Luke 14:1-6:
And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.
And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.
And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;
And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?
And they could not answer him again to these things.
Notes on Luke 14:1-6:
Jesus likened the man’s sick condition to being in a pit. (Sickness is the pits!) Just as a compassionate farmer would take his animal out of a pit, Jesus would heal a sick person. An animal should not be in a pit, and a person should not be sick. Jesus is willing to pull you out of your pit of sickness any day of the week!
The word “dropsy” is an old term that referred to swelling of tissues caused by excess water. Such conditions still exist today, and Jesus has paid the price for all such conditions to be healed. (Today, this would probably be called “edema” and the sufferer would be given “fluid pills” to combat it.)
The word “ass” means a donkey. Today you might want to point that out while you read this passage if your church uses the King James Version; that way, the kids aren’t as likely to snicker at Jesus’ question involving having one. Some words don’t mean what they used to mean. (I assume that is why the New King James Version refers a certain place as Acacia Grove, not its Hebrew name Shittim that appears in the King James Version; this avoids having the kids accuse the preacher of cussing when he reads about the place.)
We don’t have any particulars on how this man with the fluid buildup was healed, but God didn’t consider it important enough to include it in this account. What is important is that we can do the works that Jesus did, which means that we have the authority to heal conditions that cause fluid buildup today. If you meet someone like that man, this would be a “swell” passage to share with him!
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