Disabled Woman

One Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. And there was a woman present who, for eighteen years, had been disabled by an evil spirit—a demon. The woman was bent over and could not straighten up. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your disability.” Then He placed His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and began to glorify God.

Now, Jewish law permitted a physician to heal on the Sabbath in cases of emergency—of life and death—but the healing of a chronic condition on the Sabbath was against Jewish law. We don’t know whether the synagogue leader acted on his own, or whether he was encouraged by like-minded members of the congregation, but he became indignant and spoke—not to Jesus, but to the crowd—saying, “There are six days for work. Come and be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath.”

Hearing the leader of the synagogue, Jesus said to him and others who thought like him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it to water? Then should not this descendant of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be released from her bondage on the Sabbath day?”

When Jesus said this, all His adversaries were humiliated. And the whole crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things He was doing.

Jesus then told the people two parables about the kingdom of God. The first compared the kingdom to a mustard seed. The second compared the kingdom to leaven which was mixed into three measures of flour. The two parables were the same ones that Jesus had shared in Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

See Luke 13:10-17