The Offer of Peace

Hello everyone.

Today's post will begin my exegesis of Luke 10.  By chapter, Jesus had developed quite a following. He sends out his disciples again. He had sent out the twelve in the beginning of chapter 9. This time he sends out seventy-two. He gives some of the same instructions that he gave to the Twelve.  They were not to take money, a bag or sandals with them.  It does not say whether Jesus extended the power to heal and drive out demons that he gave to the Twelve to these Seventy-two. 

Jesus tells them that there is an abundant harvest out there, but not many workers to work in the harvest field. Because there was a lack of workers Jesus told them to pray that God would send out workers into the harvest field. The response to a lack of workers - prayer. The harvest belongs to God.  Jesus calls Him, 'Lord of the Harvest', and we are to ask in prayer that God sends workers out into His harvest.  Everything about the harvest is in some way connected to God.  The harvest is by Him, for Him and through Him. We work, sure, but we also pray, and a greater harvest comes as more disciples take responsibility for it. 

Jesus tells his disciples that they are to ask God for aid and to rely on His provision. We have learned a lot about God's provision, way back in chapter 4. Jesus relied on God’s sovereign provision, refusing to turn stone into bread. So, we, too, are called to rely on prayer and God’s provision.  

Thirty-six pairs of disciples went out into the towns and villages ahead of Jesus.  Jesus warns them up front that this was no easy mission.  He sends them with a warning that they would be going out as sheep among wolves.  The world is compared to a wolfpack here.   These disciples are going out as innocents in a predatory world. Yet they were being sent out to offer peace to the wolves.  The picture of a lamb offering peace to a wolf is a unique picture, as lambs tend to run away from wolves. 

Upon entering a house they were to offer that house their peace.  “Peace to this house.” Jesus says that they would either find children of peace there or they would not, but either way they were to offer peace.  If those living in the house weer children of preace, it is good to let the peace rest on them. If they are not, Jesus tells his disciples that the peace will return to them.  Even when we offer peace to those who do not deserve it, that peace is not wasted. 

They were to offer peace, no matter what, and then God would meet their needs. In verse 7, Jesus says, "The worker is worthy of his wages.' These guys were going to be working hard for the Lord.  They were to go to a house and stay there.  They would be fed.  It looks like the roof and the food and drink were going to be their wages for this mission.  They were to eat whatever was put in front of them.  They were to be content with that.  They would see God’s provision through the kindness of their host. (Bock, 999)

They were sent to villages and towns.  If the whole town rejected them, they were to shake the dust off of their feet as a symbolic gesture.  (Note: They had recently been rejected by a Samaritan village.  Jesus has them acknowledge the rejection by symbolically wiping the dirt from the town off of their feet.  This is a much kinder response than the disciples had in mind when they wanted to call fire down from Heaven to consume them.) 

So Jesus sends out seventy-two of his disciples, to offer God's peace to all, trusting that God would meet their needs as they went. 

Tom 

     Darrell Bock, Luke, Volume 2: 9:51-24:53, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 1996. 

The Hard Road

Hello everyone.

Today's post will finish up Luke 9.  We are looking verses 57-62.  In this passage two men come to Jesus and declare that they would follow, while another is called by Jesus to follow.  We can see from the three interactions that following Jesus is a difficult path. Jesus doesn’t sugar-coat it. 

The first of the three accounts that we have here a man says to Jesus, “ I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus' response to man is pretty telling.  Jesus does not give a picture of a comfortable path.  It is a hard road to follow Jesus. Jesus really challenges the man, as if to say “Are you really willing to follow anywhere?”  Jesus spells it out for him.  Wild animals have places to go.  But Jesus had nothing, not even a place to lay his head down at night. Was he really willing to do this? What this man is looking for is not clear, but Jesus does make it clear that following him is not an easy path. 

Jesus calls the next man to follow him.  The man makes what seems to be a simple plea, but one that seems to be rejected by Jesus. He asks to go and bury his father. Jesus' response to this seems pretty harsh, especially within the context of Judaism, where one of the most important commands is to honor your mother and father. In Jewish custom, burial of the dead was seen as a major priority, so it certainly became a big family responsibility. 

Jesus' response is “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you come and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Here, Jesus is establishing a new priority.  His kingdom takes precedence over family responsibilities.  Obviously, Jesus is not doing away with the command to honor our parents.  But he is establishing that his kingdom takes priority, even over family. 

Some have suggested that the man’s father was not yet dead, and that he was wanting to delay following Jesus until his father had died.  If this is the case, then the man fails to see the immediacy of Jesus’ call.  This may, or may not be the case.  If it is, it does help to temper the seeming harshness of what Jesus says to him.  The important point is not whether the man's father was still alive, but the priorities that Jesus is establishing. 

In the third example, the man, like the first, declares that he will follow Jesus.  He merely wants to go and say goodbye to his family. This does not seem to be an unreasonable request.  Elisha asked Elijah to be able to say good-bye to his family in 1 Kings 19, before returning to serve Elijah and eventually take his place as Israel’s prophet. 

Jesus’ statement does not necessarily condemn this action. Darrell Bock says that Jesus’ reply was to show the would-be disciple what this commitment really involved.  “One cannot follow after two things at once.” (Bock, 983)  Jesus’ response is, “No one who places his hand on a plow and looks backwards is suitable for the kingdom of God.”  Jesus is expressing an important thought.  Once we make our decision to follow Jesus, we can never look back at our old life and seek it again, just like a farmer cannot plow a field while looking backwards.  

As disciples of Jesus, we look forward, toward Him. But, it is very easy to glorify our old life when following Jesus gets difficult. We can’t look back to it. If our old life seems attractive to us, then we are doing something wrong. 

In each of the three stories we are not told how the potential disciples responded. How did they respond to the difficult things that Jesus said?  We don’t know.  We can know that Jesus does not promise us an easy path, and that in spite of the difficulties, following Jesus is worth it. 

Tom 

        Darrell Bock, Luke: Volume 2: 9:51 - 24:53, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academics, 1996.

Forgiveness over Judgment

Hello everyone.

Here is my post in the New Year.  I hope the new year is going well for you. I want to continue my exegesis of Luke 9.  In my previous we looked at how Jesus taught his disciples about waht greatness really meant, but they didn't understand his lesson.  Today we will look at something else that disciples were not understanding from Jesus.  He had preached to love enemies (Luke 6:27) and had taught them in Luke 6:37, “Don’t judge and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned.  Forgive and you will be forgiven." In Luke 9:51-56, a couple of the apostles do some judging and some comdemning, without the forgiving. Here is my translation: 

51 As the days for Jesus to be taken up drew near, Jesus set out resolutely to go to Jerusalem. 52 He sent messengers ahead. They went into a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. 53 However, the town would not receive him, since he was on his way to Jerusalem. 54 Seeing this, two of his disciples, James and John, said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from Heaven and burn them up?” 55 But Jesus turned to them and rebuked them, 56 and they went to a different village. 

It appears that we see, from this point on in Luke, a change in Jesus’ ministry.  Verse 51 says that the time for Jesus to be taken up was drawing near. And so he set out for Jerusalem. In the Greek it says that Jesus πρόσωπον ἐστήρισεν (prosōpon estērisev) to go to Jerusalem. Πρόσωπον means ‘face.’ and ἐστήρισεν is a form of the word that means to cause 'to be  inwardly firm or committed, confirm, establish.' So a literal translation would be something like, “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.  It is an expression that we would likely not use our modern vernacular. So, I translated it as, “Jesus set out resolutely to go to Jerusalem.”

It is important to understand that Jesus knew what awaited him in Jerusalem, suffering and death, but then resurrection. He turned his face toward suffering and death and he was resolute, determined to go toward it. So, the rest of Luke is the story of Jesus as he marches resolutely to the Cross. 

Now, Jesus starts this journey in Galilee and goes through Samaria, the shortest route to Jerusalem.  Most Jews, because of their disdain for Samaritans, would go around Samaria, even though it would take more time to do so.  Jesus was never afraid to go against the social convention of his time, and went straight through Samaria rather than around. 

The first village that Jesus came across would not receive him.  This is not all that surprising, since a Samaritan village would not want a large group of Jews coming into it.  Why would they? The assumption of the Samaritans would be that this group would come into town and look down on them. Who would want that? 

This riles up two of Jesus' disciples. James and John, two of Jesus' closest disciples, want to call down fire from Heaven to burn the whole village up.  (Calling down fire from Heaven does have an OT precedent. Elijah called down fire from heaven on the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.) Also, we see with this request that Jesus has given the apostles considerable power.  They were not asking Jesus to call down fire from Heaven, they were going to do it. (Mark 3:17 records that Jesus had nicknamed these two, the Sons of Thunder. perhaps for good reason.)

But, one has to wonder what these two have been seeing for the three years that they spent wandering around with Jesus.  Had they ever seen Jesus do anything like this? If Jesus ever called down fire on a village in anger, the Bible doesn’t record it. I doubt that the disciples had ever Jesus doing anything like it.  In fact, Jesus doesn’t seem angry with the Samaritans, at all, instead his anger seems directed at his disciples who want to burn down villages. 

Despite the fact that these Samaritans have rejected Jesus, the apostles who are calling for swift judgment on the town are wrong.  This is not Jesus’ style at all. They may have forgotten Jesus' teaching in Luke 6:37, but Jesus had not.  They were quick to judge and quick to condemn.  Jesus was quick to forgive. Rather than advocate violence to the Samaritan village, Jesus simply moves on to another village. Jesus had, after all, set out resolutely on a mission of forgiveness, not judgement. 

May we all be more Jesus (forgiving),and less like those who would call down fire from Heaven (judgmental). 

Tom