Luke 9:1-6--Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Apostles

Luke 9:1-6
English Standard Version
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Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Apostles
9 And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. 4 And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. 5 And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

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There's not a whole lot of application here as this passage is historical narrative that is almost like a change between acts in a play.  As I described last time, we're going to see a pretty major shift in the story now.

What is strange to me is that Judas Iscariot is part of this group that gets sent out.  It doesn't say that he was able to do anything, but he received the same commission as all the others, even though we know that he has already been identified as a traitor from the beginning.  Now it's possible the Judas was able to do these things and is one of the people Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7:21-23, speaking of the day in which He would divide the sheep from the goats and His sheep from those that do not belong to Him because His sheep hear His voice and listen to Him and listen to Him (see John 10:27)

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

I don't want to make this passage about Judas though, because it is not.  Jesus is at least temporarily giving the disciples the responsibility to go into all region and preach the kingdom of God, that is the gospel, as much as they know it, and He's also giving them the ability to perform miracles to accompany their message that will validate their message is from God. 

They are to take nothing with them on this particular journey as they are to be completely dependent on the God and the people that God sent them to minister to (in this case they were sent to their Jewish brothers and sisters who should have obeyed the Law and taken care of them, so if someone refused to take care of them, they were disobedient to God and His Law already).  Those that   They are to stay with those that will give them lodging until their work is completed and if no one will give them lodging then they are to shake the dust off of them as they leave town (a sign of asking God to judge the city as you don't even want to carry any of its dust with you and maybe receive any of the judgment meant for them).

So they left and did all these things.  As I was saying this sets us up to see that Jesus is going to commission them in the end to do the same thing, only the mission will be much larger.  They will go into all the world, starting with all the towns in Judea and Samaria, but have you wondered why Jesus doesn't include Galilee in there? It's because He has already sent them to all the towns in Galilee here.  He'll send out even more, seventy or seventy-two depending on your translation, at a later time, but that group will receive slightly different instructions.

Are there general principles that we can learn from this?  Maybe.  I think the most obvious is that Jesus didn't send them out to do the work of the gospel alone.  I'm not sure that we can say that we're never supposed to take any supplies with us (we'll see that is part of the instructions changing when Jesus sends out the 70 or 72 later) and we notice that not everyone is going to accept our message--even people who call themselves the people of God.  It seems from here and from the Great Commission that Jesus sends us first to the places that are local to us, but sends us to the big cities and the small towns alike, both to the Jews and to the Gentiles that lived there (for Galilee was a region full of Gentiles and Gentile influence).  We see most importantly though that their commission was was preach the kingdom of heaven, that is the gospel.  Their message was not political, socio-economic, nor was it about healings and miracles.  Their central message was the person, words and works of Jesus.  The Messiah, the one who would provide deliverance and salvation for their people had come.  Did they completely understand the message yet before being sent out?  No.  Did Jesus send them out anyways and expect them to be faithful, trusting God with the results?  Yes!