How do we act when we get there? What do we do? What if they don’t like us? Sounds like questions we would get from LST teams in training. In this third part of our look at Luke 10, Jesus addresses these very questions for the Seventy-Two.
Part of the experience for these disciples was to be taken into the houses of strangers and discern whether they were friends or foes. Showing hospitality to travelers was part of their culture; hospitality was rarely denied, but was not necessarily given cheerfully. These workers were warned of cold receptions, but, strangely enough, not given permission to move around until they found a warmer reception.
No, they were told to “stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you.” It was not about their comfort or their full stomachs, and there was no mention of fulfilling their strategic purpose. It was an opportunity to prepare this house to receive the peace of God. If they moved from house to house to make themselves more comfortable or to get better meals, their motivation would appear to be less than singly focused on preparing for Jesus to come.
Upon arrival in the town where they were sent, the disciples were given an apparently impossible task and a simple message to proclaim: “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’” Jesus’ first instructions were to prepare them for rejection.
What town in its right mind would reject a healing ministry, where the lame walk and the blind see? Christians are eager to go healing and feeding and building and restoring—all part of the plan to prepare for the coming of Jesus—but Jesus warned them of rejection they would receive, not because they were healing, but because they had a message to deliver alongside their healing ministry. If they had only healed, they would have not completed the task Jesus gave them; if they only preached, the same would be true. The warning about rejection makes it certain that Jesus assumed their healings would be followed by proclamation.
In fact, when they were rejected and after they dusted their feet of the sand of that town, even then they were to repeat the message! They were to be bold with their message, delivering it where it was received and where it would be rejected. Receptivity may have been an issue for deciding duration of the visit, but not the reason for the visit. The disciples were to go into the town because Jesus was getting ready to come, regardless of the receptivity.
Jesus affirms his participation in the process in verse 16, assuring the disciples that when they are heard, He is heard; when they are rejected. He is rejected. To give them even more fortitude, He draws God of Hosts into the covenant and says that those who reject Jesus are without God. No wonder the curses on Bethsaida, Korazim, and Capernaum sound so harsh too us—and perhaps even to the disciples then. Jesus was teaching them that the consequences of rejecting Jesus are terrible and frightening. Those who go out must get the message to all who will hear, for the consequences of not listening are terrible.
Next: Mostly Jesus is pictured as the “man of sorrows,” but what story shows him with a great big smile?
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