The Withering and Flourishing of Trees (Mark 3:1-6)
The accounts of the plucking of the grain and the man with the withered hand are both recorded as having occurred on Sabbath days, and for that reason they are deliberately paired together in all three synoptic gospels. This thematic pairing is more apparent in Matthew and Luke, because the later medieval chapter division in Mark splits the pairing between the end and beginning of its second and third chapters. We should always remember to discard these artificial chapter divisions in our minds, since no passage of Scripture exists in a vacuum apart from the larger context of its book.
