<p>12:5&nbsp;<em>Or have you not read in the law, that on the Sabbath day-</em>&nbsp;We need to reflect upon the implications of the fact that the vast majority of the early Christians were illiterate. Literacy levels in first century Palestine were only 10% at the highest estimate. Some estimate that the literacy level in the Roman empire was a maximum of 10%, and literacy levels in Palestine were at most 3%. Most of the literate people in Palestine would have been either the wealthy or the Jewish scribes. And yet it was to the poor that the Gospel was preached, and even in Corinth there were not many educated or &ldquo;mighty&rdquo; in this world within the ecclesia. Notice how the Lord said to the Pharisees: &ldquo;Have you not&nbsp;<em>read</em>?&rdquo; (Mk. 2:25; Mt. 12:5; 19:4), whilst He says to those who responded to Him: &ldquo;You have&nbsp;<em>heard</em>&rdquo; (Mt. 5:21,27,33). His followers were largely the illiterate.&nbsp;As the ecclesial world developed, Paul wrote inspired letters to the ecclesias. Those letters would have been&nbsp;<em>read</em>&nbsp;to the brethren and sisters. Hence the great importance of &lsquo;teachers&rsquo; in the early churches, those who could faithfully read and transmit to others what had been written.</p>
<p><em>The priests in the temple</em>- The rabbis taught that &ldquo;Temple service takes precedence over the Sabbath&rdquo; (W.D. Davies&nbsp;<em>Matthew&nbsp;</em>p. 313 (<em>op cit.</em>)). Thinking through the logic of the Lord&rsquo;s argument, He clearly has the view that His disciples are about the work of the temple, walking through that cornfield. Otherwise His appeal to the rabbinic dictum had no sense. Again, He is encouraging His followers to see themselves as far more than secular, not very spiritual people who are personally attracted to the teachings of Jesus and are awed by His miracles. He&rsquo;s saying that actually they are as priests, professionally committed to serving God actively.</p>
<p><em>Profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?-&nbsp;</em>The Lord (Mt. 12:5) said that the priests &quot;profaned&quot; or &lsquo;desecrated&rsquo; the Sabbath; He didn't say that because they kept the spirit of it, that was OK. By using a word as extreme as &quot;profaned&quot; He seems to be even emphasizing the point of paradox within God&rsquo;s self-revelation.</p>
<p>Having accepted the Bible as the source of authority, we find that the Bible does not categorically list what behaviour is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Even within the Law of Moses, to obey some commands meant breaking others. And it is a common dilemma of sincere believers that they find themselves having to break one principle to keep another. The Bible is written in such a way as to give clear instruction to those who love and respect it, and yet to confuse those who do not fundamentally accept it into thinking that their faulty understanding is in fact the will of God. This is why it is true, on a surface level, that you can prove what you like from the Bible. Adolf Hitler, Jim Jones, David Koresh&nbsp;<em>et al</em>&nbsp;all managed to 'prove' the most bizarre things from the Bible- and persuade others to genuinely think that to do evil was in fact doing righteousness. So the fact that someone thinks that they are correctly interpreting the Bible does not thereby justify them, however sincere their conscience may be. And it does not mean that the church must therefore accept them, just because their conscience is clear and they think the Bible justifies their behaviour. The opposite of love isn&rsquo;t so much hatred, as indifference. To be indifferent to the real welfare of our fellows in this world, and of&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;our own brethren, is perhaps our most common sin. The Lord taught us that we should have a sense of urgency in our response to others. The Lord showed by His example that it is better to meet the hunger of human need than to keep the letter of Sabbath law (Mk. 2:25,26).&nbsp;<em>His&nbsp;</em>urgency,&nbsp;<em>God&rsquo;s&nbsp;</em>urgency,&nbsp;<em>our&nbsp;</em>consequent urgency&hellip; all means that when even Divine principles appear to come into conflict, we are to be influenced above all by the urgency of others&rsquo; need.</p>