Luke6chapter 6

Luke 6:1-2

On the second sabbath after the first, an unusual date formula unique to Luke that the commentators read variously as the first sabbath of the second month or the sabbath following the first day of the Passover week, his disciples plucked the ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands, an act the law of Deuteronomy 23:25 plainly permitted for a hungry traveler in another man's field. Certain of the Pharisees said unto them, why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days, the objection resting not on Moses but on the oral tradition's own fence around the sabbath, which classed plucking, rubbing, and winnowing as forms of harvest work forbidden on that day. The bench notes the disciples broke no written commandment at all, only a rabbinic extension of one, a distinction the whole exchange turns on.

Luke 6:3-5

what David did: Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, Jesus answers custom with Scripture, recalling 1 Samuel 21 where David and his men ate the shewbread reserved for the priests, bread the law reserved yet a prophet's history records without rebuke. The precedent argues from the greater to the lesser, if human need excused David from a ceremonial restriction on holy bread, it excuses these men from a merely traditional restriction on ordinary grain. The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath, the claim the whole exchange has been building toward, not an argument about which activities count as work but a declaration of authority over the institution itself, the sabbath's own maker standing in the field.

Luke 6:6-8

right hand was withered: Another sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught, and a man whose right hand was withered was present, Luke the physician alone specifying which hand, a detail with no doctrinal weight but consistent with his habit of precise clinical notice. The scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against him, the healing itself now a trap being set rather than a spontaneous need brought to him. He knew their thoughts, and said to the man, rise up, and stand forth in the midst, forcing the confrontation into the open rather than letting it stay an unspoken suspicion, the man's affliction made the whole room's test case.

Luke 6:9-10

Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil, to save life, or to destroy it, Jesus reframes their trap as a moral choice with only one honest answer, since refusing to heal when healing is possible is itself a kind of harm done by delay. Looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, stretch forth thy hand, and he did so, and his hand was restored whole as the other, an act requiring neither touch nor any labor a strict sabbath reckoning could plausibly forbid. The bench notes the healing left the Pharisees' own objection with nothing left to stand on, since a bare word of command was the one method their own tradition could not classify as work.

Luke 6:11

They were filled with madness, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus, the healing that should have produced praise instead producing rage, since the argument had been won in public and left them nothing to answer. The word for madness carries the sense of a senseless fury past all reasoning, and Luke's placement of it right before Jesus withdraws to a night of prayer sets the pressure of official hostility beside the calm of that prayer. The bench reads this verse as the hinge of the chapter, human resistance hardening into active plotting exactly as Jesus moves to choose the men who will carry his mission after him.

Luke 6:12

He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God, Luke's prayer thread reaching one of its clearest instances, an entire night given to prayer before the single most consequential decision of his earthly ministry. The choice of the twelve who will carry the whole future of the church is not made lightly or quickly, and the bench reads the night of prayer as itself part of the pattern this Gospel keeps returning to, that Jesus prays hardest exactly at his ministry's hinge points, baptism, this choosing, Peter's confession, the transfiguration, and Gethsemane. No word of the prayer's content survives, only its length and its placement, which the commentators take as instruction enough, that a decision this weighty was carried to the Father before it was carried out.

Luke 6:13-16

When it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles, the number itself deliberate, echoing the twelve tribes and marking these men as the foundation of a renewed Israel gathered around its Messiah. Luke lists them in pairs much as Mark and Matthew do, Simon whom he also named Peter first in every list, and Judas Iscariot last in every list, which also was the traitor, the betrayal named from the moment of the choosing rather than discovered only at the end. The bench notes Simon called Zelotes likely belonged to the Zealot party's nationalist resistance before his call, and the presence of a former zealot beside Matthew, a former collaborator with Rome, in the same twelve gives an early picture of the gospel's reach across a divide as wide as any in that society.

Luke 6:17-19

He came down with them, and stood in the plain, Luke's setting giving this sermon its traditional name beside Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, and the bench holds both readings without forcing a choice, that this is either the same sermon remembered from a different vantage or a related sermon given more than once, since a traveling teacher would naturally repeat his core teaching in more than one setting. A great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon gathered, Gentile territory represented alongside Jewish, come to hear him, and to be healed. The whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all, power flowing outward from him as a resource rather than being drawn from him against his will, a detail this Gospel will echo exactly when the woman with the issue of blood reaches for the hem of his garment.

Luke 6:20-23

Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God, Luke's version stated flatly of material poverty where Matthew records poor in spirit, and the bench states both readings honestly rather than harmonizing them away, that Luke may preserve the sermon's own bluntness to a crowd that included the genuinely poor and destitute, or that both evangelists report true sayings given with different emphases within the same larger body of teaching. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled, blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh, the reversal thread running through Luke from the Magnificat onward, present want answered by a promised and certain future. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets, persecution for his sake placed inside the same company as Israel's prophets before them, suffering itself becoming a mark of belonging to that line.

Luke 6:24-26

But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation, the four woes answering the four blessings point for point, and the bench is careful that the warning falls on trusting riches as one's whole comfort rather than on wealth as such, since Scripture elsewhere commends generous rich men without condemning wealth itself. Woe unto you that are full, woe unto you that laugh now, present satisfaction taken as if it were the whole reward, leaving nothing stored up for what is still to come. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets, universal approval named as itself a warning sign, since a message that offends no one has likely compromised something the true prophets never compromised.

Luke 6:27-31

Love your enemies: Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, Jesus sets the standard beyond anything the old law required, since Leviticus commanded love for neighbor but nowhere for the man who hates you outright. Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other, and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also, the examples pressing personal insult and legal seizure rather than describing a rule for civil courts or national defense, a distinction the commentators draw carefully against readings that stretch the words past their own setting. As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise, the golden rule stated positively where most ancient ethical teaching, Jewish and pagan alike, had only ever stated it as a prohibition, do not do to others what you would not want done to you.

Luke 6:32-34

If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye, for sinners also love those that love them, Jesus measures the disciples' love against a standard the irreligious already meet without effort, exposing reciprocal kindness as no distinctly Christian virtue at all. If ye do good to them which do good to you, and if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye, for sinners also do even the same, the same pattern applied to generosity and to lending, ordinary self interest wearing the appearance of virtue. The bench reads the threefold what thank have ye as building pressure toward the positive command that follows, love proving itself only where it costs something the world's own arithmetic would never spend.

Luke 6:35-36

Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest, for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil, the command grounded in God's own character before it is grounded in any reward, since the Father's kindness to the ungrateful is the pattern the child is called to copy. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful, Luke's own version of the standard Matthew states as be ye perfect, mercy named as the specific perfection in view rather than a general flawlessness. The bench reads children of the Highest as family resemblance rather than mere legal status, mercy toward the ungrateful the visible mark of belonging to the household of God.

Luke 6:37-38

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged, condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven, Jesus forbids a censorious, condemning judgment of others rather than the ordinary discernment his own disciples will need to exercise elsewhere in this Gospel, a distinction the bench holds firmly against readings that would erase all moral judgment altogether. Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom, the image drawn from a grain merchant filling a garment folded to carry produce, generosity returned in a measure exceeding what was given. With the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again, the principle running through judging, forgiving, and giving alike, the standard a man applies to others becoming, in God's own economy, the standard applied back to him.

Luke 6:39-40

Can the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch, Jesus turns from social ethics to a warning about spiritual leadership, aimed most directly at the Pharisees already introduced earlier in the chapter as men who judge without first examining themselves. The disciple is not above his master, but every one that is perfect shall be as his master, a teacher's own blindness setting the ceiling for whatever a follower can become, so a censorious guide reproduces censoriousness rather than sight in those who follow him. The bench connects this saying directly to the mote and beam that follows, one warning against would be leaders who have not dealt with their own faults before presuming to correct anyone else's.

Luke 6:41-42

Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye, the deliberate exaggeration, a splinter against a beam of timber, making the point almost comic before it becomes convicting, since no one could seriously miss a beam in his own eye while fixing on a speck in someone else's. Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye, the command is not against ever helping a brother see his fault, but against attempting it before dealing honestly with one's own larger fault first. The bench reads the saying as a direct continuation of judge not, self examination named as the precondition for any correction of another that is not itself a form of hypocrisy.

Luke 6:43-45

A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit, for every tree is known by his own fruit, of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes, the natural order itself an argument, since no farmer expects a harvest contrary to what was planted. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil, the heart named as the tree's own root, character rather than mere behavior determining what a life will finally produce. For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh, the bench reads speech as the fruit most easily tested, words revealing under pressure what the heart has actually stored, whether a man has been feeding on the beatitudes just given or has never let them past his own hearing.

Luke 6:46-49

Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say, the sermon's closing question exposing the gap between a title given and a life ordered by what that title should command, since calling him Lord costs nothing while doing what he says costs everything the sermon has just described. Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock, the deep digging itself part of the parable, patient, unseen labor before any wall goes up, so that when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it. He that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great, the same flood testing both houses equally, the difference entirely in what lay unseen beneath them before the storm ever came. The bench reads the whole parable as Jesus' own verdict on everything just taught, hearing without doing leaves a life built on ground that was never tested until the one day it mattered most.