The seventy-two and the good Samaritan: the kingdom comes near and neighbors are redefined

Luke 10 belongs to the long travel section that begins when Jesus resolutely sets out for Jerusalem (9:51) and runs to 19:27. Much of the material in this section is found only in Luke, including the mission of the seventy-two, the parable of the good Samaritan and the story of Martha and Mary. For the author, date and audience, see the class on Luke 1 and 2: tradition names Luke, the physician and Paul's companion; scholars propose dates from the early 60s to the 80s; and the Gospel is addressed to Theophilus, probably a Gentile of standing.

The immediate context matters. In 9:51-56 a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus because he was heading for Jerusalem, and James and John wanted to call down fire on it. Jesus rebuked them. The Samaritans were a people of mixed descent in the territory between Judea and Galilee, who had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and accepted only the first five books of Moses. The hostility between Jews and Samaritans was long and bitter (compare John 4:9). A Jewish audience in the first century would have found a Samaritan hero in a story shocking.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho descends steeply for roughly seventeen miles through a rocky wilderness and was known as a place where travelers could be ambushed. Many priests and Levites are thought to have lived in Jericho and served in rotation at the temple in Jerusalem, so a priest and a Levite travelling away from the temple would have been a natural pairing. Chorazin and Bethsaida, with Capernaum, were towns on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee where much of Jesus' Galilean ministry had taken place, and they are named in the woes of verses 13-15.

The chapter is narrative with teaching and one famous parable, and it is held together by a sequence of themes: the mission and message of the kingdom, the revelation of the Father through the Son, and the two great commands. The final two scenes are linked. In 10:27 the lawyer gives the two commands, love of God with all one's heart and love of one's neighbor as oneself, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The Samaritan illustrates the second, and Mary at Jesus' feet the first. Reading the two stories together makes sense of why Luke places them side by side.

A parable has a main point set by its context. Here the context is plain: the lawyer asked, 'Who is my neighbor?' and Jesus ends by asking who proved to be a neighbor. The story turns the question around. The question was about the limits of obligation, and the story is about the kind of person who acts. That is the controlling meaning. Many church fathers, among them Origen and Augustine, read the parable allegorically, with the wounded man as Adam, the robbers as the powers of evil, the Samaritan as Christ and the inn as the church. This reading has long been used in preaching, but the text itself gives no key to it, and most modern interpreters treat it as a later meditation and not as the parable's intended meaning.

The genre of the chapter's first half is mission instruction. Its details, such as no purse, no sandals and no greetings on the road, are rules for a particular urgent task and not a standing policy. Interpreters ask what the commands meant to the seventy-two, and what they show about the speed and dependence of the kingdom's coming.

Verses 1–12

Jesus appoints seventy-two others (some manuscripts read seventy) and sends them in pairs ahead of him to every town he was about to visit. The number may recall the seventy elders on whom God put his Spirit in Numbers 11:16-17, 24-25, or the seventy nations listed in Genesis 10, which the Greek Old Testament is often counted as listing as seventy-two. The second connection fits Luke's wider concern for the nations, though Luke does not say which he intends. The harvest is plentiful and the laborers few, and they are to pray for more. They go as lambs among wolves. They take no purse, bag or sandals and greet no one on the road, a command about speed, since Eastern greetings could be long. In each house they first speak peace; if a son of peace is there, peace rests on it. They remain in that house, eat what is set before them, heal the sick, and say that the kingdom of God has come near. Where a town does not receive them, they leave and wipe off its dust but say the same thing: the kingdom of God has come near. It will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

Verses 13–16

Jesus pronounces woes on Chorazin and Bethsaida, which had seen mighty works. If those had been done in Tyre and Sidon, he says, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Tyre and Sidon were Phoenician cities condemned by the prophets (Isaiah 23; Ezekiel 26-28). Capernaum, exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. The closing principle is that whoever listens to the seventy-two listens to Jesus, and whoever rejects them rejects him and the One who sent him.

Verses 17–20

The seventy-two return with joy: even the demons submit in his name. Jesus says he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, a way of saying that the kingdom's advance is Satan's defeat. He has given them authority to tread on snakes and scorpions (compare Psalm 91:13), and over all the power of the enemy. But their joy should rest elsewhere: their names are written in heaven, a phrase that recalls the book of the living in Exodus 32:32 and Daniel 12:1.

Verses 21–24

At that moment Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit and praises the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the wise and learned and revealing them to little children. He says that all things have been handed to him by his Father, and that no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Turning to the disciples privately, he says that blessed are the eyes that see what they see, for many prophets and kings wished to see it and did not.

Verses 25–37

An expert in the law stands to test Jesus: what must he do to inherit eternal life? Jesus asks him what the Law says, and he answers with the two commands. Jesus tells him to do this and he will live. Wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asks who his neighbor is. Jesus tells of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who falls among robbers, who strip and beat him and leave him half dead. A priest sees him and passes by on the other side. A Levite does the same. A Samaritan travelling the road sees him and is moved with compassion. The verb (splagchnizomai) is a strong word for being moved in the gut. He goes to him, binds his wounds with oil and wine, sets him on his own animal, takes him to an inn and pays two denarii, about two days' wages, promising to repay whatever more is spent. Jesus asks which of the three proved to be a neighbor, and the lawyer, who does not say the word Samaritan, answers that it was the one who showed mercy. Jesus says, 'Go and do likewise.'

Verses 38–42

In a village, Martha welcomes Jesus into her home. Her sister Mary sits at the Lord's feet and listens to his word. To sit at a teacher's feet was the posture of a disciple (compare Acts 22:3), and it was unusual for a woman to take it. Martha is distracted with much serving and asks Jesus to tell Mary to help. He says, 'Martha, Martha,' and tells her that she is anxious about many things but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her. Some manuscripts read 'few things are necessary, or only one', and the text is uncertain.

Luke 10 holds together the proclamation of the kingdom and the practice of love. The kingdom is announced by sent messengers, and its coming is both a gift and a judgment, as the woes show. Satan's fall in verse 18 is a statement that the powers of evil are being overthrown, a theme that runs through the Gospels and into Romans 16:20 and Revelation 12. The warning that joy should rest on names written in heaven teaches that salvation is a gift of God, not an achievement of ministry.

Verses 21-22 are an important passage for the doctrine of Christ and the Father. The Son is the one who knows the Father and who reveals him, with a mutual knowledge that no other person shares. This sounds like John (compare John 10:15; 14:9), and it shows that the high view of Christ is not confined to the fourth Gospel. The two commands that sum up the Law (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18) are the core of Old Testament ethics, and the parable shows that love of neighbor crosses boundaries of nation and religion. Salvation by grace and the life of mercy are connected: the lawyer's 'do this and live' sets out what the Law requires, and the story shows what such love looks like in practice. The Pauline teaching on justification by faith (Romans 3 to 5) adds that no one fully does it, a point that Luke 10 does not state but that later Scripture makes clear.

In this chapter Jesus claims a unique place in the knowledge of God. The Father has handed all things to him, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son wills to reveal him. This is a claim to a unique divine sonship, and it is spoken at a moment of joy in the Spirit. The disciples see what prophets and kings had longed to see (compare 1 Peter 1:10-12). Their mission fulfils the Old Testament promise of a harvest of the nations and echoes the shape of Numbers 11, where Moses is helped by seventy others who share the Spirit. The echo is best taken as suggestive, since Luke does not draw it explicitly. The sending of the seventy-two also shows Jesus doing what only the LORD does: sending his own messengers and being heard in their voice.

The parable of the Samaritan is not a christological parable in intent, but readers have long found Christ in it. The fathers' allegory sees Christ as the one who found humanity wounded on the road and cared for it at his own cost. As noted, the text itself does not give that key. The safer christological point is that the story is told by the One who showed this very mercy, in Luke's own telling, to the outcasts of Israel, and who will go to Jerusalem at the end of this journey. Martha and Mary show the right response to him: Mary chooses to hear his word, and Jesus defends her choice. The one who teaches is the Lord to whose feet Mary comes.