Picking heads of grain on the Sabbath

[Mr. Bultitude]

When Christ's disciples went through the fields picking heads of grain (Matthew 12; Mark 2; Luke 6) was it a duty of necessity?

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Christ thought so judging from his response to the Pharisees; and Matthew 12 is the proof text for acts of necessity and mercy for the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

 

[Cymro]

"But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the Temple."
Would He not have rebuked His disciples if they were in the wrong?
These were itinerants without sustenance , so as they hungered it was
a necessity to partake, and also had the example of David to support.

 

[Mushroom]

So, to clarify, picking heads of grain would have been inappropriate for the Sabbath if they had been local farmers with full larders?

 

[aadebayo]

So, to clarify, picking heads of grain would have been inappropriate for the Sabbath if they had been local farmers with full larders?

Hi Brad

It all depends on the circumstance. As NaphtaliPress said, works of necessity and mercy such as Policing, medical, fire brigade and such are exempted. So " picking heads of grain" has to be within the definitions of necessity and mercy to justify doing them on the Lord's day.

 

[Cymro]

Brad, you answered your own question. The example you gave
shows that it was not out of necessity, but unnecessary and
superfluous .

 

[Peairtach]

I think the permission to pick ears of corn and eat them was also a rebuke by Christ to the kind of Pharasic nitpicking and precisionism that turned the Sabbath into a burden and a nonsense. See the list of do's and don'ts in the Talmud.

Reformed Sabbatarianism has largely avoided all this, because true Reformed Christians know the Lord of the Day, unlike the Pharisees, and we have his instruction respecting the purposes of the day and how it is to be observed in spirit and letter.

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