Daily Bible Reading 28th May 2026 // Luke 6:1-5

1 On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

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There are some very major and fundamental issues underlying this whole debate. What had happened in our Lord's time - indeed for generations leading up to that time - was that the glorious doctrines of grace in the Old Testament had been petrified into New Testament legalism. It is a total misunderstanding of the Old Testament to suppose that its emphasis is law, where as that of the New Testament is grace. The truth of the matter is that the Old Testament is full of grace, and that the law therein is an expression of it. It is not a question of the law saying 'This do, and thou shalt live', but of God saying, 'I have redeemed thee, therefore do this, as those that have been redeemed'. It is this that the Pharisees had so utterly distorted, and it was this distortion that Jesus so roundly challenged. In other words, our Lord disentangled truth from error. On the one hand, He challenged the false legalism; on the other, He exalted the true meaning and purpose of law, and in so doing, made an absolute distinction between law and legalism. It is this distinction that enables us to understand the emphasis the New Testament makes on keeping the commandments (cf John 14:21; 15:10ff; 1 Thessalonians 4:2; 1 John 2:3ff) and to see that this is a matter of evangelical obedience, not legalism, as something entirely gracious, and therefore liberating.