ife is filled with laws, regulations, guidelines, opinions, and wisdom. Some of us follow these lists of “must dos” and others ignore them and pay for it later. Few of us have any memories about our life from birth to the time that we were five years of age. Yet, we understood, “No!” Adults who remember their teenage years know that “No!” and the list of “must dos” was often considered to be disagreeable. Yet, as teenagers most of us learned the wisdom of submission in most situations. A speaker used to conduct a seminar called, “Rules for Raising Children.” After some years he became a father and changed the tile of the seminar to “Suggestions for Raising Children.” When his children became teenagers, he discontinued the seminars. Rules typically evolve from wisdom. The words, “Do not put your hand in the fire” are spoken from wisdom. Yet, there are some people who enjoy adopting rules without a concern for others. The Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day adopted religious rules that God did not require. They probably started doing this with the goal of protecting the people from violating any of God’s laws. In this study, we will discover that later they had become more concerned about their list of rules than the spiritual life of the people. But the major question for us is, how did Jesus react?

The Setting. We have been observing tensions growing between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, during our recent studies. The first clue came in John 3:25 and 4:1 where we discovered that they were concerned over Jesus’ growing popularity. In Luke 5:20-21 the Pharisees had challenged Jesus about the fact that He forgave the sins of a paralyzed man. They could not accept the idea that Jesus was God and as a result had the authority to forgive sins.

Question About Fasting. When we come to this study (Matt. 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; and Luke 5:33-39), the Pharisees and, for the first time, some of the disciples from John the Baptist challenged Jesus about another issue.