Daily Nudge (by Karl Faase) .
September 2025
Key verse: "The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”" v15-16
Jesus is in the synagogue on the sabbath. The Sabbath, Saturdays for the Jewish nation, was a significant and revered day. The Jewish people were called to keep the Sabbath holy and set aside for worship, which is what you would do in the synagogue.
The Jewish leaders were keen that people would not accidentally break the Sabbath, so they set stringent rules about what was and what was not acceptable. This meant the rule keeping around the Sabbath went from helping people to appropriately worship God to being legalistic and overbearing.
Jesus sees a woman bent over, unable to stand up straight, who had been afflicted with this condition for 18 years. In his mercy and through his power, he heals her, and she can stand straight for the first time in almost two decades. Can you imagine how that felt?
The legalistic rule keepers found fault in Jesus’ miraculous healing; apparently, this didn’t fit inside their self-imposed guidelines.
Jesus calls them out; he points out that they have loopholes which allow them to untie their animals, but they can’t see that Jesus has unbound this woman from an awful spiritual and physical affliction.
Being aware of Godly standards is important; strict rule keeping is something else altogether.
My earnest thanks for this daily-reading from Daily Nudge from Olive Tree Media.
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