Luke 6:9 - Exposition

Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? The sum and substance of the Master's teaching here is—works of love done for the bodies and souls of men never mar or in any way interfere with the holiness of a day of rest. St. Matthew in his account of the plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath day (xii. 5), tells us, on that occasion Jesus asked how it was that the priests on the sabbath days profaned the sabbath and were blameless? The Jews in later days used to declare, perhaps in answer to Jesus Christ's famous question here, "that in the temple was there no sabbatism." Now, the Lord pressed home to those who listened to his voice the great truth that in all labours of love, of pity, and of kindness, done anywhere, there was no sabbatism.