Week 37 Matthew 12
Here’s the scenario: first, there’s a guy with a deformed hand. Second: it’s the Sabbath day. Third: the Lord is there. Fourth: Pharisees are watching.
(I checked an outside-the-bible source: the Pharisees were very big on very strictly obeying the laws of Moses. And very big on policing other people to make sure they very strictly obeyed Moses too.)
The Pharisees – with a kind of entrapment question – asked the Lord: is it legal to work by healing on the Sabbath day?
They didn’t ask: ‘is it legal to work on the Sabbath?’
Didn’t ask: ‘is it legal to heal on the Sabbath?’
They asked: ‘is it legal to work-by-healing on the Sabbath?’
But Jesus didn’t answer the question. Not directly at least. Maybe figuring the question was missing the point and an answer would miss it too.
So he didn’t say: ‘yes it’s legal to work on the Sabbath’
Or: ‘yes it’s legal to work-by-healing on the Sabbath’
But he did ask them: it is right to do good on the Sabbath?
Which I think did two things:
1) it hinted that the question the Pharisees should have asked was: is it right to do good on the Sabbath?’
2) it meant that the point was: ‘yes it is right to do good on the Sabbath’ (which I think meant that it was right to do good on the Sabbath even if the good looked like work).
Note: quotes from Matthew 12:10 12 (NLT)