An overview for teachers of Lifeway’s Explore the Bible lesson of Matthew 12 for February 15, 2026. Includes a sample introduction to the lesson, text outline and highlights, illustrations you can use, discussion questions for your group, and spiritual life applications you can make. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRODUCTION:

In his book Mr. Kipling’s Army, author Byron Farwell writes about some of the shortcomings of the British Army in the 1800’s. He says that “‘antiquated and useless forms of drill, blind obedience to orders, ramrod-like rigidity on parade, and similar time-honoured practices were the chief qualifications by which a regiment was judged.” And he gave a specific example: “The posting of unneeded sentries was all too common. In 1886 General Evelyn Wood found a sentry stationed at the door to a ward at the Colchester Hospital that had been set aside for military prisoners. The ward was empty — and had been for the previous three months.” (p. 87)  So they had a guard at the door, even though there were no prisoners in the hospital! Just legalistically “following rules” when it didn’t make sense.

This kind of legalistic practice is common in many organizations, and unfortunately, sometimes even the church.  In today’s scripture from Matthew 12, we’ll see how Jesus is confronted by the legalists of His day — and He shows us that loving Him, and loving people, is far more important than merely adhering to legalistic tradition and laws.

CONTEXT:

We’re continuing our study this week in the Book of Matthew. We saw last time in Matthew 11 how Jesus dealt very gently with the doubts of John the Baptist, giving hope to each of His people who face doubts today. Earlier in Matthew 9, we saw how the Pharisees confronted Jesus about forgiving the sin of the paralyzed man. Today we’ll see how they challenge Him again, in two different situations, in which they tried to impose their self-righteous legalistic standards upon Him and His followers. Jesus did not give in to it — and neither should we!

OUTLINE:

I.  Examples of Legalism (:1-2, :9-10, 14)

II. A Lord Who Is Greater Than Legalism (:3-8)

III. A Love That Is Greater Than Legalsim (:11-13)

TEXT: Matthew 12:1-14

I. Examples of Legalism (:1-2, :9-10, 14)

:1 “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. 2 Now when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath!”

:9 “Departing from there, He went into their synagogue.

10 And a man was there whose hand was withered. And they questioned Jesus, asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might bring charges against Him.

:14 “But the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.”

In these verses we see the legalism that Jesus faced in His day. There are two examples of it here:

— In :1-2 they criticized Jesus’ disciples for picking some grain to eat on the Sabbath, and

— In :9-10 they questioned Jesus as to whether it would be lawful to heal a man on the Sabbath.

So both of these instances had to do with the Sabbath command, the 4th of the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” God had commanded His people not to “do any work” on the Sabbath — but what EXACTLY did that mean? Over the years, the rabbis built a whole legalistic structure around just what was and was not “work” on the Sabbath. The Talmud (Jewish traditional laws and interpretations) lists 39 categories of things that you can/can’t do on the Sabbath, with hundreds of “sub-categories.” These prohibitions include that you cannot sow/plow/reap, etc. on a Sabbath. You also cannot tie or loose a knot! You cannot climb a tree, because you might break a twig, which would be just like reaping! 

The important thing to understand is that most of these did NOT come directly from scripture; rather these were THEIR interpretations of scripture, “buffers” they put around the Law, to make sure no one came close to breaking a command. They are just the Jews “oral tradition” that came from their rabbis. (“You have heard that it was said) But they were very adamant about it; very legalistic.

Now you might talk about “legalism” for a minute. Just what IS legalism?

— The Cambridge dictionary defines legalism as: “paying more attention to rules and details than to the intentions behind them.” In other words, paying more attention to the letter of the law, than to the spirit of the law.

— A spiritual definition of legalism might include that someone trusts in their obedience to the Law to make them right with God.

(John Piper has an interesting quote. He said, ““The legalist is not broken. He is not stunned. He is not blown away by the fact that he is saved by grace.”)

— A simple definition of legalism in our churches might be something like: “caring more about man-made rules, than people.”

Much of the legalism that Jesus faced came from the Pharisees. We studied these men a couple of weeks ago. We saw that Moises Silva’s dictionary of New Testament words tells us that the word “Pharisee” likely came from the Hebrew “parush,” or “parushim” (plural) which means “separate/separate ones.” That well describes these men who always sought to be “separate” from sinners, and looked down on them. 

A prominent example of the attitude of the Pharisee is found in Luke 18, where Jesus said a Pharisee went to the Temple and prayed: “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” That very much reveals the Pharisees’ attitude: a perfect example of legalism: 

— He thought that he himself was just before God by his adherence to the Law (“I fast twice a week, pay tithes,” etc.)

— And he looked down on others who did NOT keep the Law as well as he did. 

This is characteristic of the legalist. Because they are seeking to justify themselves before God by their own righteousness, they are very quick to point out the failures of others. Isn’t that always the first defense of the child who has failed/done wrong: “Well Johnny did worse than I did!” This is also characteristic of a legalist. Because they think their own salvation depends on how good they are, they are always pointing out the failures they see in others — which they feel will make them look better by comparison: “I am not like other people who do those ‘really bad’ things!”

This is what we see in this passage, isn’t it? In both cases, the Pharisees were right there, criticizing or ready to criticize, what Jesus and His disciples were doing. 

???DISCUSSION/APPLICATION QUESTION???

“Can you think of some legalistic practices you’ve seen or heard of in churches/individuals today?” — where they seemed to care more about adherence of the details of rules, than the intent of the rule, or the people it affected?

(— For example I once pastored a church that would only accept baptism from Southern Baptist Churches. Not just Baptist, SOUTHERN Baptist churches only! I thought that was very legalistic and tried to reverse it. The baptism of many non-Southern Baptist churches is definitely scriptural; who are we to reject it? That’s very legalistic.)

— Someone told me about a church that had a prescribed minimum age limit for baptism. I understand the dangers of baptizing children before they know what they are doing, I preached about that all the time. But at the same time, to put an actual age limit on it when you don’t know the individual and what God is doing in their life, could be legalistic.)

These are just some examples. You/your group can share your own experiences. But be sure you emphasize that legalism focuses more on laws and rules than people, just like the Pharisees did here. And especially MAN-MADE rules. It is one thing to insist on a scripture being upheld; it is another to insist on our man-made rules instead of helping people. Jesus employed the strongest words He ever used against anyone in the New Testament, against legalists like these Pharisees. We need to make make sure that we are not like them!

II.  A Lord Who Is Greater Than Legalism (:3-8)

3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions— 4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5 Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath, and yet are innocent? 6 But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 But if you had known what this means: ‘I desire compassion, rather than sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus answered them in what may be considered a very surprising way:

— First, He answered them with a question, which He often did.

— Second, He points them back to the scriptures, which is always wise: “Have you not read …?”, indicating that our actions and decisions should be based on the BIBLE, not on “tradition” or unscriptural legalism.

— Then He gives two examples:

a) He says when David was running from Saul he ate the bread that was supposed to be for the priests only. It was an emergency situation; his life was on the line. (And as we will see in the next point, we need to make people more important than rules.)

b) He says that the priests in the Temple “work” on the Sabbath, but they do it because they are about God’s kingdom work that He prescribed. But Jesus says, “There is something greater than the Temple here”!  And we need to understand that this “something” is HIM. 

***We need to understand the AUDACIOUS CLAIM Jesus makes here in His answer.*** He makes this claim in several ways:

— :6 “But I say to you …”. As we have seen in our study of Matthew, Jesus is speaking with authority here. WHO IS HE that He can say “But I say to you”?! 

— Then He said “Something greater than the Temple is here.” Jesus is saying that He is greater than the very Temple in Jerusalem! WHO IS HE that He can say that?

— Then in :7 He declares His disciples “innocent.” WHO IS HE TO BE THE JUDGE of these people’s innocence?

— And then to top it off, He ends this section in :8 saying “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Jesus says He, “the Son of Man,” His favorite title for Himself (a Messianic term that comes out of Daniel 7:13) is “Lord of the Sabbath.” Again, WHO IS HE who can claim that He, a man, is “Lord of the Sabbath”?! Only GOD is Lord of the Sabbath! 

But what we have to see is that this is exactly what Jesus is saying here: HE IS VERY EXPLICITLY CLAIMING TO BE LORD AND GOD! 

— He speaks to them with authority, because He is God. 

— He is greater than the Temple, because He is God. 

— He can judge that His disciples are innocent, because He is God. 

— And He is Lord of the Sabbath, because He is God!

Any intelligent person listening to Jesus that day could have said, “Who do You think you are, GOD?!” And the answer is, YES! That is exactly what He was saying, and which the rest of the Gospels and the New Testament will make clear. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was GOD”! (John 1:1)

Statements like Jesus made here should put an end to all the “Jesus only claimed to be a good teacher” talk! Some skeptics arrogantly proclaim that “Jesus never claimed to be God.” That is literally a very ignorant statement. Jesus clearly claimed to be God in these scriptures and in hundreds more like them throughout the New Testament! Make sure your class understands the doctrine here, of the Deity of Jesus Christ. 

A COUPLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS YOU CAN USE:

If you haven’t recently used the C.S. Lewis quote from Mere Christianity about Jesus claiming to be God, this would be a great place to use that:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

ILLUSTRATION

At Cresson, PA, near Johnstown, east of Pittsburgh, “The story goes that there was (and still is) a house at Cresson where the rain water off of one roof eventually ends up in the Atlantic Ocean, while the rain water off the other finds its way to the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf of Mexico. The resort was at very crest of the Allegheny divide, and though springs were plentiful, every bit of water there was drained off in both directions.”

(David McCullough, The Johnstown Flood, p. 47) 

So the roof of that housetop in Cresson, PA, is a point of a “Great Divide”: you end up in a whole different sea, depending on which side of it you fall on. 

But there is a greater division: as we see in our lesson here today: Jesus Christ Himself is THE “Great Divide” — do you believe these claims He makes to be “Lord of the Sabbath, and God? Every person must choose for themselves on which side of Jesus’ claims they will personally stand! When you choose Jesus, you choose a Lord who is greater than legalism.

II. A Love That Is Greater Than Legalism (:11-13)

:11 But He said to them, “What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable then is a person than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then He *said to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” He stretched it out, and it was restored to normal, like the other.

This time Jesus and His disciples had not actually done anything — yet! But the Pharisees could see it coming! When He went into the synagogue, there was a man with a withered hand there. They KNOW what Jesus is going to do, right? 

(And if you think about it, how self-condemning is this? They believe so much in Jesus’ power, they just KNOW He is going to heal this guy! They have more faith than most Christians do! But they just would not believe that He was the Messiah!)

So this time they anticipate what Jesus might do, and the Pharisees ask the question in :10, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”  That was a good question, in a sense, based on all their legalism. Is healing “work”? Tying a knot is work, accidentally knocking a limb out of tree is work … If you remember in John 5, Jesus told the man who was healed to “take up your pallet and walk” and the Jews saw him carrying the pallet and said he was sinning because he carried it on the Sabbath! And they criticized Jesus for doing that!

So where in those 39 categories and hundreds of subcategories was healing? Was it ok to heal on the Sabbath? 

In Mark 3:4/Luke 6:9 (their versions of this same story) Jesus asked the Jews: ““Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” I think you could almost translate that, “Can you do ANYTHING good on the Sabbath? In YOUR eyes, Pharisees, is there ANYTHING good we can do?”

But He gave the answer in :11 and following, saying if you’ve got a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, won’t you get it out — even though it’s a Sabbath? So Jesus is saying, you can do emergency/critical things on the Sabbath. You don’t have to stand there and watch your animal die because you can’t help it on a Sabbath! You don’t have to watch your business burn down on a Sabbath. 

I once had a business owner/member of our church who was supposed to do something in the service that day, call and tell me, “Pastor, I’ve got an ox in the ditch this morning — my business flooded and I have to go take care of it.” That’s the kind of thing Jesus is talking about here. You can do things of emergency/necessity, even on a Sabbath.

(William Hendrickson in his commentary on Matthew has a trio of good summary statements that you might want to use as you explain Jesus’ answers:

a) Necessity knows no law

b) Every rule has its exception

c) Showing mercy is always right, which Jesus emphasizes next:)

THEN Jesus adds the clincher in :12, “How much more valuable is a person than a sheep.” In other words, if you can rescue a sheep or an ox on a Sabbath, you can sure rescue a man! And then of course Jesus healed the man. And the reason why, is because Jesus loved people. And Jesus still loves people. And He’s teaching us here that our love for people should be greater than our love for laws — and how much more so when the “laws” are not scriptural commands, but only man-made traditions!  So He makes what is a radical statement: “It IS lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” You CAN do good on the Sabbath. You CAN heal. You can help people. 

Now, the nature of this particular instance, the Sabbath, has changed. Followers of Christ do not observe the Saturday Sabbath, and many do not believe it has moved to Sunday, either. The Sabbath command was the only one of the 10 which was not repeated in the New Testament, though the principle that we need rest is still very wise. So this problem about the Sabbath is different for most of God’s people today than it was then. BUT DON’T MISS THE PRINCIPLE: THE PRINCIPLE IS, DON’T LOVE MAN-MADE RULES AND REGULATIONS MORE THAN PEOPLE! That is what Jesus is driving at here. And that DOES apply to us today, doesn’t it?

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how they said of Abraham Lincoln that it seemed like he looked for any excuse to pardon a man. In the same way, Jesus shows us that He looks for any excuse to do good — and we should too. Don’t get so caught up in rules, that you can’t just love and help a person in need.

???DISCUSSION/APPLICATION QUESTION???

If you’re really brave, you might ask your group if there could be any such “legalisms” in OUR church, today? It’s always important for us to apply the scripture to ourselves: Do we have any man-made rules or traditions, that are unnecessarily keeping us from reaching and caring for people?

ILLUSTRATION:

Pastoring at one of my first churches in a small town in Oklahoma, there was a young husband and father in our church who was faithful every Sunday morning to go out on a long bus route and pick up numbers of children and youth. Word came to me that someone in the church was criticizing this young man, because they saw him at the local convenience store on a Sunday morning, filling up the van with gas — they said, he was breaking the sabbath! I couldn’t believe it. This young man was a lineman, and worked long and hard hours all week long — 40, 50, 60 hours a week. And he has a family with young kids. But on top of all that, he gets up early on his Sunday morning off, to go out and get kids, so they might be in church, and get saved, and grow up with a Christian education. And all this person had to say about this was that he shouldn’t fill up the van on a Sunday?! This young man should be commended, not criticized! If that person felt so strongly about it, why didn’t they go and fill up the bus for him on Saturday? 

But the thing is, they wouldn’t, would they? Because people like this, people like these Pharisees in Matthew 12, don’t really care about people. Instead they show by their criticism, and they show by their lack of doing anything constructive to help people, that they really only love themselves and their legalistic “rules” of “religion.” The young man at our church showed that he loved the kids that he spent so much effort picking up week after week, just like Jesus showed that He loved that man with the withered hand. Jesus calls us today to imitate Him. Don’t get mired in legalism; it will kill the spirit of what God wants to do in your life, and poison the sweet spirit your church.  As we apply Matthew 12 this week, let’s ask God to give us a love for Him, and a love for people around us, that is greater than mere legalism!

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