THE GOSPEL OF LUKE: - Vital Christianity

88The lawyers and Pharisees, though, wisely decided to keep their mouths shut. Jesus gavehis own answer to His question emphatically and unequivocally by healing the sick man in frontof Him. He then gave the lawyers and Pharisees His reason for doing so.SCRIPTURE VS. TRADITION (Mk 7:8-13)They considered the interpretations and regulations handed down by tradition to bevirtually as authoritative as Scripture itself:“’You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to thetraditions of men.’ And He said to them: ‘You have a fine way of settingaside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! ForMoses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses hisfather or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to hisfather or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from meis Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anythingfor his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your traditionthat you have handed down. And you do many things like that" (Mk 7:8-13).God’s commands are found in Scripture and are binding; the traditions of the elders (Mk7:3) are not biblical and therefore not authoritative or binding.The Law contained in their Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, makes it clear that Godprovides care for even animals by giving them rest (Ex 20:10,15; Dt 5:14). It is not surprisingthen that it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath, even in the case of animals:While the rabbis had forbidden people from coming to the aid of other people in distress,no such rule applied to animals. Routinely, people who found their animals in a potentiallydangerous situation rescued them from it. There are two logical reasons for this. First, rescuingthe animal showed mercy to the animal; something that was encouraged in the scriptures.“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of thewicked are cruel” (Pr 12:10).Furthermore, not rescuing the animal would likely result in financial loss, which to somecould become a difficult burden. The rabbis, by their silence, gave their approval to what wastechnically a breaking of the Sabbath law. Jesus did not disagree with this practice; He simplyextended the same courtesy that was routinely given to animals to human beings. If it was lawfulto help an animal injured on the Sabbath, how could it possibly be wrong to help a human beingwho was hurt?