Luke 10: Seventy Sent, One Neighbor Defined

Seventy — or seventy-two, depending on the manuscript tradition behind your translation — get sent out ahead of Jesus with instructions to travel without extra sandals or money and to pronounce peace on whatever house receives them. It’s a bigger, more vulnerable operation than the sending of the twelve back in chapter nine, and it works: they come back amazed that even demons submit to them in Jesus’s name.

Read it in the terminal: bible luke 10

Rejoice in the right thing

Jesus redirects their excitement. Don’t celebrate that spirits obey you, he says — celebrate that your names are written in heaven. It’s a small but pointed correction: don’t let the thrill of spiritual power become the thing you build your identity on.

Who is my neighbor, exactly

A legal expert tries to justify himself by asking Jesus to define “neighbor” narrowly. Jesus answers with a Samaritan — a member of a group his audience despised — who stops for a beaten stranger that a priest and a Levite had already passed by. The question gets flipped: not who qualifies as my neighbor, but who acted like one.

Martha, Mary, and one necessary thing

At Bethany, Martha is busy with the work of hospitality while Mary sits and listens. Jesus doesn’t scold Martha for serving — he tells her she’s anxious about too many things, when only one is necessary.

“Don’t rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” — Luke 10:20

“Go and do likewise.” — Luke 10:37

Questions for study

1. Why does Jesus redirect the seventy’s joy away from their power over demons?
2. Why answer “who is my neighbor” with a story instead of a definition?
3. What does the Samaritan risk by stopping that the priest and Levite avoid?
4. Is Martha’s problem that she serves, or something else?

cd .. cd ~ (back to terminal)