What Jesus Did! 'Beating Them at Their Own Game' — Luke 6:1-4

Legalism is a curse. It's so much of a curse that one of the primary reasons for Paul's letter to the Galatians was specifically to combat it. ^[1] However, Jesus had to battle those who used their legalistic knowledge of the Scriptures to challenge him to justify what his disciples did. So, as he did on several occasions, Jesus beat them at their own game. If they were going to make what his disciples did a sin by "straining gnats" of the law and their tradition, then Jesus would answer them by doing the same. Jesus had already made his point repeatedly in the preceding story: ^[2] With Jesus, God was doing something new, and there would be no business as usual — with Jesus present, it was a time of joy and a time of change. If David could do something that was considered to be forbidden, Jesus effectively said to the Pharisees in his use of their type of argument, then surely his disciples could do something similar since he was greater than David. The point? Don't mess with Jesus using legalism; you'll always lose! But then, why should you try to use legalistic arguments now that grace has come?