Luke 13:10 - Meaning and Application

Here is the miraculous healing of a woman who had long suffered from a spirit of weakness. Our Lord Jesus spent his Sabbaths in the synagogues (Luke 13:10). We should make it a serious duty to do the same when we can, and not think we can keep the Sabbath just as well at home, even with a good book. Public gatherings for worship are God’s own appointment, and we should support them, even if only a few are present.

When he was in the synagogue on the Sabbath, he was teaching there, and this word shows a continued action. He kept on teaching the people and sharing knowledge. Teaching was where he was at home, where he belonged. To confirm the truth he preached, and to show that it was trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance, he worked a miracle of mercy.

First, the person who needed help was a woman in the synagogue who had been afflicted by a spirit of weakness for eighteen years (Luke 13:11). An evil spirit, allowed by God, had brought this trouble on her. It bent her over with severe convulsions, and she could not straighten up at all. After so many years, the disease was beyond human cure. She could not stand upright, which is part of human dignity above the animals.

Even though her body was twisted and made her appear lowly, and though we may suppose it caused her real pain, she still went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. This shows that bodily weakness should not keep us from public worship, unless it is truly severe. God can help us in ways we do not expect.

The mercy of Christ appears clearly in this: he offered her healing even though she did not ask for it. When Jesus saw her, he called her to him (Luke 13:12). There is no sign that she had come expecting help from him. Before she called out, he answered. She had come to hear his teaching and to seek good for her soul, and then Christ also relieved her body. Those who make the first and greatest concern the good of their souls usually also serve their bodies best, because other needs will be provided as well. In the gospel, Christ calls people who labor under spiritual weakness to come to him for healing, and if he calls us, he will surely help us when we come.

The cure was immediate and complete, showing his almighty power. He laid his hands on her and said, “Woman, you are freed from your weakness.” Though she had suffered for a long time, at last she was released. No one should despair because a disease has lasted a long time. God can help in the end, so even if he seems to wait, we should keep waiting for him.

Though she was under a spirit of weakness, and that spirit was evil, Christ has power greater than Satan. He is stronger than the one who had held her down. Though she could not lift herself up, Christ could lift her and enable her to stand. She who had been bent over was made straight at once, and this fulfilled the Scripture, “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down” (Psalm 146:8).

This healing pictures Christ’s work of grace in the souls of his people. In the conversion of sinners, unholy hearts are under the same kind of weakness. They are bent out of shape, with the powers of the soul out of order. Their hearts lean downward toward earthly things. They cannot lift themselves up to God and heaven, because the natural direction of the soul is the opposite. Such bent souls do not seek Christ, but he calls them to himself, lays the hand of his power and grace upon them, and speaks a healing word. He frees them from their weakness, makes the soul straight again, restores order, raises it above worldly concerns, and turns its desires and goals toward heaven. Though man cannot make straight what God has made crooked (Ecclesiastes 7:13), God’s grace can make straight what human sin has bent.

It also pictures the comfort given to God’s people. Many of his children remain for a long time under a spirit of weakness, a spirit of bondage, where grief and fear weigh their souls down. They are troubled, greatly bowed down, and go mourning all day long (Psalm 38:6). But Christ, by his Spirit of adoption, frees them from this weakness in due time and raises them up.

The healing also had an immediate effect on her soul as well as her body. She glorified God and gave him the praise for her cure, because all praise belongs to him. When bent souls are made straight, they show it by glorifying God.

Second, the ruler of the synagogue was offended by this, as if Jesus had done something terrible by healing the woman. He was angry because it happened on the Sabbath (Luke 13:14). One might think the miracle itself would have convinced him, and that the fact it happened on the Sabbath would not have weakened that conviction. But what light can shine so clearly or so strongly that a bigoted spirit, hostile to Christ and his gospel, will not shut its eyes against it?

No greater honor had ever been done to the synagogue he ruled than what Christ had just done there, and yet he was angry. He did not dare attack Christ directly, but he spoke to the people and, in doing so, aimed his words at Christ: “There are six days on which work should be done. So come and be healed on those days, and not on the Sabbath.” He made light of Christ’s miracles, as if they were ordinary tricks, the kind of thing traveling healers did every day. In his eyes, Christ’s healing had become cheap and common.

He also stretched the law far beyond its meaning, or beyond any fair reading of it, by treating a healing touch or a spoken word as the kind of work forbidden on the Sabbath. This was plainly God’s work, and when God set us apart from working on that day, did he set himself apart too? The Hebrew word that can mean both godly and merciful shows that works of mercy and kindness are closely joined to works of devotion, and therefore are very suitable for the Sabbath.

Third, Christ defended what he had done (Luke 13:15). The Lord answered him as he had answered others who had made similar complaints. He called him a hypocrite. Since Christ knows the heart, he may call hypocrites by name where it would be presumptuous for us to do so. We must judge kindly and only by what appears outwardly. Christ knew that this man truly hated him and his gospel, and that he was hiding that hatred under a false concern for the Sabbath. He also knew that when the ruler told the people to come on the six days and be healed, he did not really want them healed on any day. Christ could have exposed him directly, but instead he chose to reason the matter with him.

He appeals to a common Jewish practice that was never forbidden, the watering of cattle on the Sabbath. Animals kept in the stable were regularly let out on the Sabbath and taken to water. It would have been cruel not to do this, because a merciful person cares about the life of a beast, especially a beast that serves him. To make the cattle rest on the Sabbath, as the law required, would be worse than working them if they also had to go without food and water, like the cattle of Nineveh on their day of fasting, when they were not allowed to eat or drink (Jon 3:7).

He then applies this to the present case (Luk 13:16). If an ox or an ass could receive care on the Sabbath, with time and effort spent to free it from the stall, lead it to water, and bring it back, should not this woman be released from a far greater burden with only a touch and a word? She is a daughter of Abraham, part of the people they all honored. She is their sister, and should she be denied a kindness that they would freely give to an ox or an ass, even if it meant setting aside a little of what they thought was Sabbath strictness? As a daughter of Abraham, she is also entitled to the Messiah’s blessings, the food that belongs to God’s children.

She is also one whom Satan has bound. The devil had a hand in her suffering, so freeing her was not only an act of mercy to a poor woman, but also an act of devotion to God, because it broke the devil’s power and defeated him. She had been in this sad condition for eighteen years, and since the chance to deliver her had come, it should not be put off another day. Any of them would have thought eighteen years of suffering long enough.

This made a different impact on the people who heard him. He had clearly shown that it was lawful, and even right, to heal this poor woman on the Sabbath, and to do it openly in the synagogue, where everyone could witness the miracle. First, it brought confusion to the hatred of his enemies. When he had said these things, all his opponents were ashamed (Luk 13:17). They were silenced, and upset that they had nothing to answer. Their shame did not lead them to repent, but to anger. In the end, all the enemies of Christ, his teaching, and his miracles will be put to shame.

Second, it strengthened the faith of his friends. All the people, who saw things more fairly than their leaders, rejoiced in all the glorious things he was doing. The shame of his foes became the joy of his followers. What one side resented, the other celebrated. The works of Christ were glorious works, and though they may seem hidden for a time, they deserve our joy. Everything that brings honor to Christ is a comfort to Christians.