Mark's Blog

I’ve always intended to write about the Word, but mostly I have been pretty topical. Today, I want to start a short series on one of the greatest chapters in the New Testament on being a disciple.  I hope you will enjoy sharing the journey with me into the Word!

From the beginning of His ministry, when Jesus refused to be a lecturing professor, he chose experiences over theories as the best way for his followers to learn what is true. Come-and-see discoveries turned fishermen into disciples, turned cowards into martyrs, and turned doubters into preachers of righteousness.  This description of Jesus sending out a group of seventy-two followers to prepare His way is the story of what He taught them, not what they taught others.

His opening instructions contained one of those paradoxes that Jesus often used to confound, then enlighten His disciples. He first sends them out two by two and then tells them that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. If the latter describes accurately the conditions into which he was sending them, then why did he not send them out one by one and cover twice as much ground?  Did Jesus miss the lesson on “efficiencies”? Or was he teaching his disciples the importance of partnerships, relationships, and the necessity of shared experiences? This must be a reflection of Jesus’ teaching that where two or three are together in His name, that He is there with them. What power there is when two are going out, not only in the name of Jesus, but accompanied by Jesus!

Then He sent them out with a prayer on their lips, not for themselves, but for God to send out Workers into the harvest!  I have read this passage and preached it for years, heard it even more at every mission event ever held, yet never realized that Jesus’ intent was for those disciples standing in front of him to be the answer to the prayer! His first sentence is the command to “Ask” and his next sentence is the command to “Go!”  How often is it that we may be the answer to our own prayers, that God has put a burden on our hearts for some part of his world or some way of showing kindness. We pray, asking God to provide . . . when he has already provided through those of us praying.

And He doesn’t just send us to the protected and safe places in life; no, this first time out He sends them like “lambs among wolves!” But surely part of their confidence in going was that were going out two by two, they were going as an answer to prayer for Workers in the harvest, and they were going sent by Jesus himself.

Next:  Don’t take anything with you and don’t greet anyone on the road–strange commands for Jesus’ disciples! What was He thinking?