Luke 10:1

THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY

‘The Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them forth two and two.’

Luke 10:1

In our Lord’s charge to the seventy observe:—

I. The importance of prayer and intercession.—This is the leading thought with which our Lord opens His address. Before He tells His ambassadors what to do, He first bids them to pray. ‘Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth labourers into His harvest.’ Prayer is one of the best and most powerful means of helping forward the cause of Christ in the world.

II. The perilous nature of the work in which they were about to be engaged.—The words describe a state of things which may be seen at this very day. So long as the Church stands, believers must expect to be like ‘lambs among wolves.’ They must make up their minds to be hated, and persecuted, and ill-treated by those who have no real religion. ‘All that will live godly in Jesus Christ,’ says St. Paul, ‘shall suffer persecution’ (1 John 3:13; 1 Peter 3:8).

III. The thorough devotion to their work which He enjoins upon them. They were to abstain even from the appearance of covetousness, or love of money, or luxury: ‘Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes.’ They were to behave like men who had no time to waste on the empty compliments and conventional courtesies of the world: ‘Salute no man by the way.’

IV. The simple-minded and contented spirit which He bade them to exhibit.—Wherever they tarried, in travelling about upon their Master’s business, they were to avoid the appearance of being fickle, changeable, delicate livers, or hard to please about food and lodging. They were to ‘eat and drink such things’ as were given them. They were not to ‘go from house to house.’

Illustrations

(1) ‘The Greek word translated “appointed” is only found in one other place in the New Testament (Acts 1:24), where it is rendered “shew.” According’ to Parkhurst, it signifies “to mark out, or, appoint to an office by some outward sign, and is often used in this sense by profane writers and in the apocryphal books.” John the Baptist’s “shewing” to Israel (Luke 1:80) is a substantive derived from this word.’

(2) ‘We know nothing of the names or subsequent history of these seventy disciples. They are nowhere else mentioned in the New Testament. Most commentators remark on the selection of the number seventy, and assign reasons for it. Grotius says that they were chosen according to the number of the Jewish Sanhedrim, and so were seventy-two, six being chosen out of every tribe of Israel. Wordsworth remarks that “the number seventy was that of the heads of the families of Israel (Genesis 46:27), and of the elders constituted by Moses (Numbers 11:16; Numbers 11:25), and of the palm trees at Elim (Exodus 15:27). And the Jews supposed that the languages of the world were seventy.” ’

(3) ‘The mission of the disciples in pairs deserves remark, and ought to be remembered in modern missionary work. “Two are better than one” (Ecclesiastes 4:9). Cornelius à Lapide has a long and interesting note to show the wisdom of the arrangement.’

(4) ‘The Greek expression “He would come” would be more literally rendered “was about to come.” ’