The people brought the man to the Pharisees. They might have done this just because the Pharisees were the respected religious authorities, or it may have been to cause trouble, or keep on the right side of them. Whatever the case, the Pharisees were more interested in the supposed Sabbath breaking than the fact that God had healed someone.
Now Jesus had broken their rules on the Sabbath, but from all the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees on this matter it is clear that God's view of the Sabbath was quite different from that of the Pharisees. All of us need to be careful with man-made rules. Every church, whether an old denomination or a relatively new charismatic church, has rules. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong in having rules, we need some guidelines to enable us to function, but we need to always watch ourselves that we do not start putting the rules above God's purpose.
It is also worth noting that it would be perfectly possible to put together a case saying that the Bible says we must observe the Sabbath, therefore Jesus was in contravention of the Old Testament. Such a case would be worthless and wrong, but we need to be careful of our innate tendency to produce sets of rules, and totally misunderstand God.
There were some Pharisees who were impressed with the miracles that Jesus did, and wondered if perhaps He could be from God. Ironically they turned to ask the man (ironic because of their general view of the common people).
Now Jesus had broken their rules on the Sabbath, but from all the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees on this matter it is clear that God's view of the Sabbath was quite different from that of the Pharisees. All of us need to be careful with man-made rules. Every church, whether an old denomination or a relatively new charismatic church, has rules. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong in having rules, we need some guidelines to enable us to function, but we need to always watch ourselves that we do not start putting the rules above God's purpose.
It is also worth noting that it would be perfectly possible to put together a case saying that the Bible says we must observe the Sabbath, therefore Jesus was in contravention of the Old Testament. Such a case would be worthless and wrong, but we need to be careful of our innate tendency to produce sets of rules, and totally misunderstand God.
There were some Pharisees who were impressed with the miracles that Jesus did, and wondered if perhaps He could be from God. Ironically they turned to ask the man (ironic because of their general view of the common people).
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