Luke 6:6-11--A Man with a Withered Hand

Luke 6:6-11
English Standard Version
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A Man with a Withered Hand
6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

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As mentioned last time, we will now see the Sabbath become central in Jesus' ministry.  He will go about preaching and teaching every day of the week, but He will come to the synagogues and teach there on the Sabbath wherever they will invite Him to speak, and the Pharisees will be watching and waiting, even trying to set Jesus up.


This is just such a time where they intentionally brought a man with a withered hand to the synagogue that Jesus would be teaching in to see if Jesus would heal the man on the Sabbath (a violation of the Law according to them, as Jesus would be practicing medicine on the Sabbath, and that was "work").  Jesus again proves that He is the Lord and that He knows their thoughts and exposes them and their wrong thinking.

He asks the man to come up front so that everyone can see what would happen and no one would miss it.  If this man was to be made an example of, then Jesus was going to make sure that everyone in the synagogue saw what happened.  Then Jesus turned to the Pharisees and asked them if it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath.  Ah, now that gets at the heart of the issue from last time as well.  The Sabbath and the Law in general are about God's nature and character by which we define what is "good," therefore it should always be okay to do "good" (that which is in alignment with the nature and character of God) on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees understand that is now they who are trapped and not Jesus.  They cannot say that it is wrong to do good and heal this man because withholding good from someone is evil. (see James 4:17, which the Pharisees understood the principle of, even though they didn't have this verse of Scripture yet).  They also could not say that it was always okay to do good on the Sabbath, because then Jesus would say, "Good, we are in agreement."  So, like often when Jesus backs them into a corner, they chose to simply say nothing.  Jesus waits long enough for their non-response to be a response of its own and for the Pharisees to be exposed in front of all who were there.

Jesus then simply asks the man to stretch out his hand and show everyone there that his withered hand had been healed.  The LORD would get the credit for this healing, but the Pharisees were irate that Jesus embarrassed them, and on their own home-turf so to speak (in the synagogue), so they began plotting what thy might do to Jesus.  We should not miss the parallel between how the Pharisees are acting and what it says about the devil in Luke 4:13, "And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time."  Both the devil and the Pharisees (who Jesus will be clear are doing the work of the devil later) left these encounters/temptations smarting, but they did not give up and simply left Jesus until another opportunity presented itself (which Jesus would be just as ready for).  The will not go away and God is going to use these men to eventually accomplish His good purposes of putting Jesus to death, but Jesus will control the time and place of when and where that happens.