Jesus tells gives a heuristic approach to the Sabbath saying "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath". (Mt 12:12) This demands the question then "What is good?" At least in the explicit context doing good is pulling sheep out of pits, healing withered hands, levitical priestly duties on the Sabbath, and David and his men eating sacramental bread (which seems to be an outside sabbath example). These examples are all lawful and implicitly good despite going outside of the written law and may have physical value as well as spiritual. (so for example pulling sheep out of pits may have a deeper meaning than just physical sheep out of physical pits)
Out of curiosity I did a Google search of a list of good things and by no means am I suggesting they are influenced by biblical values but here are 10 I found on
this website that happened to have a specific section labeled "For Neighbours" so I thought it was appropriate.
- Introduce yourself, even if — especially if — you’ve lived near each other for a while but haven’t met.
- Compliment a neighbor on a feature of their home.
- Scrape the ice off a neighbor’s windshield after you’ve finished doing yours.
- Mow their lawn, rake their leaves or sweep their sidewalk as a surprise.
- Make a double batch of the cookies you’re baking and bring some next door.
- Plan a neighborhood block party so everyone can get to know each other better.
- Walk your neighbor’s dog when he has to stay late at the office.
- Offer to babysit a neighbor’s child for free.
- Build a “little free library” box in your yard. Put books in it for your neighbors to borrow, and invite them to donate their books.
- Make dinner for a neighbor who has just had a baby or surgery.
Although these acts are void of biblical purpose as Christians we can do these acts motivated to show Christ to others and help to meet the needs of others so we are able to fill these acts with greater purpose outside of humanistic values alone.
Based on this list which can we agree are good? To start let's establish first if they are good on a day that is not the Sabbath before we establish if they are good on the Sabbath. When I read the list, they are all reconcilable with goodness given the right motivation. And if they can be called good, then they can be called lawful on the Sabbath. But if an item on this list cannot be performed on the Sabbath then the reverse is true too, that it cannot be called good on any other day.
Can these items be called good?