The Gospel of Luke
Chapter 10: Overview
The Mission of the Seventy
The chapter opens with the appointment of the seventy (or seventy two) missionaries by Jesus. At the end, 11,1 introduces teachings about prayer following the example of Jesus. This chapter as a whole therefore has clear boundaries for our reading.
The second part of the chapter though give us the beginning of Jesus' teaching on the journey. We have first the parable of the Good Samaritan, 10,25-37, which is followed by Jesus' visit to Martha's house, 10,38-42.
The first part of the chapter is therefore 10,1-24 which we now need to look more closely. 10,1 begins a passage about mission with the sending out of the 70 and we need to see how his mission and its aftermath takes us through to 10,24.
In 10,1-12, Jesus sends out the missionaries with his instructions. As in 9,7-9, there is an interlude in 10,13-16 before the missionaries return rejoicing in 10,17. The return leads into a distinctive set of sayings by Jesus, 10,17-24. The return and these sayings will be the extra page I am proposing for our reading.
It is notable that this sending out of the seventy in 10,1 comes right at the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem. As we read in chapter 9, the first few verses of the journey, 9,52-62, set the scene with the conditions for following Jesus on the journey. Immediately after this, we have a similar theme with the sending out of the seventy, 10,1-24. There is a good case for taking 9,51-10,24 as the introduction to the journey.
After that, as noted above, we have the second part of the chapter beginning the teaching of Jesus in 10,25; the teaching which is central to his journey and central to all missionary journeys.
From this exploration, we have four scenes here in the first part of the chapter:
- 10,1-12: Jesus appoints the seventy
- 10,13-16: Interlude: woes on local towns
- 10,17-20: Return of the Seventy
- 10,21-24: Blessing of Discipleship
The connection between the 2nd and 4th part is the theme of woes and blessings, similar to the Beatitudes and Woes in 6,20-26. We can note the contrast between the blessing of verses 23-24 and the rejection of verse 16.
Reading Plan
In summary, the four pages for reading this chapter are now:
- 10,1-16: Mission of the Seventy
- 10,17-24: Return of the Seventy
- 10,25-37: Who is my neighbour?
- 10,38-42: The house of Martha
For the Sunday Gospels taken from this chapter, the 15th and 16th Sundays relate the two encounters in the second part of the chapter. The 14th Sunday reading is an edited version of the mission (10,1-12.17-20) about which more in due course.
Back now to the main page to begin our reading of the chapter.