Day 3: Sending the 72, Good Samaritan, Mary and Martha

Reading: Luke 10

Listen to: Luke chapter 10

Historical Context

Luke 10 is one of the richest chapters in the New Testament, weaving together three major episodes that collectively define the scope, ethic, and posture of kingdom life: the sending of the Seventy-Two, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the encounter with Mary and Martha. Each episode builds on the previous one, creating a theological arc that moves from mission to mercy to devotion.

The sending of the Seventy-Two (vv. 1-24) is unique to Luke and represents a significant expansion of Jesus’ mission beyond the Twelve. The number itself carries symbolic weight. Some manuscripts read “seventy” rather than “seventy-two” – a textual variant that has generated centuries of debate. Both numbers carry Old Testament resonance. Seventy elders were appointed to share Moses’ burden (Numbers 11:16-17, 24-25), and the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 lists seventy (LXX: seventy-two) nations, representing the totality of the world’s peoples. Whether Luke intends seventy or seventy-two, the theological point is the same: the mission of Jesus is not confined to Israel’s twelve tribes but extends to all the nations of the earth. The harvest metaphor Jesus uses – “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (v. 2) – frames mission not as conquest but as gathering, not as invasion but as reaping what God has already sown.

The instructions given to the Seventy-Two largely parallel those given to the Twelve in Luke 9 and Matthew 10, but with heightened urgency. They are to travel without purse, bag, or sandals – a level of vulnerability that goes beyond the Twelve’s instructions. They are to greet no one on the road, not because courtesy is unimportant but because the ancient Near Eastern greeting ritual could consume considerable time, and the urgency of the mission demands focus. They are “lambs in the midst of wolves” (v. 3), an image of radical vulnerability. The pronouncements of judgment on Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum (vv. 13-15) are among Jesus’ most severe warnings. These cities had witnessed the majority of Jesus’ miracles yet remained unrepentant. The comparison to Tyre, Sidon, and even Sodom – Gentile cities synonymous with wickedness – is devastating. Sodom was destroyed by fire from heaven (Genesis 19:24), yet Jesus declares it will be “more tolerable” for Sodom on the day of judgment than for Capernaum. Greater privilege produces greater accountability.

When the Seventy-Two return with joy, reporting that “even the demons are subject to us in your name” (v. 17), Jesus responds with a visionary statement: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (v. 18). This is not merely a comment on the exorcisms but a declaration that the kingdom mission is dismantling the cosmic power structure of evil. Yet Jesus immediately redirects their joy: “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (v. 20). Identity precedes activity. Who you are to God matters more than what you do for God. Jesus then offers a prayer of exultation – “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (v. 21) – one of the most intimate glimpses of Jesus’ inner life in the Synoptic Gospels. Luke notes that Jesus “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit,” a phrase found nowhere else in the Gospels.

The encounter with the lawyer (vv. 25-37) introduces the most famous parable in the New Testament. The lawyer’s question – “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” – is answered by Jesus with a counter-question that elicits the Great Commandment: love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind (Deuteronomy 6:5), and love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). The lawyer’s follow-up – “And who is my neighbor?” – is the question that triggers the parable. It is a question designed to limit obligation, to draw a boundary around the circle of those who deserve love. Jesus’ answer demolishes the boundary entirely.

The Jericho road was a notoriously dangerous seventeen-mile descent through rocky, desolate terrain, dropping over 3,000 feet from Jerusalem to Jericho. Josephus and Strabo both describe it as bandit territory. The priest and the Levite who pass by the wounded man are not cartoon villains; their behavior has a logic rooted in the purity system. Contact with a corpse (and the man appeared to be dead or dying) would render a priest unclean for seven days (Numbers 19:11), disqualifying him from Temple service. The Levite faces similar concerns. Both choose institutional religious duty over human compassion. The logic of purity says, “Stay clean for God.” Jesus’ logic says, “Get dirty for your neighbor.”

The Samaritan hero is the story’s explosive element. Samaritans and Jews had a centuries-long history of mutual hostility rooted in ethnic, religious, and political grievances stretching back to the Assyrian conquest of 722 BC. For a Jewish audience, making a Samaritan the hero was as provocative as it gets. Yet this despised outsider does what the religious insiders will not: he sees, he has compassion (esplanchnisthe – a gut-level, visceral response), he binds wounds, he pours oil and wine (the standard ancient first-aid treatment), he puts the man on his own animal, he takes him to an inn, he pays for his care, and he promises to return and cover any additional costs. The Samaritan’s mercy is not a feeling but an action, not a momentary impulse but a sustained commitment. Jesus’ closing question – “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (v. 36) – reverses the lawyer’s original question. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” – seeking to identify who deserves love. Jesus asks, “Who was a neighbor?” – redefining the question from identifying the deserving recipient to becoming the active agent of mercy. “Go and do likewise” (v. 37) is the parable’s punch line and its demand.

The chapter closes with the visit to Mary and Martha (vv. 38-42). Martha is “distracted with much serving” (periespato peri pollen diakonian) – the word periespato means to be pulled or dragged away. Her complaint is understandable: hosting a guest in the ancient Near East involved elaborate hospitality, and she is doing the hard work alone. But Mary has taken the posture of a disciple, sitting at Jesus’ feet – a phrase that in Jewish culture described a student’s relationship to a rabbi (cf. Acts 22:3, “educated at the feet of Gamaliel”). For a woman to assume this posture was a quiet revolution. Women were not typically accepted as rabbinic students. Martha’s request that Jesus send Mary to help is in keeping with cultural expectations; Jesus’ gentle refusal overturns them. “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (v. 42). This is not a denigration of service but an assertion of priority: before doing for Jesus, one must sit with Jesus. Hearing the word precedes doing the work. And by affirming Mary’s choice, Jesus validates women as full theological learners, welcomed at his feet on equal terms with any male disciple.

Key Themes

• Universal mission – The sending of the Seventy-Two signals that the kingdom of God is not limited to Israel but extends to all nations, fulfilling the promise embedded in Genesis 10’s Table of Nations.
• Mercy without boundaries – The Good Samaritan demolishes every attempt to limit the circle of those who deserve compassion; neighborliness is defined not by proximity or ethnicity but by willingness to act.
• Devotion before service – Mary’s choice to sit at Jesus’ feet establishes the priority of hearing over doing, of being with Jesus before working for Jesus.

Connections

• Old Testament Roots: Genesis 10 (the Table of Nations, symbolized in the 70/72), Deuteronomy 6:5 (love God with all your being), Leviticus 19:18 (love your neighbor as yourself), Numbers 19:11 (corpse impurity laws), Genesis 19:24 (the destruction of Sodom).
• New Testament Echoes: Acts 1:8 (“you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth”), James 2:15-17 (faith without works is dead – the Samaritan’s mercy as lived faith), Galatians 3:28 (no male and female in Christ – Mary welcomed as a disciple).
• Parallel Passages: Matthew 10:1-16 (the sending of the Twelve with similar instructions), John 11:1-5 (Mary and Martha in a later narrative), Luke 9:1-6 (the sending of the Twelve).

Reflection Questions

1. The Seventy-Two returned rejoicing in their spiritual power, and Jesus redirected them to rejoice in their identity. Where in your life are you tempted to define yourself by what you accomplish rather than by who you are to God?
2. The priest and the Levite had legitimate religious reasons for passing by. In what ways might your own commitments to religious duty or institutional obligations blind you to the wounded person in your path?
3. Jesus affirmed Mary’s choice to sit and learn rather than serve. How do you balance the contemplative and active dimensions of your faith, and which do you tend to neglect?

Prayer

Father, you sent your Son not for one tribe but for every nation under heaven. Expand our vision of your harvest and our willingness to be sent into it – vulnerable, dependent, and urgent. Forgive us for the times we have walked past the wounded because our schedules, our purity, or our prejudice told us it was someone else’s problem. Make us Samaritans – people who see, who stop, who bind wounds, who pay the cost. And when the work overwhelms us, draw us back to sit at Jesus’ feet, to listen before we labor, to receive before we give. Through Christ, who welcomed the outsider, praised the foreigner, and made room at his feet for everyone. Amen.