Mark 2:23-26 - Have you never read what David did?

2:23,24

Under the Law the disciples were allowed to take grain at the edges of the fields (Deut 23:25; Ruth 2:2), the issue here was that they were doing it on the Sabbath. Many of the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees centered around the Sabbath, and the synoptics record many of them. We should note that while the Pharisees were strict adherents of the Law, and were involved in most of these controversies, there were some aspects of keeping the Sabbath where there was not unanimous agreement between them. However, it seems that “plucking heads of grain” counted as work under their definition. They had come up with a multitude of regulations that defined “work”.

2:25,26

We should note that this resulted in their missing the point completely and so not keeping the Law! And we should then apply this to ourselves. There can be some point of Scripture that is indeed vitally important, and we can be tempted to surround this point with a whole raft of rules thinking it will help us keep it. It won’t and will only end in failure.

Jesus here points them to an incident from Scripture (1 Sam 21:1-6) where David and ate bread that by the Law should only be eaten by the priests. So note first of all that Jesus knew all of the Old Testament. His use of the Scriptures would carry weight with the Pharisees. Then note that Jesus is saying that there are some aspects of the Law where an over strict application is not helpful. At the same time we should also note that at other points Jesus is clear that there is no room for argument. So anyone who is tempted to then run off in all sorts of directions abandoning anything they don’t like should resist that temptation.