Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
Based on verses 5 and 6, I’d say the application of this passage is aimed at the Church, not the world in general. And…just like Jesus…he tells us to pray for workers for the harvest and then proceeds to tell us what it will look like (to be one of those workers) …if we’re interested.
The first think that piques my interest is the message…‘The kingdom of heaven has come near,’ a phrase that appears primarily in Matthew and corresponds to the phrase “Kingdom of God” in the other gospels (perhaps because devout Jews were loath to utter the name of God and Matthew did not want to unnecessarily offend them).
The Old Testament Book of Daniel probably gives us the clearest picture of what listeners in Jesus’ day would understand by the term. In Daniel 2, the author is explaining the meaning of a dream to the monarch (an image of gold, silver, iron and clay had seen shattered by a stone cut out without hands). Daniel says this is a succession of world-kingdoms, destined to be destroyed by "a kingdom of God," which shall last forever; and, in his famous vision of the "son of man" in 7:14, it is said, "There was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." A clear understanding…for Jesus’ audience is…that God will restore the nation of Israel to their land. The Kingdom of God was expressly promised to King David, because he was a man "after God's own heart."
This was a very easy sell in the beginning. We can understand why…
It soon became clear that Jesus and His contemporaries were using the phrase in different ways. The difference cannot better be expressed than by saying, as is done by B. Weiss, that He and they laid the accent on different halves of the phrase, they emphasizing "the kingdom" and He "of God." They were thinking of the expulsion of the Romans, of a Jewish king and court, and of a world-wide dominion going forth from Mt. Zion; He was thinking of righteousness, holiness and peace, of the doing of the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven. http://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/kingdom-of-god-of-heaven-the.html
The Jewish community clung to their own understanding and grew more and more bitter against Jesus. We all recall how that dispute ended.
It probably explains why Jesus endowed them with power to drive out impure spirits (spiritual healing) and to heal every disease and sickness (physical healing), the very tools Jesus himself was using as a means of demonstrating his power and authority to proclaim this message.
As I suggested yesterday, it’s not complicated, but very difficult. Maybe because the tools (miracles) have been misplaced while the message (righteousness, holiness and godly obedience) has been obscured.
Live boldly out there today…
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