Luke 10:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Matthew 10 records similar instructions given to the twelve when they are sent out, although that is a different occasion. What followers is about the representatives of Christ. It's one of these passages one can read through and miss so much. There are some precious principle concerning witness to the Lord, to the gospel, in almost every single verse. It's a tremendous discourse and set of instructions on the part of the Lord Jesus Christ.It was a specialized missionary enterprise – seventy people going before the Lord to speak of him, to announce him before he visited certain places – yet there is an ongoing application. In Matthew chapter 10:16, which is spoken to the twelve apostles who were sent out previously – a very similar mission – Christ says, ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. ¹⁷ But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; ¹⁸ And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. ¹⁹ But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.’ And then he goes on in verse 22, ‘And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. ²³ But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.’ The terms of these two missions – the twelve disciples first of all, and then later the seventy disciples – have an ongoing significance. Some of the things said were not even fulfilled in the experience of the twelve and the seventy, but other things were. This passage has an ongoing application to us, but we have to be careful, because not everything applies to us. For example, there are instructions about healing the sick and casting out of demons, and we know clearly that those instructions do not go on today. There are also instructions given in Luke 10 with regard to how we provide for ourselves, and while the principle goes on, the precise instructions do not. In verse 4 of this chapter there are the terms of commission of the Lord, but later on in Luke 22:35 the Lord says to them, ‘When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. ³⁶ Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. ³⁷ For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me.’ Some of the instructions were changed later on so not everything in Luke 10 is applicable for all time. But the general teaching certainly is.It is late in his ministry. This is going to be his last journeying before finally reaching Jerusalem. He is going from Galilee into Judea and the seventy are sent into Judea and into the part of Judea that was also on the east side of Jordan where there were towns and villages the Lord had never visited. He left these places until last, and these messengers were going to go before him to announce him with power, to do authenticating signs and healings, to represent him before he visited, in order to give the people the maximum opportunity to understand who he was and what he had come to do. Sadly the majority would still reject him, yet Christ still came to them.We note that they are appointed and this is significant. Moses was commanded to appoint seventy elders, and then the seventy elders would become special representatives along with him, and it may be that the number seventy here has the same significance. The old writers used to point this out unfailingly, because Moses was a type of Christ and Moses told the house of Israel to expect that coming prophet the Messiah who would correspond to him in so many ways. Some people put forward the ingenious suggestion that the seventy were also appointed because towards the end of Christ's ministry it was his way of saying to the people I cannot use the Sanhedrin Council the seventy rulers of the Jews. They by and large reject me, but I will appoint my own seventy to go before me in these last weeks of my ministry. That's an interesting possibility, but the key thing here is that there were they were appointed. They were given a commission