Or, have you not read in the Law that on the sabbaths the priests in the temple treat the sabbath as not sacred and continue guiltless?

He said that even priests serving at the temple could be accused of ‘treating the sabbath as not sacred’ and thus of breaking the law. How? Well, the priests worked hard on the sabbath butchering sacrificial animals. Were they lawbreakers? Christ said that those priests ‘continued guiltless.’ Their labors at the temple, rather than interfering with worship, contributed to it. As Jesus (who was “greater than the temple” and would offer the ultimate sacrifice) went about with his disciples, they were teaching God’s Word and thus promoting true worship. Hence, they were not violating the sabbath by gleaning a bit to eat. Nor, as Jesus explained, would it have been contrary to the spirit of the sabbath law to ‘save a soul’ by pulling a sheep out of a pit, even though it was a day for worship.​—Matthew 12:5, 11; Luke 6:9.