The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath / Made for man

What did Jesus mean

To rest without rules.

Where did Jesus say this

Matthew 12:1–8 — “In that time went Jesus on the Sabbath days through the corn, and his disciples were anhungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. When the Pharisees saw that, they said unto him: Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. He said unto them: Have ye not read what David did when he was anhungered, and they also which were with him? How he entered into the house of God, and ate the hallowed loaves, which were not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that the priests in the temple break the Sabbath day, and yet are blameless? But I say unto you: that here is one greater than the temple. Wherefore if ye had wist what this saying meaneth: I require mercy, and not sacrifice: ye would never have condemned innocents. For the son of man is lord even of the Sabbath day.”

A technical sidenote

Most people quote the line, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” This line comes from Mark 2:27 (so, Mark’s gospel). There are four books (gospels) of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Two books were written by people close to or within Jesus’ inner circle (disciples, apostles), while the other two were written by those associated with his inner circle. These books have been translated multiple times. Keep in mind, however, there are many different authors wrapped up between both halves of the Bible (old and new), and for this project, we focus on the gospels within the New Testament.

For further clarification — every English Bible traces back to the same source: the original Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old Testament). From there the translations split two ways:

• The revision family — each one revises the one before it: Tyndale (1534) → KJV (1611) → RSV (1952) → ESV (2001)
• On its own — translated fresh from the originals, not from the others: NIV (1978)

The gospels were not translated from each other but rather from the original Greek source. Jesus spoke Aramaic; the Bible was written in Greek and Hebrew, and the books have been translated into English (Tyndale, KJV, RSV, ESV, and NIV).

A historical sidenote

Sabbath started on a Saturday. It was given to the people by God himself. Commanded, as one would say.

“Six days thou shalt labour, and do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no manner work, neither thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy servant, nor thy maid, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy city, that thy servant and thy maid may rest as well as thou.”

It was not designed as a mandatory day of worship. Instead, it was a gift targeted at those who worked seven days a week (slaves, servants, and maids). The “work” itself was not defined by God; it was defined by man. And like all other things man defines within a religious context, it was over-defined.

The Pharisees set up 39 forbidden works, and within these forbidden works, there more works. And within these works, there were even more works. For example, making cloth was forbidden. But this “forbidden work” expanded to include everything from washing and dyeing it to even tearing it. They defined it even down to the stitch (two to be precise).

Words Behind the Words

Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word shabbat, and it means “to stop” or “to rest.” It doesn’t include a specific day, person, entity, ritual, or building.

What Jesus did not mean

To understand what Jesus didn’t mean, you have to understand the context above: What God commanded and what happened afterwards with man’s commandments.

God wanted people to be able to rest. He didn’t envision a world where people were enslaved and made to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He thought by bestowing this commandment upon man, that he was helping. But man made sullied it. They turned a day of freedom and rest into a day of structure and more work. Notice, also, that God didn’t throw phrases of worship into the mix. He simply left it at “rest.”

So when trying to understand what Jesus didn’t mean from this particularly famous quote, you have to read between the lines, in the lines, and before the lines.

Lower class Israelites were in a system that required them to work 100% of the time.

Enter God.

God didn’t want people to work all day, every day. He wanted everyone, including slaves, to have a day of rest. He commanded a day of respite for everyone.

Enter man.

They turn a day of rest into more structure and rules, resulting in — you guessed it — more work.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus didn’t want religious authority figures to ruin a good thing. He wanted to eliminate structure. “No more rules on a rest day.” He wanted to flip the script. “God made this day for man, not the other way around.”

He wanted to tear down the system, and he did this with protest.

You say I can’t knead on this day? Watch me heal a blind man with mud. (Broke the Sabbath)

You say I can’t pick grain on this day? Watch me pick a snack from this field. (Broke the Sabbath)

You say I can’t heal a paralyzed man on this day? Watch me do it. (Broke the Sabbath)

He even takes this a step further to expose hypocrisy:

“Or have ye not read in the law, how that the priests in the temple break the Sabbath day, and yet are blameless?”

Translation: You guys get to “work” but everyone else has to sit like statues in a house of rules and structure that you built? How is one work acceptable over the other?

Where to start

Understand that “Sabbath” was never designed for worship. It was designed as a day of rest — given to us by God. Jesus simply came back around to help us see that. Most of us chose (and still choose) to interpret it incorrectly. The question is: why?

Understand that Jesus knows what’s in your heart already. He doesn’t need one day of the week set aside for him to be convinced of that.

In reality, Jesus wants you to take him with you everywhere you go, all days of the week, all hours of the day. And if you reduce his partnership and guidance to one day of the week, how do you truly expect to transform yourself so you can live inside the kingdom of God?

To further solidify this point, listen to Jesus in Luke 14:1–6 —

“Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer him again to that.”

It’s a trick question directed at the Pharisee. If an ox falls into a pit, are you going to leave it there until the next day? Or are you going to pull it out right now — even on the day of Sabbath?

Work happens on all days of the week. The point is, you rest when you can. You work when you have to. If you put rules on rest, it becomes work.

This never had anything to do with worship.

Benefits

You can finally rest, without the guilt, without the structure, and without the ritualized worship.