Thursday, October 3, 2019 - Neh 8:1-12; Lk 10:1-12
Luke’s is the only Gospel in which we find the sending of the
seventy-two. Matthew and Mark have the sending of the Twelve, as does Luke.
This then is regarded as a doublet of the sending of the Twelve in Lk. 9:1-6.
The fact that seventy-two and not just twelve are sent indicates growth and
movement. The kingdom of God is preached not just by Jesus or the Twelve, but
also by many more. In some manuscripts, the number is recorded as seventy. This
is probably due to the list of nations in Genesis 10, where while the Hebrew
text lists seventy nations, the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Bible) list seventy-two. This will mean that the commissioning of the seventy-two
foreshadows the mission of the church to all nations. In this sending, they are
sent in pairs (not in the earlier sending of the Twelve in Lk. 9:1-6), and
ahead of Jesus, in order to prepare the way before him. In this sense, they are
called to be pre-cursors, forerunners like John the Baptist. The instructions
begin with a prayer to be made to God, because it is his mission that they will
be engaged in. At the outset they are warned that they will need to be on their
guard at all times. The strategy proposed is detachment from things, persons
and events. This detachment will help to proclaim the kingdom more
efficaciously. Three interconnected aspects of the mission are stressed. The
missionaries are to eat what is set before them in order to show the same table
fellowship that Jesus showed, they are to cure the sick and to proclaim the
kingdom in order to show that the kingdom is not only spiritual but also very
practical and touches every aspect of human life. They are to do and also to
say.
It is sometimes mistakenly thought that only religious men and
women are called to be missionaries. Some also think that only those who work
in the villages are to be termed missionaries. However, the sending of the
seventy-two corrects this misunderstanding. Every Christian is sent on a
mission and called to engage in mission, simply because mission is to be done
where one is. The threefold mission task in these verses is a further
confirmation of the fact that mission includes every aspect of life and so is not
the responsibility of only a few, but every disciple of Jesus.
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