-4-
The call of Levi, New Wine Skins, and The Sabbath Day
Mark 2:13 - 3:6
-4- The call of Levi2:13 ¶ Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them.
14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.
As we ‘read between the lines’ we see Jesus completing a time spent at the seaside teaching the multitudes. On the way back into Capernaum, Jesus spots Levi and calls him to follow Him. This sounds much the same as what He had said to Peter and Andrew and James and John.
The call to ‘follow Him’ was not the first contact that Jesus had with the fishermen. If you were to brush up on the call of the disciples you would have to read about it and compare it with the other gospels.
For example, Andrew was present with John the Baptist when Jesus came back from being tempted in the wilderness, and at John’s suggestion, began to follow Jesus. He asks where Jesus is staying and at Jesus’ suggestion, spends the day and the night with Him.
The next day Andrew brings Jesus to Peter and excitedly introduces Jesus to him. This is quite different from the brief account that Mark gives of the same event. So, all I am saying, there is often more to the story than what we read in one gospel.
Now we are reading about the call of Levi (Matthew) and we are almost left with the impression that seeing Levi working in his ‘tax’ office was Levi’s first encounter with Jesus.
This is not the case. Levi, like all the other disciples, first heard John the Baptist preaching, repented of their sin, were baptized, believed in and were waiting to meet the Messiah. Matthew was working in the Roman tax office when Jesus walked by and called him. Apparently Matthew invited Him to his house.
15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
How wonderful it is to see the excitement of a person who has just met Jesus. Matthew has invited a houseful of tax collectors to a meal … to meet Jesus. As someone put it, “There wasn't a good one in the bunch.”
And it appears to me that the disciples (does He have 12 by now?) were either just outside or near the doorway. Pharisees were ‘hanging around’ while Jesus was inside with the ‘sinners’ who, as usual, were doing their ‘fault-finding’.
And, as usual, Jesus has a wonderful response.
17 When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Jesus is the Great Physician. Everyone of us (believers) came to Jesus with a terminal disease. Many billions of others who have not come to Jesus yet, all have the same terminal sickness. But as long as they insist that they are ok, there is no help for them. Actually, we can say, we were all dead in our tresspasses and sin. That is pretty sick!
We wonder how the Pharisees took Jesus' analogy to a doctor attending to only the sick. They may have mentally nodded their heads and thought, ”I guess that He is right. As far as sinners go, they don’t come any worse. I guess there is nothing wrong with His focus here.” If they were unable to grasp Jesus' irony here, they would just go on thinking that they had nothing for which to repent. At another occasion, and perhaps a different group of Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘Are we blind also?’, to which Jesus replied, If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains. In this case these Pharisees were getting the point that Jesus included them with all other sinners.
Jesus called Matthew, who was already a believer, to follow Him. Matthew was being called into ‘service’. But before Jesus calls anyone into service for Him and the Kingdom, He calls them to salvation.
At the end of our bibles there is a final invitation. The Spirit and the bride say “Come” Rev 22:17. And according to this verse we, the bride, join Him in calling people to Him.
We come now to Mark’s discussion regarding Old and New Wineskins.
18 ¶ The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
20 “But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.
21 “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.
22 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
This discussion between Jesus and His disciples started with a question about fasting. You will notice that Jesus does not say very much about the practice of fasting. John the Baptist is in prison at this time and it was the disciples of John the Baptist who were fasting and probably praying for his release. Jesus is admitting that their reason for fasting is a good one. And next He alludes to the fact that He Himself will be leaving at some point.
But you will notice that Jesus transitions to the comments about new/old cloth and new/old wineskins. What is that about? Jesus is referring to a massive change. He is not talking about renovating a flawed system. He is talking about instituting a totally new thing. Israel was the old system of God bringing His gospel to the world. Jesus says that the old system ends with John the Baptist. Jesus took the disciples that John had prepared and began the new system, the church. Jesus said, “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. Lu 16:16
What Jesus was pointing out in his analogy is very significant.
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
Did Jesus break the Sabbath according to the Law? Is plucking grain harvesting? Let’s read what the law had to say about it.
Duet 23.24-25 “When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container.
25 “When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.
If they had put in a sickle they would have been harvesting. Jesus does not argue the point of whether the law was being broken or not.
25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him:
26 “how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat, except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”
David did actually break the Jewish law here in the strictest sense, however the letter of the law was never intended to bring hardship upon one of God’s servants. And that is the reason Jesus explains the reason for the Sabbath.
27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
28 “Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. And further to this, Jesus, as the fulfillment of every Old Testament ‘shadow’, is also the fulfillment of the Sabbath, which was also a shadow. Jesus is the Sabbath. That is, Jesus is our rest. He said, Come unto me, all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest for your souls. Eternal rest. Praise the Lord!
1 ¶ And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.
Was this man planted there on purpose? It certainly looks like it.
2 So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
If you and I had been there we could have said, “Just listen to yourselves! You know He will heal …and that doesn’t impress you that He is a man of God?!!”
3 And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.”
4 Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent.
5 And when He had looked around at them with anger*, they probably could see Jesus’ anger in His face. His anger was but for a moment and turned to sadness for them. Note, the anger these people may have seen in Jesus’ face was nothing compared to the anger people will see when the great day of His wrath comes.
. . being grieved* by the hardness of their hearts, (Jesus could get angry. but he could never carry a grudge) He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
6 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.
14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.
As we ‘read between the lines’ we see Jesus completing a time spent at the seaside teaching the multitudes. On the way back into Capernaum, Jesus spots Levi and calls him to follow Him. This sounds much the same as what He had said to Peter and Andrew and James and John.
The call to ‘follow Him’ was not the first contact that Jesus had with the fishermen. If you were to brush up on the call of the disciples you would have to read about it and compare it with the other gospels.
For example, Andrew was present with John the Baptist when Jesus came back from being tempted in the wilderness, and at John’s suggestion, began to follow Jesus. He asks where Jesus is staying and at Jesus’ suggestion, spends the day and the night with Him.
The next day Andrew brings Jesus to Peter and excitedly introduces Jesus to him. This is quite different from the brief account that Mark gives of the same event. So, all I am saying, there is often more to the story than what we read in one gospel.
Now we are reading about the call of Levi (Matthew) and we are almost left with the impression that seeing Levi working in his ‘tax’ office was Levi’s first encounter with Jesus.
This is not the case. Levi, like all the other disciples, first heard John the Baptist preaching, repented of their sin, were baptized, believed in and were waiting to meet the Messiah. Matthew was working in the Roman tax office when Jesus walked by and called him. Apparently Matthew invited Him to his house.
15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
How wonderful it is to see the excitement of a person who has just met Jesus. Matthew has invited a houseful of tax collectors to a meal … to meet Jesus. As someone put it, “There wasn't a good one in the bunch.”
And it appears to me that the disciples (does He have 12 by now?) were either just outside or near the doorway. Pharisees were ‘hanging around’ while Jesus was inside with the ‘sinners’ who, as usual, were doing their ‘fault-finding’.
And, as usual, Jesus has a wonderful response.
17 When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Jesus is the Great Physician. Everyone of us (believers) came to Jesus with a terminal disease. Many billions of others who have not come to Jesus yet, all have the same terminal sickness. But as long as they insist that they are ok, there is no help for them. Actually, we can say, we were all dead in our tresspasses and sin. That is pretty sick!
We wonder how the Pharisees took Jesus' analogy to a doctor attending to only the sick. They may have mentally nodded their heads and thought, ”I guess that He is right. As far as sinners go, they don’t come any worse. I guess there is nothing wrong with His focus here.” If they were unable to grasp Jesus' irony here, they would just go on thinking that they had nothing for which to repent. At another occasion, and perhaps a different group of Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘Are we blind also?’, to which Jesus replied, If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains. In this case these Pharisees were getting the point that Jesus included them with all other sinners.
Jesus called Matthew, who was already a believer, to follow Him. Matthew was being called into ‘service’. But before Jesus calls anyone into service for Him and the Kingdom, He calls them to salvation.
At the end of our bibles there is a final invitation. The Spirit and the bride say “Come” Rev 22:17. And according to this verse we, the bride, join Him in calling people to Him.
We come now to Mark’s discussion regarding Old and New Wineskins.
18 ¶ The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
20 “But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.
21 “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.
22 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
This discussion between Jesus and His disciples started with a question about fasting. You will notice that Jesus does not say very much about the practice of fasting. John the Baptist is in prison at this time and it was the disciples of John the Baptist who were fasting and probably praying for his release. Jesus is admitting that their reason for fasting is a good one. And next He alludes to the fact that He Himself will be leaving at some point.
But you will notice that Jesus transitions to the comments about new/old cloth and new/old wineskins. What is that about? Jesus is referring to a massive change. He is not talking about renovating a flawed system. He is talking about instituting a totally new thing. Israel was the old system of God bringing His gospel to the world. Jesus says that the old system ends with John the Baptist. Jesus took the disciples that John had prepared and began the new system, the church. Jesus said, “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. Lu 16:16
What Jesus was pointing out in his analogy is very significant.
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
Did Jesus break the Sabbath according to the Law? Is plucking grain harvesting? Let’s read what the law had to say about it.
Duet 23.24-25 “When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container.
25 “When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.
If they had put in a sickle they would have been harvesting. Jesus does not argue the point of whether the law was being broken or not.
25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him:
26 “how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat, except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”
David did actually break the Jewish law here in the strictest sense, however the letter of the law was never intended to bring hardship upon one of God’s servants. And that is the reason Jesus explains the reason for the Sabbath.
27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
28 “Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. And further to this, Jesus, as the fulfillment of every Old Testament ‘shadow’, is also the fulfillment of the Sabbath, which was also a shadow. Jesus is the Sabbath. That is, Jesus is our rest. He said, Come unto me, all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest for your souls. Eternal rest. Praise the Lord!
1 ¶ And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.
Was this man planted there on purpose? It certainly looks like it.
2 So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
If you and I had been there we could have said, “Just listen to yourselves! You know He will heal …and that doesn’t impress you that He is a man of God?!!”
3 And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.”
4 Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent.
5 And when He had looked around at them with anger*, they probably could see Jesus’ anger in His face. His anger was but for a moment and turned to sadness for them. Note, the anger these people may have seen in Jesus’ face was nothing compared to the anger people will see when the great day of His wrath comes.
. . being grieved* by the hardness of their hearts, (Jesus could get angry. but he could never carry a grudge) He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
6 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.