really, you know, are looking forward to is they’re looking forward to the booze is the bar. Yeah. And the dancing. Right, right at the reception. And then I remember Liz and I, we actually hired like a, like a guy in a white tuxedo playing on a white piano with, like, a little top hat or whatever, you know, classical music, people come in, they give their money. And I think back then, in 1992, I think we collected like $7,000, uh, for a lot of money back then. Back then. Right? Yeah. And, uh, and, and, uh, everybody walked in and they go, where’s the dancing? Where’s the booze? We’re like, oh, no, no, this is, uh, this is a Baptist wedding. And they were like, what? And my family was so unbelievably mad. I’m talking like mad. Mad like, I heard about it for ten years. Oh, hey, nice wedding, you know? And I’m like. I’m like, it was ten years ago, bro. Yeah, yeah, they were pretty mad.

Jeff
So in this one, there’s a difference between no dancing and keep the Sabbath. Yeah. Because God put the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments equal to don’t have any other gods and don’t commit adultery. Don’t kill.

Chris
No, I wasn’t referring to that.

Jeff
No, no, no. But I mean for them, that’s how they were viewing this was it wasn’t just a rule. It was equal to don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, don’t have any other gods.

Chris
So so what I was referring to is, is like, uh, from that one rule comes the ridiculousness of how many sticks.

Jeff
Oh, sure. Sure.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

Jeff
Yep, yep. So they made rules on top of the rules on top of the rules. Yeah.

Chris
And by the way, there were probably over 100 right. Oh yeah. Yeah. And they were just and they were sort of ludicrous because, uh, because you had to fulfill the letter of the law by saying, oh, there’s five sticks, but you can’t pick up six sticks because six sticks is a sin, right? But five is not right. Whatever. That’s what I’m saying. It just becomes sort of ludicrous. That sort of sent me down the ludicrous trail.

Jeff
So. So there is an interesting thing in Matthew and Luke. It references the story of David. Yep. So David’s on the run. He’s being hunted down. He’s about to be killed by Saul. And, uh, he goes into the tabernacle and the priests had these, uh, loaves of bread out. They were kind of like an offering to God. David comes in and they’re starving. Like, these guys are starving, and he comes in and gets the bread and eats the bread. And so both. Uh, Matthew and Luke tell that story, right? And then Jesus ends it by saying, The Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath. Right. If it’s okay for David to eat when his people were hungry and to give his companions the food because they were about to die. It’s okay. And by the way, Jesus is saying, and you know, I’m the Lord of the Sabbath. I can make this choice too. But it’s interesting. Mark does not use that story, but gives the exact same principle. And that is when he says, um, well, Mark does give the story.

Chris
Actually, all three of them give the story.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. So so Mark gives a story, but then he goes on and and adds to the story. The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So then the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath. So Mark gives that extra caveat, explaining why he uses the story of David. Right, right. So more important than leaving that bread for the priests as an offering was keeping a human alive. Right? That’s what he’s saying. David and his men were going to die if they didn’t eat. They didn’t have the energy. They were going to be overwhelmed by this, by by Saul’s army, all this kind of stuff. They needed the food. And so it turned out more important than having that loaf of bread in exactly the right spot in the Tabernacle today was keeping David alive, right? Right. So the life of the man and his companions was more important than where the bread sat, right? Because that bread was totally consumable outside of that spot. Right. So if they’d been in another part of the tabernacle, you know, out in the other, the other court, or if it had been outside where that bread was made because the bread wasn’t made inside of the tabernacle. So wherever that bread was made in the, in the transit from the bakery to the tabernacle, totally legit to eat. But because it was sitting on that plate in that spot. Nope. That’s you can’t touch it. And what Jesus is saying is to keep a human alive is more important than making sure that this symbolic bread sits in the right spot in the tabernacle. So it turns out, then, what he’s saying is the life of the person is more important than the the rule.

Jeff
And so the rules are made for or this rule, specifically the Sabbath is made for our benefit. We’re not made to just keep reinforcing rules. There are others, though, that don’t have that same caveat. For instance, um, uh, committing adultery. There are no caveats for okay, well, in this instance it alters. Okay.

Chris
Right, right, right.

Jeff
So or well, in this instance it’s okay to have more than one god. Right? Right. So so Jesus does give a little bit of a caveat to say, listen. The other rules are the boundaries. Don’t cross those lines or you’ve crossed into evil. This one. What he’s saying is this is a gift from God for your benefit. And so since it’s for your benefit, this isn’t a rule about you cross outside of it. And all of a sudden now you’re a heretic. You know, you have two gods or five gods or a million gods. That’s not the line. Or you’ve cheated on your vow to your spouse, or you’ve killed another human. Those are different. Those are boundaries. Don’t cross these lines with regard to the Sabbath. It’s a gift to make your life better. And this is one of those weird gifts that we tend to throw away and go, I just don’t care. I don’t care about that gift. God. And and I’m just telling you, there’s so much research done about the health benefits of a Sabbath. Um, about the, the, the the ability for you to, uh, regenerate and reset. So one of the rules that we’ve made with our staff, one of the guidelines that we give all the time with our staff is we want our staff to have 24 hour period where they’re not plowing Heritage’s field. That doesn’t mean we want you to go sit in your La-Z-Boy all day and not do anything to honor, you know, but rather go do something that recharges your batteries and builds you and your family up and draws you closer to God. That isn’t doing the Heritage Church work.

Chris
Yeah. And by the way, another distinction between those two commandments are, uh, it’s a principle that’s not necessarily clearly defined. So for instance, when they say you shall not commit adultery, right, you shall not steal. We know what it is to steal. It’s black and white. We know what it is to commit adultery, black and white. There’s no mistaking any of that. But when? When you say honor your father and mother that, then that turns into a practice of, well, how. Right, right. So that’s a principle that’s not clearly defined. So you have to sort of figure out how do you honor your father and mother, as long as you adhere to that principle? Well, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. That’s another principle that that is there. But it’s the how part. Right. And so so you have to you have to distinguish like how. So again that’s why Jesus is saying, uh, you know, the how part wasn’t violated when David grabbed the bread. Right, right. You think it was but it wasn’t. Right. Because again, that’s why he said, you know, we’re made for, you know, uh, the Sabbath is made for us, not us for the Sabbath. So I think that that’s an important to know. Yeah. And by the way, he’s referring to, uh, Deuteronomy chapter 23, uh, Exodus chapter 34, uh, Leviticus 19 nine through ten. All of those references talk about the harvesting during Sabbath. They talk about the the story of David, uh, going into the temple and, uh, and then also, um, uh, the Sabbath, uh, principle itself. Yeah.

Jeff
So then there is a note for the mark, chapter 225 through 28 that I think is really relevant. It’s a great place to end. It says the Christian faith involves many rules that are meant to be governed by love. That makes love the highest rule, but it also moves Christians towards personal sacrifice, discipline and responsibility. Scarce resources in today’s world. Uh, you know, personal sacrifice, discipline and responsibility are scarce resources in today’s world. When confronted with rules of your own or others making, ask these four questions. Does the rule serve God’s purposes? Right. Does the. Secondly, does the rule reveal God’s character? Is it showing us something about God? Third, does the rule help people get into God’s family or does it keep them out? And then fourth, does the rule have biblical roots that can be supported in the context of all Scripture, and good rules can pass all four of those tests? That’s really good. Isn’t that really.

Chris
Good? Yeah, that’s really good.

Jeff
Yeah. This is one of the reasons why we recommend the Life Application Study Bible is it’ll get into there’s a ton of stuff in here that explains so much more about David and so much more about the Sabbath, all that stuff that we didn’t read. But there’s always an application piece to the to the notes that kind of make you go, okay, so it’s not just about the facts or the information. It’s also what do I do with this. Right. And this is one of those it gives you a really great, really great guidelines on how to sort through. Is this a man made rule or is this a beneficial rule that God would have me follow?

Chris
That’s awesome.

Chris
Yeah, well, that’s a good place to end and we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.