Luke 13:15-17 (KJV)
The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.
The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.
Growing up, as I did, with farm animals such as: horses, cattle, hogs, sheep and cattle dogs, I learned early to take care of the animals before I took care of myself. Even on holidays the animals came first. No Christmas presents were opened before the animals were fed and watered. Because it’s cold at Christmas that generally meant carrying bucket after bucket of water to the horses since the trough was frozen over.
The logic was twofold:
First, the animals were money.The cattle, hogs and sheep would all be slaughtered for meat or sold. The horses were dad’s tools of the trade. As a professional rodeo cowboy he made his living off of them
First, the animals were money.The cattle, hogs and sheep would all be slaughtered for meat or sold. The horses were dad’s tools of the trade. As a professional rodeo cowboy he made his living off of them
Second, and most importantly, they could not care for themselves.We had contained and trained these animals. They could not find food or water unless we provided it for them. Compassion dictated that we do for them before we did for ourselves.
Everyone who has animals understands this compassion. Jesus did not have to point out why the Jews were free to feed and water their oxen on the Sabbath. This was a point well understood and accepted. What He could do is use this logic to demonstrate why having compassion on another human was equally justified.
God has given us in salvation something so great that it would be irresponsible and plainly uncompassionate to withhold it from others. Paul said he was a debtor to all men. There was no day in his life, no event he was involved in that justified him of keeping back the gospel from another.
May God give us all the same heart.
To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.
If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others
Luke 13:15-17 (KJV) A Heart of Compassion
Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.
No comments:
Post a Comment