He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Matthew 12:11c-12 NIV
The image is still clear in my mind. I was in England at Capernwray Bible School. I sat down in my seat for class and the head of the school, Mr. Stracum, was at the podium and he just started quickly leafing through his Bible and every few seconds look up and sharply snap, "What does the Bible say? What does the Bible say?"
We had just had a class on ethics the day before and the topics set off a barrage of verbal scrums usually only seen at the local pub when rival teams squared off for a championship match.
Mr. Stracum reminded all of us that the Bible teaches about mercy, grace, forgiveness and redemption. Sometimes when we seek to follow Christ we get locked into legalism without even trying. Why? There's a lot of reasons, but, I think it's usually because we want to lock into routine where we can just choose and act. We set a few guidelines that we inwardly make laws because we feel guilty if we don't do them.
The point the Mr. Stracum made was that Jesus was more concerned about the person with the need than the rules and regulations added by the teachers of the day. We need to look at the person. Each person has an inherent value because they were created in the image of God, whether they know that or believe that to be true.
I guess, in the end the point is: Do good in Jesus' Name and don't worry about what anyone else thinks.
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