Luke 10

Luke 10 continues directly from the command the Father gave on the mountain in the previous chapter: “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” The question now becomes what listening to Jesus actually looks like. The chapter begins with seventy disciples who listen to Him and go where He sends them. It moves through cities that either receive or reject His messengers, then to Jesus’ declaration that the Father is known only through the Son, then to a scholar of the Law who knows the right words but must decide whether he will obey what Jesus tells him, and finally to Mary sitting at the Lord’s feet listening to His word. Luke 10 is therefore held together by the authority of Jesus’ word and the response that word demands.

Jesus appoints seventy others and sends them in pairs ahead of Him “to every city and place where He Himself was going to come.” Their role is preparatory. They are going before the King into towns He intends to visit, announcing that the kingdom of God has come near and preparing people for His arrival.

The number seventy also recalls Israel’s history. In Numbers chapter 11 Yahweh commands Moses to gather seventy elders, takes of the Spirit who is upon Moses and places Him upon them, and they share in the burden of leading the people. Exodus chapter 24 also speaks of seventy elders who accompany Moses up the mountain and behold the God of Israel. Jesus has already appointed the Twelve, corresponding to the twelve tribes, and now He appoints seventy others. Luke does not explain the symbolism directly, but the pattern places Jesus at the centre of a renewed people of God ordered around Him.

His instructions closely echo those He gave the Twelve in the previous chapter. They are to travel without securing themselves with money or supplies, to depend upon hospitality, to heal the sick, and to announce the kingdom of God. The mission of the Seventy is therefore an extension of the same kingdom mission Jesus entrusted to the Twelve.

Jesus first tells them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Then He immediately says, “Go! Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.” They are to ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers, and in the next breath Jesus Himself sends them. Luke does not stop to explain the implication, but Jesus acts with the authority of the Lord of the harvest whose workers they have just been told to pray for. The harvest imagery also makes the mission urgent: the harvest already exists, and the problem is the shortage of labourers.

That urgency appears again when Jesus tells them to carry no money belt, bag or sandals, and to “greet no one on the way.” This is not a command to rudeness. The Old Testament gives a similar instruction in 2 Kings chapter 4, where Elisha sends Gehazi on an urgent mission and tells him not to stop to greet anyone on the road. Jesus’ messengers are carrying news of the kingdom, and the task is too urgent to be delayed by the long social obligations that could accompany a formal greeting.

The picture of lambs in the midst of wolves makes their vulnerability clear. They are not being sent as an armed force, and they are not told to advance the kingdom by coercion. Coming straight after the end of Luke 9, where James and John wanted to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village, the contrast is sharp: Jesus sends His messengers as lambs. Judgment remains real, as the next verses make unmistakably clear, but the messengers themselves go in weakness and dependence.

When they enter a house, they are to say, “Peace be to this house.” If a man of peace is there, that peace rests upon him; if not, it returns to them. Peace in Luke is closely connected with God’s saving work in Christ. The angels announced peace at Jesus’ birth, and now His messengers carry that peace ahead of Him. The arrival of the kingdom brings blessing to those who receive it.

They are to remain in the same house, eating and drinking what is given to them, “for the laborer is worthy of his wages.” They are not to move from house to house looking for something better. The worker is entitled to support, but the mission is not to become a way of seeking comfort or social advantage.

When they enter a city that receives them, they are to eat what is set before them, heal the sick and say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” When a city refuses them, they are to wipe its dust off their feet against it and still say, “know this, that the kingdom of God is at hand.” The kingdom comes near whether the city receives the message or rejects it. For the city that receives the messengers, the nearness of the kingdom means peace, healing and blessing. For the city that rejects them, that same nearness becomes a testimony against them, and Jesus says it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. That establishes a principle that continues through the next verses: greater revelation brings greater accountability.

Jesus pronounces woe upon Chorazin and Bethsaida because they have seen miracles that would have moved Tyre and Sidon to repentance, and He says Tyre and Sidon will find the judgment more tolerable than they will. He then addresses Capernaum: “will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades!” Hades is the realm of the dead, and the language recalls Isaiah chapter 14, where the one who says in his heart, “I will ascend to heaven,” is brought down to Sheol. Capernaum has received extraordinary privilege because Jesus has taught and worked there, but privilege does not protect a town that refuses the One who has come to it. The principle is severe but clear. God judges according to the light given, and to encounter more of His revelation and reject it brings greater responsibility, not less.

Then Jesus explains why the response to His messengers carries such weight: “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me. And he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.” That carries the command of the Transfiguration directly into this chapter. The Father said, “listen to Him!” Now Jesus says that when His commissioned messengers faithfully carry His word, listening to them is listening to Him. The authority does not originate in the messenger; it comes from Jesus. And rejection does not stop with the messenger either, because to reject Jesus is to reject the Father who sent Him. Deuteronomy chapter 18 attached a warning to the promise of the prophet like Moses: “whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.” Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum are towns of Israel, and in His covenant with Israel through Moses, Yahweh had already warned that He Himself would require an account from those who refused to listen to that prophet.

The Seventy then return with joy: “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Their own words locate the authority where it belongs. The demons are not subject to them because the Seventy possess spiritual power in themselves. They are subject “in Your name”.

Jesus answers, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” The immediate context is the successful mission of the Seventy and their authority over demons. Jesus is describing the collapse of Satan’s dominion before the advance of the kingdom. As the message of the kingdom goes out and demons are driven back in Jesus’ name, Satan’s rule is being broken.

Jesus then says, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” The second half of the sentence explains the first. Serpents and scorpions represent the hostile power of the enemy, so Jesus is speaking about spiritual authority over the forces opposed to God’s kingdom. Again the source of that authority is explicit: “I have given you authority.” Jesus gives it.

Then He corrects their joy: “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” The authority given to them is extraordinary, but Jesus tells them it is not the deepest reason for rejoicing. Scripture repeatedly uses the picture of names written in God’s book to speak of those who belong to Him. In Exodus chapter 32 Yahweh says that whoever has sinned against Him He will blot out of His book, and Daniel chapter 12 promises that everyone found written in the book will be rescued. Jesus redirects the Seventy from what they have been empowered to do toward what God has done for them. Ministry success, spiritual authority and visible results are not the foundation of their identity. Their names are recorded in heaven.

At that very time Jesus Himself rejoices greatly in the Holy Spirit and addresses the Father: “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” The Son rejoices in the Holy Spirit and speaks to the Father, so the whole Trinity, the one God who exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is present in the scene. Jesus says that revelation itself depends upon God. That does not mean Scripture praises ignorance or condemns intelligence. The point is that the knowledge of God is not reached by intellectual status, social standing or human superiority. God must reveal.

Jesus continues, “Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.” The Father’s revealing and hiding takes place according to His own good pleasure.

Then Jesus makes one of the strongest claims about His own identity anywhere in Luke: “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” The authority Jesus has exercised throughout the chapter is grounded here, because “all things” have been handed over to Him by the Father. The relationship between Father and Son is unique. No one fully knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Knowing the Father therefore depends upon the Son. Jesus does not present Himself as one religious teacher among others who happens to know more about God. He uniquely knows the Father, and He sovereignly reveals the Father to whom He wills. This explains why rejecting Jesus means rejecting the Father: the Father cannot be reached by going around the Son.

Jesus then turns privately to His disciples and says, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see.” Many prophets and kings had longed to see what these disciples were seeing and had not seen it, and to hear what they were hearing and had not heard it. The promises, prophecies and expectations of the Old Testament were moving toward this moment. The disciples are seeing the King whom earlier generations awaited, and hearing the One whom Moses said Israel must hear. By the principle Jesus has just applied to Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, that privilege also increases their responsibility.

Then a scholar of the Law stands up to test Jesus: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers him with a question: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The scholar knows the answer. He brings together Deuteronomy chapter 6 and Leviticus chapter 19: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus tells him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” The problem is not that the scholar does not know the Law. He knows it very well.

Luke then tells us what happens next: “But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” Having just said that the Law requires love of neighbour as oneself, he now seeks to define the neighbour. How wide is the obligation? Who counts? Where does the requirement stop? Jesus answers with a story.

A man is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attack him, strip him, beat him and leave him half dead. A priest comes down the road, sees him and passes by on the other side. Then a Levite comes, sees him and also passes by. Jesus does not tell us why either man refuses to help, so there is no need to invent a motive for them. What He does tell us is that both see the suffering man and leave him where he is.

Then a Samaritan comes, and that would have immediately changed the expectations of Jesus’ Jewish hearers. The hostility between Jews and Samaritans was deep, and the previous chapter has already shown a Samaritan village refusing to receive Jesus because He was travelling toward Jerusalem, with James and John wanting to call down fire upon it. Now Jesus places a Samaritan at the moral centre of the story.

When the Samaritan sees the wounded man, “he felt compassion,” and Jesus describes what that compassion does. He goes to the man, bandages his wounds, pours on oil and wine, puts him on his own animal, brings him to an inn and takes care of him. The next day he gives the innkeeper two denarii, about two days’ wages for a labourer, and promises to repay whatever more is spent when he returns. Neighbour-love becomes concrete mercy.

Jesus then turns the scholar’s question around. The scholar had asked, “who is my neighbor?” Jesus asks, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” The scholar wanted to identify the boundary of his obligation. The question is no longer, “Which people qualify to receive my love?” It becomes, “Will you become a neighbour to the person in need?”

The scholar answers, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” He does not name him as “the Samaritan”, and Luke does not tell us why. Jesus says, “Go and do the same.” And then Luke leaves him. We are never told what he does. The scholar knows the Law and gives the correct answer, and Jesus exposes what love of neighbour actually requires and commands him to act. The question left hanging is whether he will listen to Jesus, and Luke follows it immediately with a woman who does.

Jesus enters a village, and Martha welcomes Him into her home. Her sister Mary sits “at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.” Luke’s wording picks up the thread running through the chapter. The Father has already said, “listen to Him!” Jesus has said, “The one who listens to you listens to Me.” The scholar has just heard Jesus say, “Go and do the same.” To sit at a teacher’s feet was the posture of a disciple, so Mary is presented as a learner receiving instruction from Jesus, and Jesus commends her for it.

Martha, meanwhile, is “distracted with all her preparations.” Her service itself is not the problem. Hospitality matters, and she has welcomed Jesus into her home. The problem is that her service has become a distraction from the One she is serving.

She says, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the preparations alone? Then tell her to help me.” Jesus answers, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” The contrast is between distraction and listening. Martha is occupied with many things; Mary has chosen the one necessary thing, and she receives the word of the Lord.

That brings the chapter back to where Luke 9 ended, with the Father’s command, “listen to Him!” The issue running through Luke 10 is larger than whether a person hears the sound of Jesus’ words. The question is whether they receive Him, believe Him and act upon what He says, and that is why the authority of Jesus stands over the whole chapter. He sends the labourers. He gives authority over the enemy. He determines how His messengers are to be received, and He says that rejecting Him is rejecting the Father. He reveals the Father to whom He wills. He interprets the Law and defines neighbour-love. And He declares that Mary, sitting at His feet listening to His word, has chosen the good part.

The kingdom has come near in Jesus, and the decisive question is how people respond when His word reaches them.