As chapter 9 comes to a close, and chapter 10 begins, the tone of Jesus' life and ministry begins to change. Jesus begins to adopt a sense of urgency in his work and expectations of his followers. He knows his time on earth is growing shorter and shorter; there is so much left to do and precious little time in which to do it.
For a good while, Jesus disciples had been merely following and learning from him. As we see in chapter 10, the followers of Jesus are now empowered to continue in Jesus' ministry. To use modern terms, we could say they went through a process of "leadership development" and were finally commissioned to carry out their work. Their work is important to Jesus; it is laying the groundwork for the future ministry of the Church: carry out Jesus' work where Jesus is not physically present. Luke's acccount of the disciples' report of their work oozes with excitement; Jesus himself tells them they have essentially had a front-row seat to what many have desired to see. This power Jesus gives to his followers has a caveat though: resist the urge to get cocky about what you have seen and done. Their joy should be in their work for the Kingdom of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment