Now that Jesus has called everyone to the mat, that is time for things to ‘real’, we see a shift occur.  Now the Jews are in a mode of seeking to kill Him, and Jesus starts the process of actually sending His disciples out to do some of the heavy lifting...it is time for them to get into the game and to get personally invested.  This is a cool chapter and there is a lot happening, but as always, I want to focus on something that caught my attention as I was reading this.  Looking down at verses 15-24, we see Jesus in an interaction with the Jews, and we see Him making an argument about working on the Sabbath, which is something the Jews loved to attach him on.  Jesus addressed them about the Jewish practice requiring circumcising newborn boys on the eighth day, regardless of whether that day was a Sabbath...this was a widely-accepted Jewish practice.   Here we see Jesus is arguing from the “lesser to the greater”, a common rhetorical style in Jewish tradition and in modern logic as well.  His point is that if breaking the Sabbath was allowed for circumcision (involving part of the body), how much more should healing on the Sabbath be allowed when it involves the entire body?  He is making a great point...and a fantastic argument, and there really isn’t anything you can say about this if you are a Jew.  Jesus, in a way, trapped them in their own logic and rules.  Keep in mind, these are Jewish rules, not God’s...so, Jesus is also illuminating the fact that they have extended their reach beyond what God handed down through Moses and have leveraged their own rules to the benefit of their own power and influence.  So, they were obviously not excited about being called out like this, but they were definitely exposed.

For what it is worth, in doing some research, Jesus also uses this method in 10:34–36, and the writer of Hebrews uses it extensively (see Heb 1:4; 2:2–3), and later rabbinic tradition (e.g., the Talmud) also relied heavily on this form of reasoning to apply legal precedents.  In fact, we do this a lot even today.  One of my favorite lines of reasoning in Christian apologetics uses this in relation to the resurrection - if the resurrection didn’t happen, the rest of the Bible doesn’t matter.  In that light, we should focus our attention on the resurrection until we agree as to whether or not THAT is true, because if we don’t agree on THAT, the rest of our discussion is a waste of time.

At any rate, thinking through Jesus’ logic...I feel my own life is called into question in this way - “Where am I adopting God’s principles and ideals into my life, and leveraging them for my own benefit?”.  And, the more important question, “Where am I ignoring them, where am I looking for loopholes and justifications for behavior that God would condemn, and how can I take a step in the direction of getting those aligned today?”.  That’s a hard question and thought.  But, I guess that’s the point, right?  So that’s the thought today...the prayer is that God would show my one place where my obedience as created momentum in my life, that I would be encouraged in that way.  And, I also ask that He would show me an area where I am yet to leverage His teaching and instruction, that I would see an opportunity to grow in that way.