Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

Last Sunday Gos­pel read­ing ended with the dis­cern­ing of dis­ciples and the cost of dis­ciple­ship (cf. Luke 9:57–62). In this Sunday read­ing, Jesus makes sev­enty-two of his dis­ciples exper­i­ence the pros and cons of dis­ciple­ship and of pro­claim­ing the Gos­pel. Though not indic­ated, but these sev­enty-two dis­ciples must have under­stood bet­ter Jesus’ words that “foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). They must have also learnt that the pro­clam­a­tion of the Good News has abso­lute pre­ced­ence over every oth­er and over every per­son­al interest and fam­ily tie.

The sending in twos

“The Lord appoin­ted sev­enty-two oth­ers and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he him­self was about to go” (Luke 10:1). Luke notes that these sev­enty-two dis­ciples were sent out two-by-two. In the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark (cf. 6:7–13), the author records that those that were sent out in twos were the Twelve dis­ciples. This should not sur­prise us because Mark and Luke developed their theo­logy dif­fer­ently. Beside the Twelve apostles, Luke deemed it neces­sary to send out oth­er dis­ciples in pairs, some­thing not neces­sary for the Twelve who had no need for any wit­ness, hav­ing been with Jesus. The send­ing out in pairs is prob­ably to bol­ster cred­ib­il­ity by hav­ing the testi­mony of more than one wit­ness as stip­u­lated by the law (cf. Deut 17:6; 19:15). Anoth­er reas­on for this trav­el­ling in twos is prob­ably because it was safer to travel in the com­pany of anoth­er, than trav­el­ling alone. Dis­ciples should keep them­selves com­pany as they pro­claim the Gospel. 

Conclusion

Dear read­er, to the dis­ciples, Jesus assured that noth­ing shall ever hurt them. This is so long as they remain faith­ful and keep to the instruc­tions. If, how­ever, they decide to do things their own way, then, they should be ready to bear the con­sequences. When the dis­ciples returned from their mis­sion, they rejoiced because their mis­sion was suc­cess­ful. Demons were under their power because of Jesus’ name. When Jesus sent them, he told them he was sens­ing them out as lambs among wolves. But he also assures them that they have been giv­en power over the enemy and noth­ing will harm them, not even ser­pents and scor­pi­ons. The theme of this Sunday and last Sunday is dis­ciple­ship, its chal­lenges, dif­fi­culties and its bene­fits. Ensure you par­ti­cip­ate in the mis­sion of announ­cing the king­dom of God to all people. You do not need to be an ordained min­is­ter to do this. Being a child of God and being bap­tized empowers you to spread the Gos­pel even as a mar­ried per­son or as a youth. Your voca­tion is not a hindrance to spread­ing the mes­sage of life. By being hon­est and just in your place of work, in your office, in your shop, and in your fam­ily, you are ser­i­ously spread­ing the Gos­pel and announ­cing the king­dom of God. 

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 14^th Sunday is found in The Word of Life, vol. III, pages 358–369. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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