Luke 9:1-6 On the Road, Two-by-Two
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: August 9, 2018 Luke 9:1-6
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
(Understanding the Text) The SDA commentary states that this is the beginning of the third tour of Jesus. It also says that the disciples had probably only been appointed about six months previously in the summer of A.D. 29, so at this point they had had about 1/2 a year of special duties and training. However, not all of the disciples had been following Jesus for equally long periods of time. Peter, Andrew, James, and John had been called to be full-time followers in the spring of A.D. 29 a few months before the official choosing. Peter, John, Andrew, Philip, and Bartholomew had been following Jesus, at least part-time, since the late fall of A.D. 27.
According to Matthew, Jesus sent them out 2 by 2 rather than alone, so He saw the necessity of having two students traveling together to support each other. This would not be true later when they were mature believers and sent out into the world to proclaim the gospel. Then, they would be alone as the teacher, just as Jesus was alone during His time on this earth. However, they were not truly alone at that time because they had learned to trust God and listen to His Spirit. In that way, they were never alone.
(Revelation of God) David Asscherick likes to say that God is a delegator. Here is an example of this. Jesus came looking for leaders to start His new group of Israel. He gathered followers from old Israel and after carefully looking them over and, of course, praying about it, He chose twelve of them to begin a new lineage. Just as Jacob’s original twelve sons were imperfect and had dissension, so too, these twelve men were full of imperfections and dissension. Jesus gave them special training and when He felt they were ready, He gave them special power and authority that Jesus’ other followers did not have. Then He sent these twelve out to be His representatives.
(Understanding the Text) It does not say that they were sent out to proclaim Jesus as Messiah. Instead, it says that they were to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. They were to teach the lessons that Jesus had already been teaching. They were to repeat Jesus’ words. They were to repeat Jesus’ actions by healing and casting out demons wherever they went. Jesus actually gave them a lot of instructions which are recorded in Matthew, but I’ll wait until I read through Matthew to examine those instructions.
Acts speaks of Peter’s ability to heal, and we think of this as a post-Pentecost ability, but Jesus actually gave Peter this ability before He died. In other words, Peter had the gift of healing before He was fully converted. The gifts of the Spirit come before we deserve them. Not that we ever deserve any of the gifts of God, but there is a tendency to think that we get gifts of the Spirit when we have been transformed enough to be seen as good. However, the example of the disciples seems to be that being “good” doesn’t have anything to do with having a spiritual gift. Judas Iscariot was one of these twelve who had the ability to heal and cast out demons.
This was an exercise in trust. Jesus was telling them to just go without any physical preparation. He was not promising them success everywhere since He instructed them about what to do if they were rejected. However, there was an implied promise that their needs would be filled along the way. He was teaching them to trust Him, to deal with other people, to have practice spreading the gospel, and to not react badly when they were rejected. There is that balance between God’s promise that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord and His promise that we would be hated for Jesus’ sake. We have to trust, yet we also have to be careful not to assume that we will only receive goodness and prosperity. Jesus never promised no problems. He promised that we would have what we needed and that even the problems would work for good.
The job they were sent to do was necessary. The harvest was ready, but there were too few workers. Here, Jesus was sending out harvesters to the Jews to make sure His message reached everyone. This was not just training; this was a necessary task that needed to be performed. The twelve disciples succeeded at the task set before them. They were received. They preached the message. They healed. They followed Jesus’ instructions and found that they were able to do all that He had commanded them to do.
(Revelation of God) What was Jesus doing while they were gone? He had at least 70 other men to instruct in the ways of the kingdom of heaven, especially to love Him. He had more people to heal and preach the kingdom to. He had huge crowds of people to deal with. He had Pharisees to distract from what His disciples were doing.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that God will not throw me into a situation without preparing me to meet it. He might throw me into a situation where I was already prepared, but He believes in training and giving support to those He is teaching. He works in different ways with different people depending on the job needed and the person’s personality. The twelve disciples were trained as a social unit and sent out with a partner so that they had lots of social support. John the Baptist was alone training in the desert after his parents died. Each performed his job successfully (except Judas Iscariot, of course). I don’t know which path I am traveling, but in my youth I was given a lot of social interaction with other SDAs. Now, I have interaction, but I am alone as a leader. I did not mean to be a leader; I just meant to follow Jesus without ever turning back or to the side, but I guess that is how you get to be a leader. Teach me to be a good leader and to always point to You rather than myself.