Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: Gospel, Luke 10:1-20                                 

Luke 10:1-20

A strange title? Perhaps. The Word carries? Like a suitcase carries? The Word carries? On the wings of the wind? Just what does this title mean?

Here’s the gist this morning, or whenever you’re reading this: the Word carries authority. God’s authority. The nations must hear the Word of God. And Jesus instructs His disciples (an extended number of them here), that they are to carry His Word with no concern regarding provisions or safety. Receive from those who receive your message. Reject those who reject. But even those must know and hear that the Kingdom of God has come near them.

“The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). The Word carries authority. The very authority of God through the Son of God. When He speaks we dare not turn away for His is the only authority that matters in the end. And the end is the point. For Jesus goes on to tell His followers that even if they see the manifestation of other men bowing to the Word, and the authority it carries, the real point of their Word-bearing is to realize that the Word has done its work in them.

Just a thought: I believe that the impetus for us to share the gospel is bound up in the fact that we have tasted its sweetness. When you taste a great apple don’t you just want to share that flavor? A great desert? A glass of fine wine? May we grow in our desire to share the Word. The Word of God, in all its sweet, divine authority.