Discussion Questions
Do You Have Any Idea Who You’re Dealing With?
Keith Crosby | 05.03.2026
When you first hear the Pharisees declare that the disciples are doing “what is not lawful on the Sabbath” it’s jarring — and almost convincing. You almost instinctively accept their authority. Nowhere in the written Torah is this forbidden on the Sabbath. The prohibition came from tradition — custom that accumulated over centuries and was presented with the same authority as the Word of God itself. Have you ever been the victim of someone else’s tradition dressed up as biblical truth? How did you recognize it — and how did you resist it?
The Pharisees, like all legalists, pick and choose which laws to enforce. They won’t give a straight answer about doing good or destroying on the Sabbath (Luke 6:9) — and Jesus exposes that selective enforcement with a single question: “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” (Luke 14:5–6) They had no answer — because there was no honest answer that served their position. The legalist is often at a complete loss to explain his own reasoning — because the reasoning was never consistent to begin with. Understanding this can actually free you in dealing with such a person. You are not obligated to win an argument built on sand. How might recognizing this change the way you respond to legalism — in others and in yourself?
Jesus cuts straight through the entire debate with one question: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” (Luke 6:9) For them it is an unanswerable question because answering it honestly would collapse their entire position. This is the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law laid bare. And their silence reveals something important — for the Pharisee it was never really about the Sabbath. It was about winning. That tendency — winning the argument at the expense of the person in front of you — is not uniquely Pharisaical. It lives in all of us. Have you ever caught yourself in that mode?
Finally, when we cook up our own rules and traditions that go beyond God’s word and will— when we play the Pharisee — do we realize who we are opposing?