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"Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, ‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard that, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’” (Matthew 9.10-13).

“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, ‘Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!’ But He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Matthew 12.1-8).

When Jesus said, “Go and learn what this means,” He was telling His hearers that they ought to learn the meaning of the scripture He was quoting. They probably knew that the scripture was taken from Hosea 6.6, but they did not know what it meant. Again in Matthew 12, He told His hearers that had they known the meaning of Hosea’s statement, they would not have condemned the innocent. In each case, it is obvious that greater importance had been put on Mercy in the sight of God than had been done under the auspices of the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day. This conclusion ought to force us to learn the meaning of Hosea’s passage also.

We will explore the text from Hosea tomorrow, but it might be good to think about mercy from the standpoint that Jesus presented it in both of the texts from Matthew we have just quoted. It was not the case that God did not want sacrifices under the Old Testament system; it was the case that He did not want sacrifices apart from or in the absence of mercy! Mercy is a trait that God demands of believers, period! One could come just as near pleasing God through sacrifices apart from faith as he could through sacrifices apart from mercy.

How much mercy is enough? How much is too little? Is it possible to be too merciful? It would seem to me that mercy in this regards is much like the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5. After naming the fruit that the Spirit produces, Paul added, “Against such there is no law!” In other words, there should be no fear that we will max out and be guilty of having too much “…love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, etc., etc. Against such, there is no law! Neither is there one against mercy!

Questions:

1. Why do you think Jesus told His hearers that they ought to learn the meaning of the passage He quoted?

2. How might they have gone about obeying His command to “…go and learn?”

3. If they had mercy in adequate supply, why did Jesus say they would not have killed the innocent one?

4. Why is there no law against having too much love, or joy, or peace, or mercy?

"Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life" from Tom Kelley

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