The Question
Part 2 of 3
Luke 10 1:24 NIV
Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.
16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”
18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
22 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
23 Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
Take a look at how Luke relates to us the events. On the heels of the rest of chapter 10 in which Jesus sent out 72 of his followers into the nearby towns and villages, Luke tells us the results. They returned overjoyed that even the demons submitted to them in Jesus’ name. Jesus replied that they should rejoice not in the powers over demons but that their names were written in heaven. They were more blessed to see and understand than many previous kings and prophets. Whether this “Expert in the Law” was within earshot of Jesus’ conversation on gospel ministry with the 72 (as the Greek suggests a tighter connection) or not, he knew the law and prophets well. We’re told he approached Jesus with a test. The expert thought a lot was at stake since perhaps he just heard Jesus’ confirm people who already had inherited eternal life.(Matthew 4, Matthew 16, 22, Mark 8,10,12, Luke 4). His question was one with a lot at stake, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
What a question!
Jesus entertains his question. He let the Word of God stand as he asked the expert to answer his own question, “What is written in the law, how do you read it?” The expert responded with two excellent quotations from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 Love the Lord your God with all your…Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus even affirmed what was written. It was of course the demands for the will of his Holy and perfect Father “do this and you will live.” The Greek here is already foreshadowing, the words stress the on-going tense - keep doing this and you will live.
Consider the scene. You can almost see the gears of the expert in the law working. He had answered his own question about how one inherits eternal life by loving God and loving your neighbor. He thought he was going to stump Jesus who just turned to 72 men and told them they could rejoice that their names were written in heaven.
But look at what the expert asks and how Jesus answers. It wasn’t as if the lawyer was proposing he kept the law perfectly, but from someone such as an expert of the law Jesus’ affirmed that his question was simple and had a straight-forward answer. But, Jesus wasn’t done teaching. We get this detail that the expert in the law didn’t want to sound dumb or foolish and so he wanted to “justify himself.” He wanted to show he was an expert and didn’t want his test to backfire so he threw out another question about who is my neighbor. Whether it was another test or not, we are not told. But, something prompted the expert in the law to keep seeing if his answer would match Jesus’. In the next post, we will see, unfortunately for the expert, it wasn’t.