Greetings, the fourth of July is approaching and I hope you are able to enjoy the holiday. The weather has been beautiful here but I know others are suffering from the effects of bad weather. At least we will remember that we had summer when the winds of winter blow again. Our text for Sunday is a continuation of the text from last Sunday. After explaining to the three men what discipleship was like in the previous verses Jesus continues on.
V1 Jesus appointed seventy others and sent them ahead of him. These were not the immediate twelve disciples but others that were also following him to Jerusalem. Why seventy? There are different explanations for this. The number is more symbolic than actual. In Numbers 11:16-30 Moses had appointed seventy elders to help him judge for the people. In Genesis 10 Noah is described as having seventy descendants from his sons. Sometimes the manuscript states the number seventy two instead and this could reflect that seventy two is six times the number of tribes (12). Whatever the number it is more important to reflect on what they did and all who are to hear their message.
V2 Jesus then speaks about a harvest. This is the harvest of people for the Kingdom. There are many people waiting to hear about the Kingdom of God. The laborers, the ones who know about the Kingdom, are few. They are to be these laborers harvesting the people for the Kingdom.
V3 He explains to them that they will be like lambs among wolves. Their innocence in proclaiming the word will be met with viciousness, like wolves.
V4 Travel light. Be concerned about the mission rather than their comfort.
V5-6 When they enter a house they are to bestow peace upon the house. If the people of the house are receptive they will return the peace and they will experience peace. If they aren’t receptive the peace you bestowed on the house it will return back to them.
V7-8 Remain in the house that welcomed them and don’t move from house to house looking for better accommodations and food. Eat what is provided. Don’t be picky, as was the Jewish custom, because of the food purity laws. To focus on what food you are served detracts from the message you are bringing them. You are laboring and you deserve to be paid.
V9 Cure the sick. Jesus gave them his authority to cure the sick. In Isaiah 35 the prophet states that the Messiah will heal the sick. Tell them that the Kingdom of God has come to them. The healing of the sick would point the people to the Messiah being among them. They would see the cure as a sign pointing to the Kingdom of God coming, connecting the two.
V10-11 If they entered a town and were not welcomed they were to go into the streets and wipe the dust of that town off of their sandals and coats. This was practiced by Jewish people when leaving a gentile town. They didn’t want to be defiled by even the dirt of a gentile town so they made ceremony of getting it off. Jesus is telling them that if a town rejects them treat them as if they were pagan. They are not part of God’s Kingdom because they have rejected his laborers.
V16 Whoever listens to them accepts Jesus and whoever listens to Jesus accepts God. The opposite is also true. If they are rejected, the ones rejecting them also reject those who sent them, namely Jesus and God.
V17 The seventy returned with joy as they had accomplished what he had sent them to do even to the point of the demons submitting to them with his authority.
V18 Jesus responded by saying he had watched Satan fall from heaven. So did Jesus actually see Satan fall? Maybe or maybe it was descriptive language he used to describe the success that he had observed them having. The more successful they were at spreading the word of the Kingdom the more unsuccessful Satan was at dominating the people. His Kingdom was falling while the Kingdom of God was growing and rising.
V19 Had he really given them the power to play with snakes and scorpions without being hurt? Some different religions in the southeastern United States think so and as a part of their worship they handle these reptiles thinking that if they aren’t bitten God is protecting them. I personally would not take the chance because I don’t think that is what Jesus meant. Earlier he had called them lambs among wolves, not meaning they were actual sheep among actual wolves but used descriptive language to describe what the circumstances would be like. Here too, he is using descriptive language to say they were traveling in dangerous areas but his authority was protecting them from the enemy who was like a snake or a scorpion; poisonous.
V20 They are not to rejoice in that the spirits submitted to them but to rejoice in the success that the mission had. Their success wasn’t from themselves but from Jesus and God. That is who the credit was to be given too. We can’t boast about our success when we are on a mission for God. God uses our weaknesses in success to point to himself. We accomplish things with his authority not our own.
We, as the followers of Jesus, are called to go out as laborers and proclaim the Messiah has come and he brought the Kingdom of God to us. The Kingdom is here and now, not some future destination when we die. We are to proclaim that God is taking over the world, now, for himself and if we believe, we too will have a place in it to call home. Our goal is to make heaven more crowded.
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