Daily Bible Reading 9th October 2026 // Luke 13:10-17
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” 17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
If we look behind the story to the fundamental considerations, we must realise this: the gospel means that the kingdom of God has broken in upon the kingdom of Satan, to undo the devil's work and restore God's original order to creation. And in all this, the Sabbath, which was the day God had given to Israel as a weekly release from the bondage of labour, was also a weekly foretaste of the rest that awaited the people of God in the kingdom, the final release from all bondage. To liberate men and women from the reign of Satan and to bring them under the gracious reign of God was therefore to fulfil the purpose of the Sabbath, not to profane it. This takes us back to Genesis 2:1-4, and to the rest of God. God blessed the seventh day, and part of that blessing was to include man, His creation, in the fellowship of His heart (see Hebrews 4). The invitation of the gospel is to enter into and share God's rest - not merely the rest God gives, but the rest He experiences! And that rest is the rest of contentment, and well-being. Salvation is entering God's well-being! One thinks in this connection of the earlier story of the woman with the issue of blood and of what Jesus said to her: 'Go in peace - nay, into peace' - i.e. into the rest of God. The words of the old hymn express this well:
Out of the depths of ruin untold
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
This is the real meaning of the Lord's Day. How should it ever be distorted into a legalistic bondage?