Luke 6:8-11 - To do good or to do evil? That is the question

6:8-11

Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking and decided to tackle them head on. This teaches us something about how we are to respond in a hostile environment. Too often we go soft and try to appease the culture. There are times when we need to tackle the culture head on. But now look at how Jesus did this. He did not do this by immediately going to a theological argument. Rather He healed a man, He set a man free, and challenged their thinking at the same time. So there is both theological argument and life demonstration.

In doing this Jesus put the man on the spot, made him the focus of attention. There may be times in our lives when Jesus makes us the focus of attention and we may feel very uncomfortable. But maybe He is is doing this because He is shortly going to demonstrate His love and power in our lives.

Jesus also challenged the thinking of the Pharisees. What is the Sabbath about? Doing good or doing evil? Saving life or destroying it?

So the man was completely healed. Instead of rejoicing the Pharisees and teachers of the Law were furious. They were more concerned about their position, about their pride, than about the wonderful thing that had happened to the man. Now we tend to look down on the Pharisees, and their attitudes are certainly wrong. But we are not immune from the same sorts of attitudes, so we do well to check our own hearts every so often to root out any similar attitudes, especially if we are feeling under threat in some way.