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Monday, April 2, 2018

Jesus Spends a Night in Prayer


Although he is already encountering opposition (Luke 6:11), Jesus is undeterred from his primary mission. So, as Luke writes, “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God” (Luke 6:12).

We soon learn why he sacrificed sleep for prayer—he was ready to choose twelve close companions to be with him for the remainder of his time on earth. The Twelve became Jesus’ inner circle of followers.

Significantly, he also designates the Twelve as “apostles” which comes from a Greek verb meaning “to send.” As The New Bible Dictionary explains: “In the New Testament it [the term apostle] is applied to Jesus as the Sent One of God (Hebrews 3:1), to those sent by God to preach to Israel (Luke 11:49), and to those sent by churches (2 Corinthians 8:23, Philippians 2:25).

“Essential to the understanding of all the Gospels . . . is the choice by Jesus . . . of a group of twelve men whose purpose was to be with Him, to preach, and to have authority to heal and to exorcize (see Mark 3:14).” Luke lists their names:

“Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor” (Luke 6:14-15). As they go down from the mountainside, this group is surrounded by a larger group of disciples and “a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Jesus and to be healed of their diseases” (Luke 6:17).

But before launching into the many challenging topics covered in the remainder of Luke 6, I want to pause to consider the questions posed by N.T. Wright in his discussion of Luke 6: If Jesus comes into our everyday context today:

“What sort of a team is he going to choose? Who is he calling, and to what sort of task? What are his promises and warnings for our world, for people who will hear his call and follow him” (Luke for Everyone, page 72).

Jesus shares his viewpoint in Luke 6:29-49, and the next post will summarize his key points. From the perspective of what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, those verses communicate a thorough description of the ethical life expected of his disciples.