Friday, October 18, 2024

18 October 2024 - marching orders


The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples
whom he sent ahead of him in pairs
to every town and place he intended to visit.

Jesus knew he was sending out these disciples as lambs among wolves, that they were going to face active opposition and hostility in the world. We might tend to imagine these earlier missionary trips as consisting of mostly successful encounters with audiences interested to hear the Gospel. But Jesus gave so many precautions in the event that the disciples would not be welcomed that we must assume that this too was a common occurrence. No doubt it was part of the reason that he sent them out in pairs. Alone they might have been tempted to think that they were the crazy one and that the world around them was altogether reasonable to criticize or ignore them. But since they went out together they could rely on one another for stability and solidity in the face of whatever hostility they encountered. They could minister Jesus not only to the world around them but to one another.

Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.

There were a variety of ways that the disciples could have become distracted from the primary purpose of their journey. Rather than providing a detailed list of rules and priorities Jesus simply removed the temptations entirely. In some ways this made the mission more challenging. The disciples would need to rely more on providence than on planning. But it made it much less likely that they would compromise along the way or seek to subvert their missionary purpose to some other end. It was clear that there was an urgency to the proclamation. There wasn't time for idle chitchat along the way. They had, as it were, marching orders, and they were meant to keep those as their primary focus.

Into whatever house you enter,
first say, 'Peace to this household.'
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.

The disciples were taught a way to offer the Gospel to others that didn't put their own emotional integrity at risk. If others didn't want what they offered they would not for that reason lose their own peace. The peace they had to offer was not their own but rather a gift from Jesus himself. And if others didn't want what they had to offer they did not need to interpret it as a personal rejection and become distraught. If others chose to reject the peace of Christ it would simply return to them and they would continue on their journey. It is probably the case that if we learned to offer peace in this way we would become more effective evangelists ourselves.

Luke is the only one with me.

When we learn the lessons Jesus desired to teach the seventy-two disciples we become not only better evangelists but also better partners in evangelism. We can then became reliable in the way that Luke was for Paul, present and ready to help even when it seemed the world was against him.




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