We live in the era of video review of close calls on the field. It takes time, but they say, “Isn’t it better to get it right?”

So we spend valuable leisure minutes waiting for the call down from the booth on whether the tag was made, a football move was performed, or a foot was dragged at the blue line.

And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Mark 2:23-24

Well, if you read on to verse 28 you’ll find that the call made on the field by Christ himself was upheld by the Lord himself on closer review. And if the Pharisees had consulted the rulebook they would have found that the disciples did not “reap” as they handpicked the grain, which was forbidden on the Sabbath (Exodus 34:21). They would have needed to use a sickle for that.

What the Lord actually overruled using David’s precedent of eating consecrated bread when hungry was the rigid tradition of the Pharisees. They’d turned the Sabbath created for man as a blessing into a burden.

So here was another something new and different with the advent of the Messiah; “no rules just right.”

The most convicting thing the Lord says here, however, is “haven’t you read?” Are you reading God’s Word?