Serving The Lord

Serving the Lord

Luke 10:17-24

Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz

Luke 10:17 Now the seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons

are subject to us in Your name!” 18 And He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from

heaven like lightning. 19 “Behold, I have given you authority to walk on snakes and

scorpions, and authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.

20 “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice

that your names are recorded in heaven.”

Luke 10:21 At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise

You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the

wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for doing so was

well pleasing in Your sight. 22 “All things have been handed over to Me by My

Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is

except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son determines to reveal Him.”

Luke 10:23 Turning to the disciples, He said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see

the things you see; 24 for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the

things that you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things that you hear, and

did not hear them.”

So many times, we forget that the Bible was written by Semitic people over 2000 years

ago. I say this because we must remember that these people wrote differently than what

we learn in school today. We learn the Greek philosophy method of writing and

analyzing writings which started in Plato’s Academy and, through what we call

Hellenism, comes to us today. We are Western thinking people. The people who wrote

the Bible were near Eastern thinking people. We also have to learn what their figures

of speech and what their metaphors were. In addition, knowing the culture of the day

is critical because a lot of information was not written in the Scripture because it was

part of the culture of the day.

With all that said, let’s take a look at Luke chapter 10 verses 17 to 24. When we look at

these verses, we learn that the 72 followers of Jesus were sent out to do his work, which

was to spread the gospel. They came back and reported to Jesus about how well things

went for them. In response to that, Jesus said a few things that are important for us to

understand in the context of his day and of his language.

Jesus said that he watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. This is a metaphor, and

what it means is that Jesus saw that light overtook darkness. Of course, the light is the

gospel of Jesus Christ. Darkness is the gospel of Satan. It is significant for us to

understand that the light of Christ will overcome the darkness of Satan. It sometimes

requires a large effort to make that happen, and it doesn’t always happen immediately.

However, as long as we keep trying to bring Jesus’ words to the world, which is also

meaning bringing his light to the world, one day we will succeed. Even if we don’t fully

succeed, we have been accomplishing the work that Christ place upon us when we

decided to follow him. We are the bearers of the light, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In verse 19 we’re told that Jesus gave authority to his followers to walk on snakes and

scorpions and have authority over all the power of the enemy and that nothing will

injure us. This is also a metaphor, which means that they should not fear anybody or

anything. Healers in Jesus’s time in the near East would carry snakes with them. It was

believed that a person with a fever could be cured by scaring them. So, the healer would

come up to the person lying on their bed or on their mat with a fever, and he would

pull out snakes. People are generally scared of snakes and fear them. The fear of the

snakes would cure the fever because the person would get up and immediately want to

run away from the snakes. Please don’t try to walk on scorpions and snakes!

So, Jesus was saying to his followers that they must have no fear when they go out and

tell the world about the gospel. Even though they knew that there was danger, they did

not fear it. Can we say the same thing today? At the turn-of-the-century, I say the answer

is yes. Today I’m not so sure because there are so many people out there that are anti-