Luke 6:1-26

To do good or to do evil?

It seems like such an easy question. Is it better to save life or destroy it? Is it better to do good or evil?

What was complicating things was the fact that Jesus was talking about doing this on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the day they were instructed to do no work. God didn’t define “work” so man took it upon himself to define it for God. Wasn’t that nice of us to help God out that way?

Maybe not. We have this problem of being evil. So, we ended up defining “work” in ways that let us help ourselves but not others. If our donkey fell into the ditch we could pull it out. Otherwise, or donkey might be hurt and we might lose some stuff. But if another person needed such help? No, that was work. We could help animals but not people because we are perverse that way.

And people really like their perverse rules. Knowing the perverse rules gives us power over the poor ignorants who don’t know these rules. We get quite upset at anyone who does know these rules and dares to break them. Upset enough to want to kill them. You see, we haven’t changed much since Jesus’ day.

I’m not saying that we should ignore God’s laws. Not at all! I am saying that we should ignore man’s laws that he claims are God’s. To take man’s laws and ascribe the weight of God’s authority to them is idolatry. And idolatry is breaking God’s law.