Jesus Speaks With Pharisees and Lawyers at a Feastby CBPepper
14:4Luke 14:4
And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;
Jesus had accepted an invitation to a meal and turned the gathering into an occasion for teaching lessons suited to his hearers. This friendly engagement with others, including people who were not religious, is the setting of the verse. The verse belongs within Luke 14:2-14, which warns against the danger of striving for the highest place and teaches humility in place of exalting self, spoken as a parable yet describing scenes actually witnessed in life. That wider passage calls for blessing by inviting the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind who cannot repay, with recompense at the resurrection of the just.
Their holding their peace was a deliberate refusal by the lawyers and Pharisees to answer Jesus' question whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. Honesty would have required them to admit that the law does not forbid work that relieves the suffering of man or beast on the Sabbath. They also kept silent because they knew Jesus understood the law perfectly and would make plain their misrepresentations and unveil their subterfuges before the guests. Their silence removed any immediate ground to charge him with Sabbath-breaking.
He then took the man with dropsy, restored him to health as evidence that life was in him, and let him go. The healing together with the teaching answered that healing on the Sabbath is lawful and showed the fallacy of the argument that such mercy violated the Sabbath. His opponents were left constrained to silence, with no answer that would not place them in an unfavorable light.
Jesus had accepted an invitation to a meal and turned the gathering into an occasion for teaching lessons suited to his hearers. This friendly engagement with others, including people who were not religious, is the setting of the verse. The verse belongs within Luke 14:2-14, which warns against the danger of striving for the highest place and teaches humility in place of exalting self, spoken as a parable yet describing scenes actually witnessed in life. That wider passage calls for blessing by inviting the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind who cannot repay, with recompense at the resurrection of the just.
Their holding their peace was a deliberate refusal by the lawyers and Pharisees to answer Jesus' question whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. Honesty would have required them to admit that the law does not forbid work that relieves the suffering of man or beast on the Sabbath. They also kept silent because they knew Jesus understood the law perfectly and would make plain their misrepresentations and unveil their subterfuges before the guests. Their silence removed any immediate ground to charge him with Sabbath-breaking.
He then took the man with dropsy, restored him to health as evidence that life was in him, and let him go. The healing together with the teaching answered that healing on the Sabbath is lawful and showed the fallacy of the argument that such mercy violated the Sabbath. His opponents were left constrained to silence, with no answer that would not place them in an unfavorable light.