Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Why did the Pharisees plot?

i was reading today in Mark 3 and I was struck by this query, did the Pharisees want Jesus dead because he claimed to the Son of God, or did they want him dead primarily because he attacked their traditions of what could be done when?

I raised this question to myself (or perhaps it was the Holy Spirit's prompting) when I read these verses in Mark.
1Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here." 4And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. 5And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath AFTER he asked the Pharisees if it was "lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to kill". They never answered him, but as soon as he healed the man they plotted on how to best destroy him.

It was like the whole point was....he is challenging our traditions. He must be stopped.

Jesus had a large following, they knew this as well. So you can't just destroy a man, kill a man, for a flimsy excuse, the people would have gone wild, so looking for additional charges against him would have been important.

I just wonder if the catalyst was the fact the Jesus promoted GODs' way, and not the Pharisees' way.

I suppose I'll never really know. It does point me though in the direction that God's way is the only way to go. Jesus died because it was more important than anything else. He angered the Jews and yet he continued to bring salvation and healing to all he met.

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