Luke 10:1 says,
“After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent
them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself
would come.” (KJV)
After what “things” did Jesus
send out these seventy disciples? If we go back to Luke chapter eight we will
see which things the author is referring to. Luke eight starts with a synopsis
of what the chapter is about. It says, “Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of
the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the
Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him…” (NLT) The preaching and
announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God entailed parables, healing
and performing miracles. This chapter shares the parable of the different types of
seed and the parable of the lamb. We also see Jesus perform
the miracle of calming the storm, He cast out the legion of demons out of the
man, He healed the woman with the issue of blood and He raised Jairus’ daughter
from the dead. Yes, He did all of this in just one chapter of the Bible!
I believe that during this tour Jesus
was showing the twelve apostles how to do ministry. Through His demonstration
He was saying preach, teach, perform miracles, cast out demons, heal the sick
and raise the dead. Do it just like this. He also showed them how to finance
their ministry. Luke 8:2-3 talks about female disciples who used their own
resources to support Jesus and His disciples while they were on these ministry
trips.
In the very next chapter Jesus
then sent out the twelve on a ministry tour. “One day Jesus called together his
twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all
demons and to heal all diseases. Then He sent them out to tell everyone
about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” Luke 9:1-2 (NLT) In the
remainder of chapter nine Jesus continues teaching, healing the sick and
performing miracles. Then in chapter ten Jesus sends out 70 disciples just as
He had sent out the 12. Jesus sent them out ahead of Him in pairs to the towns
He was going to visit. [Jesus did not send them out individually. He sent them
out in teams of two. I believe that this is God’s design for this journey in
life and our Kingdom assignments. Life is not meant to be done solo or single,
and neither is our Kingdom assignment. I believe that our spouses (not in every
instance but in most instances) is the person that we are paired with for God’s
assignment. We do not often think about it but when God instructed Abraham to
leave the land of his fathers and go to the promise Sarah was with him. As his
wife, she had to be instrumental in his assignment. The same goes for Joseph.
He was Mary’s partner for the assignment of birthing and rearing the Savior.]
When the seventy
disciples came back (Luke 10:17) the Bible says that they were very happy. They
reported to Jesus that the demons even obeyed them when they used Jesus’ name.
Jesus responded to them by telling them that He saw Satan fall from heaven like
lightening, meaning that Satan is already defeated. Jesus went on to say that
He gave them power that is greater than the power of the enemy, but He warns
them that they should not be happy because evil spirits obeyed them. They
should be happy because there are saved!
Jesus’ ministry
lasted three and a half years. I believe that His ministry’s mission was to
prepare His disciples to spread the message of the Kingdom. In those three and
a half years He had to get the disciples ready for the work of taking the
message of the Kingdom to the world. In Luke 8-10 we see that the disciples are
at the point where Jesus is testing them to see if they are ready to go out. He
sent them out and they come back kinda surprised by the things they could do.
Perhaps they did not think that they were ready to go out. Maybe they had to go
out to be able to grow to the place of doing the types of miracles, signs and
wonders that Jesus performed.
Sometimes we may
feel trepidation about a task or even lack confidence and the only way to grow
past those feelings is to just do it. We may think we’re not ready. I can even
use the example of Jesus first miracle of turning water into wine. When Jesus’
mother brought the situation to Jesus He responded by telling His mother that
it was not his time (He was not ready). His mom’s only response was telling the
servants to do as He said. Well, you know the rest of the story. We may think
we’re not ready and it’s not until we get into the situation or it’s presented
to us and we must act or are forced to act that we realize that we are ready.
We are capable. Sometimes we have to go ahead
and do a thing to grow in that area.
