Luke 14:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

LUKE CHAPTER 4 Luke 14:1-6 Christ healeth the dropsy on the sabbath, and justifieth his doing so. Luke 14:7-11 He recommends humility, Luke 14:12-14 and hospitality toward the poor. Luke 14:15-24 The parable of the marriage supper, and of the guests, who making excuses were excluded, and their rooms filled by others. Luke 14:25-33 He advises those who are willing to be his disciples to examine beforehand their resolution in case of persecutions. Luke 14:34-35 The unprofitableness of salt, when it hath lost its savour. Ver. 1-6. We have before observed the freedom of our Saviour's converse; sometimes he will dine with publicans, sometimes with Pharisees, becoming all things to all men that he might gain some. Christians certainly have the same liberty; the matter is not in whose houses we are, but what we do or say, how we behave ourselves there. In his going to a Pharisee's house, he gives us a great precedent of humanity and self-denial, for the Pharisees were his great enemies, and we shall observe no great kindness showed to him in the invitation of him. Whether this Pharisee be called one of the chief of the Pharisees because he was a member of the sanhedrim, or a ruler of a synagogue, or because he was one of the eldest and greatest repute, is not worth the inquiry. Thither Christ went to eat bread, that is, to take a meal with him. It is a phrase often used to signify dining, or supping, for they ordinarily under the notion of bread understood all manner of victuals. It was on the sabbath day. In the mean time, the evangelist tells us, they watched him, to wit, whether they might hear any thing from him, or see any thing in him, whereof they might accuse him. It happened there was a man which had the dropsy, whether casually, or brought thither on purpose by the Pharisees, the Scripture saith not; he was not there without a Divine direction, to give Christ an occasion of a miracle, and further to instruct people in the true doctrine of the sabbath. Christ upon the sabbath begins us a discourse proper for the day, asking the Pharisees if it were lawful to heal on the sabbath day. They make him no reply. Christ healeth him, then preacheth a doctrine to them, which he had twice before inculcated, in the case of a man who had a withered hand, Matthew 12:10, and of the woman whom Satan had bound, of which we heard, Luke 13:11, viz. That works of mercy are lawful on the sabbath day. Then he justifieth his fact by the confession of their own practice, in lifting up beasts fallen into pits on the sabbath day. His argument is this: If it be lawful on the sabbath day to relieve a beast, it is much more lawful to relieve a man: but you do the former. The evangelist reports them put to silence, but saith nothing of their conviction. It is an easier thing to stop malicious persons mouths than to remove their prejudices. Malice will ordinarily hold the conclusion, when the reason of the soul infected with it is not able to justify the premises.