Luke 13:10-17 Straighten Up
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: September 18, 2018 Luke 13:10-17
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
(Revelation of God) Jesus taught in synagogues a lot. There had to be mixed feelings in the synagogue when He taught there. Out in the open, it was Jesus’ venue and His critics were entering into His territory, but within the synagogue, Jesus was stepping into the territory of the Pharisees and scribes who had become His enemies. He entered there because His people were also there and because He wanted to set an example that it was good to come together and read the scriptures. However, it had to be with mixed feelings that He stepped into a building that was supposedly specifically for worshipping Him as Creator and Leader and yet knew that He was actually unwelcome there in the reality of who He was. Unfortunately, this is still true in many churches today. We claim that we are joining together in the sanctuary to give honor to God, but is He actually welcome in His true character there? Have we made the sanctuary a place to honor a false God rather than God as He is?
(Understanding the Text) The leader of the synagogue may have wanted to berate Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, but as the guest speaker and visiting rabbi, Jesus was due a certain amount of respect, so instead of yelling at Jesus in front of the audience, the leader did what many people do; he started trying to cow his own group of people into conforming to his rules. He berated his own people that he saw every week telling them not to come to the synagogue for healing on Sabbath. Did the old woman come to synagogue just because Jesus was there so that she could be healed? Or was she a regular member? I suspect that she was a regular attender and that the leader was full of hot air blaming people for something they had not done so that he could indirectly criticize Jesus.
Jesus did not allow the leader’s criticism to go on without protest. He called him a hypocrite and gave the example of how animals receive water on the Sabbath, and how much more valuable humans were than animals. I think people make the same mistake today. They give more value to animals than humans. Animals are important and should be treated with kindness, but humans are even more important and should also be treated with kindness.
Jesus compares the reasons that animals and the woman were unable to move where they wanted. He said that just as animals were tied up by something restrictive, the woman’s body had been tied up by something from Satan. Jesus compares the ability to move freely here.
I think it is interesting that Jesus said that Satan had bound the woman. I do not know if this was a reference to direct interference by Satan, or if Jesus just viewed all illness as resulting from Satan’s usurpation of God’s sovereignty on earth. Jesus appeals to the woman’s position as a daughter of Abraham. This may have been saying that this woman was from the favored race of the Jews and thus, worthy in the leader’s eyes of mercy, or Jesus may have been referring to her faith. The New Testament refers to people of faith as being children of Abraham. Maybe, this woman had a lot of faith in Jesus’ ability to heal her, or in Jesus as the Messiah. However, after further thought I think Jesus was emphasizing that she did not deserve her affliction when He blamed Satan, called her a daughter of Abraham, and compared her to innocent animals. I think that some people blamed her and thought that if she was suffering, she must have done something to deserve it. Jesus was telling the others that she was innocent of wrongdoing, and the Father was not punishing her.
The leader must have had some openness to the Spirit’s direction because it says that he was put to shame which implies to me that he was capable of seeing his own hypocrisy and feeling bad about his attitude towards the woman. The people were happy about these events. Maybe they were feeling free from the overwhelming rules and restrictions of the Pharisees and understanding for the first time that God loved them and wanted the best for them.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that I must remember that the Sabbath is special to God so that He wants all His children to be free on this day. I must remember that the place we worship God can be a place of freedom, love, and mercy or a place of judgment, condemnation, and hypocrisy. My choice is which path I personally choose to follow. Do I judge others as I sit there, or do I extend my love and mercy to them and their problems? I pray that I will treat my fellow believers with an attitude of love and mercy freely giving of myself to them.