Chapter 10

I have never really understood Jesus’ instructions to his disciples when he sent them out. Why impose such difficulty on them as they were off to preach His word? Surely that work is going to be difficult enough! Why make it any harder than it has to be?

Now, some of you may be wondering what I thought would be so difficult. Well, there was the fact that they had to go with no spare clothes or food, for a start. And there was the whole deal of picking one place and staying there until they left town (wouldn’t that get their host annoyed?). And they had to eat whatever they were given (for me, this was a particularly scary concept).

That’s why I was surprised on reading this passage in The Message. For the first time in my life, I GET what Jesus is saying (and before you ask, it’s not interpolation, either – I checked back in the NIV, and it REALLY DOES say this!).

He’s not saying that there’s any need to make the mission hard. He’s not imposing conditions. If anything, he’s making things easy!

Before we go into this, it’s important to remember the traditions of hospitality in the Middle East, both in this time period and today. Hospitality was a sacred duty, and it was seen by the community to be important to look after guests. In other words, you might stay with one family, but you’d be looked after by everyone.

In this context, the idea of the Disciples staying in one place makes a lot more sense – Jesus is just saying “settle down in a town, don’t muck around looking for the classiest digs and the nicest food.”

He’s also telling the disciples to travel light, taking only the bare minimum that they need to live, and to trust God for their needs to be met. In doing this, He’s doing two things. Firstly he is instigating a culture of trusting God to provide. Secondly, He’s making things easier on the Disciples – remember, they’re walking all the way, so even a little bit of extra kit would make things quite difficult for them. By telling them to basically only take what can be held in the hands, Jesus is ensuring that the disciples can move quickly and easily wherever they go.

And that’s another thing – Jesus is impressing on these men the URGENCY of the mission. He doesn’t want them being bogged down in all kinds of unimportant affairs; he wants them preaching the good news to all and sundry, and the best way to do that is to ensure that they simply take the path of least resistance when they enter a town.

It’s interesting the change of pace that happens here. After Jesus has finished describing his instructions to His disciples, we’re immediately brought face to face with the Pharisee who asks “Who is my neighbour?” And, of course, we have the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is a parable on which I have previously written much, so I shall leave it for now.

And then another change of pace. This time we see that Jesus followed his own advice – he settled at the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha in Bethany. Curiously, we can see one of the contrasts that characterize Jesus – although His mission is urgent, He is unhurried, and He encourages His people to have the same attitude.

How does all this affect us?

I think for me, the running theme is “simplicity”. We tend to overcomplicate ministry. I don’t know if you’ve considered this, but in many churches it is now default to use at least 2-3 computers in a regular church service, to say nothing of major evangelistic events!

By contrast, Jesus’ approach is simplicity itself. He simply sends people to preach.

There is certainly room for complex Gospel Presentation events. But let’s not get bogged down. Jesus calls us to get out there WITH OR WITHOUT the complexity.