The Commissioning
Luke 9:1-6,10 records what is known as the commissioning of the twelve disciples. In it, Jesus gave them a portion of the Holy Spirit baptism that He had and the authority to act as His agents against the powers of Satan's forces and to heal those who were sick. They were instructed to preach about the kingdom of God.
As for how to comport themselves, Jesus told them to not be burdened down with supplies when they went. Take what was on their backs, and by extension have faith that God would provide for their needs.
He told them to let the Spirit guide them to where they should stay, and to enter there, and stay, and not flit from house to house to prevent them from being accused of gaining goods and favor from many. Jesus knew that wherever the Spirit led them was where they were supposed to be. I'm pretty sure that Jesus realized that just because the Spirit led them somewhere, it didn't mean that things would always go well where they were led. But if the Spirit led them there, then they shouldn't leave until the Spirit gave them leave to do so.
In a like manner, if the Spirit led them somewhere to stay and that individual or family refused them, they should make a point of knocking the dust from their feet to demonstrate that they wanted to take nothing of the person with them - not even the dust on the path to their home.
The reality is that the Spirit is trying to guide each of us to do God's purpose in our lives. We can follow the Spirit or go our own way. But only by following the Spirit will people have a chance to be saved. They certainly won't be saved by following our own inner self.
Satan is going to oppose what we are doing. People who don't want to be saved will still refuse. Jesus gave His disciples power of devils, but the majority of the people are set in their ways and don't need a devil to reject the word of Christ. That was true in Jesus day (as they were primarily preaching to people of the Jewish religion) and it is certainly true today when fewer people identify with any religion and many pick other non Christian faiths.
But if an inroad is given to you - the door is opened - then go through it and stay until the Spirit says it's time to go. You never know if you will be the last voice for Christianity that person will ever hear. But go in the fullness of the Spirit, with the gifts and fruit of the Spirit working through you to be able to not only combat any direct forces of Satan you come across, but to let the power of God be utilized when possible to back up your words with signs following [Mark 16:20].
The disciples went out and visited many towns nearby, doing as Jesus and the Holy Spirit directed, preaching the gospel message and healing people everywhere they went. As they worked in the Spirit, they gave glory to God and preached that the Savior was come. They wouldn't have been preaching the same message that we would preach today, because Jesus was walking with them. He hadn't died and risen from the dead at that point.
With the very apparent miracles that were happening, it would have been clear to everyone that at least the God they both served was working in the lives of those disciples. We need to pray that that same Holy Spirit will work through each and every Christian, and that we will likewise eschew any glory for ourselves but instead turn people to Jesus and God.
When they came back to Jesus presence, they told Jesus all the great things they were doing. It reminds me of kids who have just accomplished something awesome who come and tell their parents what they have done.
Herod's Curiosity
Luke 9:7-9 describes in an interlude that Herod had taken notice of what all was going on in his kingdom. I would suspect that with the number of healings and miracles that it would be just about impossible to hide such a thing from a political leader. Since they were under Roman occupation, word of anything going on that was unusual would probably filter quickly back to government headquarters.
What Herod was hearing was that John had come back from the dead or that Elijah or some other old testament prophet had been resurrected instead. Herod wanted to know what was going on. When verse 10 from above describes the reaction of Jesus to the disciples success, it may seem muted. But the reality was probably that due to Herod's inquests, Jesus wanted to help protect His people at this early point in His ministry, so he took them away from where Herod was poking around to keep them safe.
Feeding of 5,000+
Luke 9:11-17 describes what happened next. The people, having seen such great things happening in their very eyes were unwilling to allow Jesus to escape from their sight. They might have doubts about who He was, but it was clear that God was working through both Jesus and the disciples, and something like that hadn't happened to the Jewish people for roughly four centuries.
Think about how long it has been since then. I want to be clear that God is working in people's lives every day, somewhere in the world. But even in our modern age, if you aren't right there, you probably won't hear about it.
A missionary from Argentina just last week told about how God led several churches in an area in America to get together a sum of money to provide for a new church plant in northwest Argentina. The amount was large, but just sufficient to purchase the warehouse the local church was renting, after the owner dropped the price by almost much more than the final purchase price.
God is at work, every day. But that work is spread out over one billion Christians spread around the world. It isn't nearly as concentrated as it was in the area of Israel a couple of millennia ago. What would the impact be of concentrated work of God in an area today? Let's find out! God hasn't changed, after all.
In this case, the people sought out Jesus. He continued to preach His gospel message, talking about the kingdom of God. Although the text of many of these daily sermons isn't included often, they are probably similar to the messages recorded as the sermon on the mount and the sermon on the plain. Jesus told people how He expects them to live and that was much different than human nature or even their beloved Jewish faith. It expected more of them. It was also probably much different than what the zealots wanted who wanted Rome overthrown.
This message was backed up with God working through the Holy Spirit and Jesus to heal anybody with a physical or other need. It's hard to argue with the message when God is obviously blessing the messenger. We need to realize that our words today would also go much farther in convincing people of God's truths if we were backing up the words with power [Acts 1:7-8].
The day was almost done, but the people hadn't eaten, and the disciples told Jesus to send the people away to nearby towns to stay and get food because there wasn't anything to eat in the desert area where they were. Jesus told them to give them something to eat, and they replied that they only had five loaves and two fishes which wouldn't be enough unless they went to buy food themselves, probably rightly pointing out they didn't have that kind of money at their disposal either.
Jesus told them to have the people sit down in groups of fifty, He blessed the food, and they passed out food, and when it was all done, they picked up twelve baskets full of scraps left over. The number fed was listed at five thousand men (along with women and children). That was an awesome miracle.
At our church food pantry one year, it was decided to give out holiday hams, one per family who arrived. The church bought the expected number of hams, and they were stored in freezers in preparation. When the day came to pass out the hams to the families to came to the food bank that day, there were many more families than expected who showed up. But every time the workers went to get another tray of hams, there was one there. When they were all done, there were still hams left over. God supplied the need, over and above what the funds had purchased.
He's still in the miracle business. But there weren't multiple video cameras monitoring everything, so the miracles is just as unacceptable to non-believers today as reading this account in Luke is. And this instance is no more miraculous than the testimony of another church family that was out of food due to desperate times and opened their door on Sunday morning to find someone had been moved to leave a bag of groceries on their step that day. That God can let someone know of a need and that person will respond is just as big a miracle today as the multiplying hams or the fish and loaves were. Have faith!
Who is Jesus?
Later, in Luke 9:18-27, Jesus was praying with the disciples, and He asks them what the people were saying about Him. Clearly, He had just moved His ministry because the Holy Spirit warned Him about Herod, and He probably wanted to know both why that had been necessary, and what the effect of all of His preaching and works of the Spirit were on His countrymen.
As earlier, they tell Jesus that some people feel that He was John the Baptist raised from the dead or Elijah or a prophet. Since He had seen with John the Baptist, I'm really not sure how that particular rumor ever got started, but Satan isn't particular about bending what people say.
Jesus then wants to know what His disciples think. Peter pipes up and says Jesus is the Christ that was foretold in the Old Testament. Jesus tells them right out to not bandy that about. He then tells them that He will suffer much, be rejected by the Jewish elders, killed, and then will rise from the dead. People tend to forget unpleasant things they don't want to hear, and it seems that the disciples forget this prophecy as well until later when they were recording Jesus life for the gospels. But there were multiple times when Jesus let them know exactly what was going to happen to Him.
He goes on to warn them that following Him would be a difficult path. Seeking to save their own lives would lead them away from Him, and ultimately cause them to suffer eternal loss. Those who choose to give up their lives for Jesus' sake would be blessed with eternal life. He then challenges them to ask themselves whether an eternity with God was better or worse than getting all of the blessings the world has to offer.
That same question is still true today. There are people in the world who seem to have it all. But if they have it all at the cost of rejecting Christ, then they will suffer eternity in hell, away from God. Christians look on those who seem successful with envy sometimes, but we shouldn't do so. Being saved is vastly more important, no matter how good or bad your life is on this earth. You may live a few years or may live to be over one hundred years. No matter how long you live and how successful you are, if you die with out accepting Christ as your Savior, repenting, and accepting God's gift of salvation in grace by faith, eternity is a much longer time. Choose Christ.
Christ goes on to warn that those who are ashamed of Jesus and His words would find that Jesus was ashamed of them when Jesus was lifted up in glory. That message is still true today. When you are with you friends, do you laugh at jokes that are against Christ? Do you take the opportunity to stand up for Jesus Christ when you see or hear something done or said that is wrong or do you try to blend into the wall or act like tearing down Christianity is okay? It's easy to not be ashamed of Christ if all that means is going to church when all of your friends are sleeping off being drunk the night before. But if you don't stand for your Christianity when it counts, that comes pretty close to being ashamed. It's a warning we all should heed.
Transfiguration
Luke 9:28-36 then gives Luke's account of the transfiguration. Peter, John, James, and Jesus go up to a mountain to pray. While there, Moses and Elijah come from the paradise compartment of sheol in Moses' case or heaven in Elijah's case to speak with Jesus. Moses had died, but Elijah and Enoch were taken to heaven directly, awaiting their death as the two witnesses during the tribulation.
Jesus looks different and his clothes became the whitest white and sparkled. The Old Testament people were there to guide Jesus about what was going to happen in Jerusalem.
The three disciples had fallen asleep as they were tired. When the woke up, they saw Jesus and the two men. They offered to make three tabernacles, one for each of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. As they said that, a cloud came down, and a voice came out of the cloud declaring that they should listen to Jesus, His beloved Son.
When the cloud left, Moses and Elijah were gone. They didn't talk about what they had heard and seen. Other accounts tell that they were told not to [Matthew 17:9]. And it is important to note, I think, that it was when the disciples wanted to make monuments to the three figures that the cloud came down to announce that they should be paying attention to Jesus and when the cloud left, Moses and Elijah were gone.
It wasn't Jesus time to be glorified. He had work to do, the description of which the disciples had slept through. He was the Christ, so far above Moses and Elijah that there was no comparison. To think that any earthly minister, leader, or prophet should have people building tabernacles to them instead of giving glory to Jesus should be considered shocking.
It does show just how high a regard the Jewish people had for particular Old Testament figures. Moses and Elijah were way up there on their VIP list. And regardless of Peter's declaration about who Christ was, it still doesn't seem to be part of Peter's complete mental picture if he equated Christ with Moses and Elijah.
On Faith and Demon Possession
Luke 9:37-45 tells of the events of the next day. After coming down, again many people met Jesus and a particular man brought his son who was struggling with demon possession. The spirit would cause the child to cry out suddenly and was causing the child to be self injured. He had brought the child to the disciples who hadn't accompanied Jesus up to the mountain, but they couldn't do anything for the child.
Jesus chastises them, declaring them to be faithless and perverse. He asks how long He would be with them and suffer them. He then tells the man to bring the child and after rebuking the unclean spirit, the child was healed and returned to the father. They were amazed at the might power of God.
As I've mentioned before, the subject of faith is near and dear to Jesus. The Holy Spirit has other New Testament writers address faith as well. It seems to me that the comments of Jesus are primarily aimed at the people, and possibly not at the disciples who were left behind. But the question persists to our generation. Where's our faith?
I'll be the first to admit that the Bible doesn't record the details about what most of the healings that Jesus performed were. But I'd be willing to bet that they covered both small and big things. After all, if there is someone healing in the nearby meadow with 100% success, wouldn't you go no matter how big or small your problem was? I'll bet you would. So their faith was built up by seeing God take care of everything through Jesus and the Spirit.
In our day, we don't go to God about little things. And since there are over a billion Christians today, maybe God thinks that is a good thing. But since modern medicine can fix lots, perhaps not cheaply, but at least easily, we don't build up our faith with little things. We take an aspirin. We buy glasses or contacts. We buy hearing aids. But we rarely go to God for little things. Our faith isn't built up over time. Then we have a heart attack or stroke or become paralyzed or get cancer, and all of a sudden we need a big healing with little faith.
We need to pray that testimonies will flow of what God is doing for others today, just as we read about what God has done for His people in the past. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. His promises are yea, and amen. But He is still God and does things according to His plans. Everyone wasn't healed, just because Jesus was born. But all who came, in faith, had their needs met. Sometimes, like the woman with the issue of blood, it didn't even require any act or words on Jesus part. She just touched His robe in faith. Oh that we could see those levels of faith in people today! Pray for that gift of the Spirit to be yours. It is just as important as the other gifts.
After this, He again tried to warn His disciples that He wouldn't be with them forever. He was warning them about the lack of faith in the generation they lived in for a reason. Soon, He would be gone, and until the Holy Spirit was poured out in fullness on the church in Acts 2, they would be more at risk. But they didn't want to hear what He was saying. They didn't have faith that the Holy Spirit would work through them the way He worked through Jesus, so the thought of losing Jesus wasn't something they could consider.
We need to realize that the Holy Spirit was given to give us the same power to work that Jesus had [Acts 1:7-8]. Jesus Himself declared that because He was returning to heaven, we would do greater things than He was able to do while He was on earth [John 14:12]. Put your faith in Christ's promises. Believe!
Who's Best and Unity
Luke 9:46-50 shows the humanity of the disciples. It seems that whenever two or more are gathered together... if enough time together passes until they know each others foibles well, people will start to ask themselves which one is best or dominant. Sometimes it breaks down into minor questions of who's best at X. In modern day, it might be who's the best singer or worship leader? Who's the best preacher? Who's the best teacher? Who's the best worker? And so on and so on.
Jesus knew their thoughts, and He took a child and challenged them that whosoever would agree to taking on the responsibilities of training up that child in they way that the child should go, in the fear and admonition of God and as a disciple of Christ would be like receiving Christ himself, and by extension God. Those that take on the simple but important things, even though there may be no honor or glory in them, that person is great in the kingdom of heaven.
John goes on to mention that a person who wasn't traveling with the disciples was casting out devils in the name of Jesus, and the disciples took it upon themselves to forbid the person from doing it because they weren't part of the tribe.
Jesus told the disciples to not do that. If someone wasn't against their ministry, they were for it. If only the churches of today could get that concept through their heads. Many denominations have problems. I'd go so far as to say that all denominations and branches of Christianity, along with independent churches can have problems from time to time. But it doesn't do any good to tear them down.
We should instead do our best to live out our own lives in the fullness of the Spirit to the best of our abilities, and if we are perceived as a good example to some other Christian, then maybe they could ask for how we are the way we are, and we could all get more Christ like. He is to be our example. If we look at each other, we will eventually see something that we have a problem with. But our goal is to be like Christ was as He toured the earth. We will never be Him. He was unique. But we should all strive to be like Him.
Don't tear down other believers who are preaching the name of Jesus if God is blessing their ministry. I think that is key here. God was working through the unnamed person and casting out demons. The person wasn't doing it on their own. God was working through them. The old saying that goes like "A person who's saying something cannot be done should never get in the way of the person who is doing it" applies. If God is working through your group with the power of the Spirit and He starts working through another person or group as well, give God praise. He's doing the work anyway.
Finally, in Luke 9:51-56, when it was time for Jesus to be received up, He determined to head to Jerusalem. In planning His stays, Jesus sent messengers to a town in Samaria to inquire about lodging, but they refused Him as it was apparent that He was planning to just pass through on His way to Jerusalem and they wanted Jesus to stay. James and John were ready to call fire down from heaven to consume them like Elijah had done.
Jesus rebukes them and tells them that His purpose on earth is to save people and not to destroy people. This passage of scripture doesn't get enough attention today. There are people all around us who are doing things that we don't think should be done. We just went through midterm elections here, and depending on which party you favor, the results either made you happy or mad. If you're in the former category, pray that the politicians will all listen to God and do something good for the country for a change (and I say that as little good has been done through many parties having time in power). But if you are in the latter camp, don't pray for the other party to be destroyed. Again, pray for the politicians to listen to God for a change. The solution isn't destruction. It's for God to change lives.
That concept could be pursued in so many ways in the Christian world today. Pray for people to change. Don't pray for their destruction. That was what Jesus asked of the disciples. It's the same thing He asks of us. Thoughts of destruction come from spirits that aren't from God. He reserves judgment to Himself. We aren't to judge.
The Cost of Discipleship
In the last part of the chapter [Luke 9:57-62], Christ warns about the true cost of discipleship. A man came up to Jesus and told Him that he was ready to follow Jesus wherever Jesus went. Jesus replied that Jesus had no permanent dwelling place on earth. Foxes had dens. Birds have nests. Not so with Jesus. It seems that this wasn't what the man wanted to hear. He had a domicile that he was happy with. That is something that every Christian must face. If you are called to be a missionary, you will have to leave everything behind and make a home in another land. That home may never be more than temporary as you move from city to city. The calling is hard. Even for pastors, you may be called to pull up stakes and move to another city where God needs you. The work isn't for everyone.
Jesus called out to another that that person should become a disciple/ But that person claimed family obligations of burying the person's father. Jesus told the man to not worry about the dead. Let those who were dead spiritually bury his father, but that this man who wasn't dead spiritually but was someone Christ saw good characteristics in should go and preach the kingdom message. Whether or not the person changed their mind isn't stated here
Another wanted to follow Jesus after saying goodbye to his family. But Jesus declared that nobody who committed to plowing God's field was worth anything if they kept tied to their roots at home. I imagine that isn't a particularly comforting verse for pastors who spend a lot of time with family (either locally or taking multiple vacations a year to visit family). But it is what Jesus said, nonetheless.
For me, this seems to be my plow. But even though the way isn't rocky - it isn't particularly hard to write these chapter commentaries and keeping the site running isn't super hard - it's still easy to get distracted by family, work, or other amusements. No matter what your position is in Christ's kingdom, He has something for you to do. You have a field in front of you. He wants you to grab hold of that plow and start plowing, and not look to the left or right, but plow a straight furrow. Good luck and God speed!