Hello! Just one tiny reply to your large post!
Healing on the Sabbath! Very interesting! I don't think Jesus broke a rule here!
I recently read that for a 'doctor' to treat a toothache by rubbing vinegar into it would be breaching the Sabbath 'rule'. However, serving food on the Sabbath was lawful, so that same doctor could give a small plate of vegetable, heavily laden with vinegar, and ask the patient to chew it well!!!
With that in mind, when I now read the reports of Jesus's (Sabbath) healings, I cannot actually see that he 'did' anything...... it just 'happened'.!!! No rule broken!
What do you think?
Luke 13
10On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues,
11and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.
12When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.
13Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
14Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.
John 5
16So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
17In his defense Jesus said to them, My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.
18For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
John 7
23Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a mans whole body on the Sabbath?
24Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.
Matt 12
1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them.
2When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.
3He answered, Havent you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?
4He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated breadwhich was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.
5Or havent you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?
6I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.
7If you had known what these words mean, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
a you would not have condemned the innocent.
8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
9Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue,
10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
11He said to them, If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?
12How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.
13Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other.
14But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
No Jesus did so purposefully. This goes hand in hand with his claim that too much emphasis was being placed on the letter of the law. This put additional burdens on the poor so that religious leaders could feel more pious and was contrary to what was intended. God did not make the Sabbath a holy day and one of rest so that his people may go hungry or suffer.