READ: Luke 5:27-35
“Jesus answered and said unto them, ye doerr, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” – Matthew 22:29
You must have heard the saying: “There is an exception to every rule.” Whether this is true or not, Jesus introduced numerous scriptural exceptions to well accepted principles. A failure to understand these exceptions made the Pharisees vehemently oppose Christ. A lack of knowledge of the whole Scripture made them so right that they became wrong.
Jesus was accused of spending a lot of time fellowshipping with sinners. The Pharisees were not comfortable with a religious leader who was at ease in the midst of well known criminals. They confronted Him with this well accepted divine principle: “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Jesus knew this principle but He knew a little more. He knew the biblical exception and He told them, “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”.
Almost every biblical rule has biblical exceptions and variations. When you walk with God, you will need to know not only the biblical principles but also the biblical exceptions and variations to the rules. Otherwise, you will become a New Testament pharisee. In my walk with God, I have found that many things that were right became wrong when the Lord was not leading me there. Error sets in when we know the Scriptures without the power or the power without the Scriptures. We need both to keep us on the path of righteousness.