Luke 14: 1 – 6
Doctor, Doctor, Tell Me The News
Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. 2 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” 4 But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. 5 Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” 6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.
In this passage our Lord Jesus is invited into the home of a ‘Ruler of the Pharisees’. And there He eats bread with him and his companions. No doubt these companions are under orders to ‘watch’ Him. Do you think that they want to learn from Him? Do you think they are overjoyed in having the Messiah breaking bread with them? No, they want to see if there is something that our Lord Jesus will say or do so that they can bring charges against Him.
These religious phonies would certainly all have claimed to be ‘servants of God’, and fellow-servants with the Ruler. They would also have acknowledged that in one way or another they were waiting for the Messiah.
If we take a good look at this incident we see that it parallels The Lord’s teaching about the good and evil servants that we read about in chapter 12,” 35 “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; 36 and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. 38 And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 40 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” 41 Then Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 44 Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. 45 But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. 47 And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 48 But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”
We learn from our Master that the householder should have been in readiness for the thief to come. Also we see that the servants should have been waiting for their lord’s return from the wedding feast and were expected to be in the house ready and doing their duties while He was away.
We see in chapter 14 that there are a number of connections between the pictures presented. Here are God’s servants waiting in the house, along with the householder, and under God’s scrutiny. Just as they have our Lord Jesus under their scrutiny.
The Messiah, our Lord Jesus was also there as God’s Servant. He too was to be about God’s business, and when He saw there a man suffering from dropsy, He knew what His responsibility was as a faithful and wise servant. It was to heal the man. But He also knew that He was surrounded by disapproving ‘servants’. Indeed what He would do would even be disapproved of by His host, the householder. Nevertheless, He knows that He must be faithful to the One Who has called Him to be His Servant. If not He Himself would be accused of faithless service and thus lose the blessing from His Father.
Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely.
The description here is unusual for there were no rulers of the Pharisees. It may, however, merely signify that the man was both a ruler of the Jews, and also a Pharisee. Or it may suggest some privileged position among the Pharisees. The former is most probable. But Luke’s aim in speaking of the Pharisee as ‘a ruler of the Pharisees’ may be in order to suggest that that we are to see this house as like ‘the ruler’s house’ in chapter 12. And as already mentioned he is possibly to be seen as comparing with the householder of the parable in the chiasmus parallel whose servants were expected to fulfill their duties.
As the servants were in the lord’s house in the parallel parable, so we now see that our Lord Jesus has come into this man’s house and is surrounded by those who would claim to be His fellow-servants. And here He eats bread with them. But the fellow-servants who surrounded Him were Scribes and Pharisees who were all watching Him. In this last regard it is possible that the sick man had been put there deliberately, but not necessarily so. The situation may simply have been that our Lord Jesus was under general surveillance, just as the servants were in the parable. Indeed the Scribes and Pharisees were under surveillance too, although they may not have considered the fact. But certainly as the Servant of the Lord Jesus knew that He was always under God’s surveillance in order to see that He would do what was right.
The meal would be the main meal of the day following the synagogue service, a meal to which it was quite normal to invite guests. On the Sabbath there would be three meals, all of course cooked on the previous day, but the midday meal was the main one. On other days there would only be two meals and the main meal would be towards evening.
2 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy.
It is interesting that this verse begins with, ‘And behold.’ This may be intended to indicate that the man with the physical illness was a surprise and purely circumstantial.
There before Him our Lord Jesus saw a plain case of a man with the dropsy. This was a horrible disease in which water under the skin made the skin sag and ‘drop’. It meant that his limbs and tissues were swollen with excess body fluids. It was a condition that was understandably associated with uncleanness and immorality. Man has always been disposed to blame other people’s problems on the people themselves, although never applying such a measure to their own situation.
3 And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
Our Lord Jesus ‘answers’ the lawyers and Pharisees. This may indicate His response to the man’s mute appeal, or it may signify that He recognized the unspoken question in the minds of the Pharisees who were watching Him. What follows may be seen as suggesting the latter, for, aware that He was being watched, our Lord Jesus turned to the Scribes and Pharisees who were present with a question. It was a very simple one, that nine times out of ten they would have dealt with very quickly. “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”
Now if He had been a doctor asking for their religious legal advice, their answer would have been immediate and clear. ‘You are only allowed in the case of a life-threatening illness.’ But He was not just a doctor. In fact standing in front of them was the Great Physician, Jehovah Rapha, The Lord our Healer. There was never such a One Who could heal like He did.
Just stop and think about this situation. They have standing before them the Creator God. How did you say to such a Holy One, ‘You cannot ask Adoni Yahweh to heal on the Sabbath, for God is not allowed to heal on the Sabbath?’
4 But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go.
They would not say anything. They no doubt reclined there tight-lipped and observant, waiting to see what He would do. Perhaps He would think better of it. But The Lord Jesus was a faithful servant, and when they said nothing our Precious Holy Jesus took the man, and healed him, and let him go.
The interesting thing about their non- response is that they could not criticize Him when they had refused to forbid it? It is reasonable to assume that the man was there because he had chosen to come, because he wanted to be healed. He had come in faith. And once again Jesus had revealed that He could make men right.
Now, I do not know about you but I am curious as to why our Lord used the example of the donkey falling into a hole to prove His point.
5 Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
These religious men knew the law. Back in the book of Exodus chapter 21, Jehovah Gmolah – The God of Recompense – taught, “33 “And if a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls in it, 34 the owner of the pit shall make it good; he shall give money to their owner, but the dead animal shall be his.”
So, what do you think is the answer? I will take a stab at it. Please notice the word ‘fall’. I believe that the ‘falling’ of the animal into the pit parallels the disease of a man whose skin was ‘falling’.
Our Lord Jesus turned to those who were watching Him through narrowed eyes and asked them which of them, if a domestic animal had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath, would not lift it out. Strictly speaking they should only have done so if its life was being threatened, but in practice all knew what they would do. No decent person could leave an animal struggling in a pit. For like many today they were more caring for animals than for humans.
There are some parchments that have ‘son’ instead of ‘ass’. It certainly makes the argument more powerful, and is textually strong. It is probably correct and strengthens the statement. No one would conceivably leave their own son, presumably a child, in a well when he had fallen down it. Even at Qumran the helping of a son out of such a situation was permitted on the Sabbath. But it was not the same at Qumran for an ox.
6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.
They had no answer to give. How do you accuse a man of blasphemy when He heals successfully in the name of God? So they had nothing to say. But they had plenty in their thoughts, and it was probably not very pleasant. For their silence did not mean that they were satisfied. Only that they were biding their time. How often this happens when men’s prejudices are being laid bare and they are not willing to admit it. Instead of admitting that they might be wrong they simmer and determine how they can justify themselves by getting their revenge.
Sometimes what our Magnificent Lord Jesus did on the Sabbath aroused great anger. At other times, as here, less so. But it all had a cumulative effect. And the cumulative effect in the hearts and minds of those who failed to enter into His own position that it was right to do good on the Sabbath, was that He was seen as a person with little regard for the Sabbath. They might have accepted that occasionally He might possibly have had some justification, if only it had been occasionally, but the point was not that. The point was that He kept on doing good on the Sabbath, and showing compassion, in spite of what people thought. He did not seem to know where to stop or to have any regard for how they thought. And it was that aspect of things that took hold of their minds, and it was the only aspect that was passed on when they spoke of it to others. Jesus, they would say, may claim to be a prophet, but really He was a Sabbath-breaker. Their minds had become so tunnel-visional that they completely overlooked the fact that every example of ‘work’ that they criticized was connected with, and was the result of, a remarkable miracle, and was an act of God’s mercy.
This then brought them to a place where they had to make a decision. Was He really to be seen as the Son of Man Who was Lord of the Sabbath and therefore as having the right to make binding decisions about it, something which the clear evidence of God’s working through Him pointed to, or was He simply someone who stretched things beyond the limit, thereby revealing His casual attitude towards God? It is important to note that they never once denied that a miracle had been done. The whole point was that it had. The majority of them decided on the latter, and therefore sought to condemn Him as One Who led astray of the people. So they closed their minds to all else.
What position do you support? Are you overjoyed at learning what our Adoni Yeshua does or does He offend you?
