This week’s readings are all from John chapters 7. Click here to see a full listing of each day’s reading and the full chapters for this week. Full readings of each day’s smaller segments of the readings will be posted on this site during the week.
Today's Reading
10 But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then Jesus himself also went up, not openly but in secret. 11 So the Jewish leaders were looking for him at the feast, asking, “Where is he?” 12 There was a lot of grumbling about him among the crowds. Some were saying, “He is a good man,” but others, “He deceives the common people.” 13 However, no one spoke openly about him for fear of the Jewish leaders.
14 When the feast was half over, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach. 15 Then the Jewish leaders were astonished and said, “How does this man know so much when he has never had formal instruction?” 16 So Jesus replied, “My teaching is not from me, but from the one who sent me. 17 If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority. 18 The person who speaks on his own authority desires to receive honor for himself; the one who desires the honor of the one who sent him is a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19 Hasn’t Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law! Why do you want to kill me?”
20 The crowd answered, “You’re possessed by a demon! Who is trying to kill you?” 21 Jesus replied, “I performed one miracle and you are all amazed. 22 However, because Moses gave you the practice of circumcision (not that it came from Moses, but from the forefathers), you circumcise a male child on the Sabbath. 23 But if a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to external appearance, but judge with proper judgment.”
I know I’m a week late, but catching up and I had to post!
v23 is quite an answer to some of my wonderings on the week before! In a similar way, “bending” the Sabbath for circumcision happens, all the more would it happen to make an entire body whole. NET bible note:
In the Talmud (b.Yoma 85b) R. Eleazar ben Azariah (ca. A.D. 100) states: “If circumcision, which attaches to one only of the 248 members of the human body, suspends the Sabbath, how much more shall the saving of the whole body suspend the Sabbath?” So absolutely binding did rabbinic Judaism regard the command of Lev 12:3 to circumcise on the eighth day, that in the Mishnah m.Shabbat 18.3; 19.1, 2; and m.Nedarim 3.11 all hold that the command to circumcise overrides the command to observe the Sabbath.
However… still interesting that the command to circumcise would override when I think about the importance of the Ten Commandments vs the other 613 or something laws? Hmmm…
The rabbis understood that some laws were weightier or more important than others. In this case, Rabbi Eleazer ben Azariah would say that one becoming a son of the covenant through circumcision (which made the Torah itself binding for someone) was more vital than keeping the commandment of Sabbath, so he 'loosed' the Sabbath commandment in cases of keeping the commandment of circumcision. Likewise, the majority of rabbis understood that saving a life took precedence over the Sabbath as well. What Jesus does is extend the saving of a life and making someone wholly a child of covenant to the same idea as making someone whole physically from illness. From a rabbinic perspective, Jesus 'looses' the Sabbath command in cases of healing. This claim of authority to bind and loose by Jesus, and his actions, creates conflict with the Judean leaders.