Luke 9:1-6
“Notice what you notice.” Today is Luke’s account of Jesus sending out the twelve apostles – also much shorter than Matthew’s. My Study Bible points to this reading as beginning a new phase in Jesus’ Galilean ministry. In the first phase He travels Galilee with Peter, Andrew, James, and John (see Mark 1:1-20, 29, 35-38). In the second phase He takes all twelve apostles along with Him (Luke 8:1, ff.). Now in this third phase He sends them out two-by-two while He ministers alone (Mt.11:1).
One phrase stands out for me in Luke’s account: And He…gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases (v. 1). In Mark, He…gave them authority over the unclean spirits (Mk. 6:7), while in Matthew He simply says, Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. (Mt. 10:8) Luke’s clarification is in his use of two words together, “power and authority”.
Sometimes it’s hard to separate those two concepts. A police officer has power to enforce the law, but does not have authority outside her jurisdiction. Likewise, this same police officer has authority to enforce the law when she is not in uniform, but if she is in “plain clothes” her power may be substantially diminished. In Luke, Jesus has given the twelve both the power and the authority. The demons cannot challenge the twelve on the basis of the authority on which they are acting and they are certainly powerless to stop them!
As to this “authority”, two incidents come to mind. The first is in Mark 11:27b-28, And as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him, and they said to Him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” Clearly the Jewish leaders were concerned about authority, not wanting their own authority diminished.
The second incident, I offer you in full, from Acts 19:11-16, And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. Authority is important!
Do we not have that same power and authority today? “I believe Lord, help my unbelief!” (Mk. 9:24)
Slava Bohu!