"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 man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." -- Matthew 12:11-12

Was Jesus a sinner?  Christians say, "no, of course not."  But here in these verses we see the unveiling of what is ultimately going to get Jesus killed.  What is it "to sin"?  In Jesus' time it was to break religious law.  In the next paragraph, Jesus blatantly breaks the law by healing a man on the Sabbath and the Pharisees go out and start plotting how it is they're going to kill this sinner for it.  Further, not only is Jesus breaking the law, he is actually rewriting it.  The powers that be don't like this one bit.  To understand the New Testament, it's vital to recognize the role and place of the law in that culture and the way Jesus goes about turning it on its ear.  Without that perspective, there's no way to get at what Jesus, Paul, and other writers of the NT are trying to say.

Readings:  Genesis 35:1-36:43; Matthew 12:1-21; Psalm 15:1-5; Proverbs 3:21-26