Unshaken: Chapter a Day

Luke 10 Discussion

• Pastor Plek

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Start with the harvest and end with the living room: Luke 10 takes us from crowded roads to a quiet seat at Jesus’ feet, and everything in between. We trace the sending of the seventy-two, the shock of unrepentant cities, the thrill of spiritual authority, and the surprising correction that our deepest joy is not power but belonging—names written in heaven.

We break down why Jesus tells workers to travel light, rely on hospitality, and shake off rejection without losing heart. Then we press into the Good Samaritan, moving beyond platitudes to the hard edges of neighbor love: risk, time, money, and follow-through. The Samaritan is not a mascot for niceness; he is a model for mercy that crosses prejudice and pays the bill. Along the way, we challenge the ways ritual or personal “purity” can mask a failure to love, and we ask what it means to show compassion that is specific, accountable, and costly.

Finally, we sit with Mary and Martha. Martha’s serving isn’t the problem; her anxious, resentful heart is. Mary’s quiet choice exposes a better order: listen, then serve. We connect this to modern ministry rhythms—how volunteers burn out, why leaders must protect spaces to receive the word, and how joy returns when worship fuels work. Ordinary people carry real authority to proclaim good news and seek healing, but our lasting celebration is adoption, not achievement.

If this conversation helps you reframe mission, mercy, and margin, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review with your favorite takeaway so others can find it too. Where do you need to sit, and where do you need to cross the road this week?

Text us at 737-231-0605 with any questions.

Pastor Plek:

And welcome back to a chapter a day. Keeps the devil away. I'm Pastor Pleg, along with Jordan Smith. We're gonna be talking Luke chapter 10, and we're gonna outline it. We're gonna find some observations. We're gonna make some interpretations, and finally we're gonna lay down what we might apply today using the acronym SPEC, which is send avoid, promise, claim, example follow, command to obey, knowledge to believe. All right, let's look at Luke chapter 10. We start out in verses 1 through 12. Jesus sends out the 72. Last chapter was sending out the 12. Now he sends the 72, and they uh rely on hospitality without excess baggage, shaking the dust off their feet from unwelcoming towns. Then after all that, we have the woe of unrepentant cities. Jesus pronounces judgment on Corazine, Beth Seda, and Capernaum for rejecting his miracles, saying it's worse than Sodom and Tyre. All right, how about then we move to verses 70 through 24. The 72 return, and they are just so fired up that even demons were cast out in his name. And Jesus was like, hey, check it out. Don't rejoice for that, but your name is written in heaven. And then verses 25 through 37, uh, the parable of the Good Samaritan, uh, a lawyer tests Jesus and then really wants to know who is his neighbor? Do I really have to love everybody? And Jesus lets him know how he can go and do likewise. And then finally, in verses 38 through 42, the classic story of Mary and Martha, and Martha who is anxious and she's working and she's fired up at her sister for not helping. And she goes to Jesus to arbitrate, and he's like, You're missing the whole point. All right. So uh let's uh get into some observations. Jordan, what did you see in this text?

Jordan Smith:

Many things. Uh, the first thing, the first thought I had was when it says he chose 72, right? Yeah. I mean, in my mind, I'm thinking of like, you know, in in the school when you're getting picked for the basketball team or whatever, he's just kind of pointing out, like, all right, I'll take you, you, the rest of you, you know. Sorry about that. Sucks to suck. Okay. All right. Yeah. Why, why did why was it limited to 72? Well, I'm just I'm just trying to imagine myself as in that crowd. As a 73rd guy, yeah, or something like that. I mean, I I personally remembered not getting picked until last. Man. Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

I you know, I bet you it was the 72 who were there, might have been the only ones who wanted to be picked, so it kind of worked out that way too. So that's a positive interpretation. Uh, I do appreciate that that observation, though. All right.

Jordan Smith:

Well, what else is what I like that? What else you got? Uh, when it's talking about the laborers or few, I'm curious, is that evangelism specifically, or could it also be like Christians going out and loving and serving people?

Pastor Plek:

Well, this is specifically an evangelism verse. They're looking for more workers. Uh-huh. So you're not going to find more workers from the Christians you already have. That's not like a, hey, go round up the Christians. We already have them and sitting on their butt doing nothing, get them to go work. That's, hey, let's go and reach people who are far from God. Because the assumption is that if you're a Christian, you're going to be sharing the hope. It's like, it's like one in the same. Now, granted, somehow in our day and age, we sort of separated the Christian life from the Christian, but in this initial spot space, they're like, listen, the labors, if once you become a Christian, you are now a laborer, you've been comforted in your soul to then go deny yourself and follow Jesus. And so that's kind of like this real sense of like, we need more labors because there's a bunch of people that need to be saved, and we need to go send people to work the harvest.

Jordan Smith:

I thought it was cool when they returned, it specifically says they returned with joy.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah.

Jordan Smith:

It's very I don't know. What do you think about that?

Pastor Plek:

I think whenever you go do the Lord's work, even if you get rejected, this is what's wild about it. I mean, like the best stories are the ones where you're like, and then we told them about Jesus, and he said, get away from me. You know, like it's not, it's not like you're you're not like, yay, but it's like the you got to be in on whatever the Lord is doing. And then they got to see real miracles happen. Anytime you get to see a real miracle happen, you're like fired up. And that's exciting. And then also coming back, because they went two by two. And so there's you know, 36 different groups, they all come back and they all had similar experiences. What is really wild about the Christian life is that there's so many people that are living alongside you that you don't even know are having the same struggles, same things, which is why it's so important to get together and talk about what the Lord has been doing.

Jordan Smith:

That's good. Uh, when he's talking about the story with the lawyer, um, and about just the different people ignoring the guy on the side of the road. I'm curious, does Samaritan in that example mean like because they were a lower class, right?

Pastor Plek:

Samaritan's not necessarily a lower class. It's more of like they were not, it's it's like a different country. Like those are the people on the other side of the tracks, not lower class necessarily, but like they consider them less than them because they were syncretists, which meant that they um believed in Yahweh, but they also believed in all the other gods, kind of the pantheon of gods. And so they're worshiping all every they're on everybody's team.

Jordan Smith:

Okay. Because that's how you know, like Samaritan meant like us as Christians and being the marginalized group, something like that. Is there any truth in that?

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, I mean, those are the people that you don't want to go talk to. As a as a Jew, you wouldn't be caught dead with Samaritan because they are in your eyes less than you, although to the Romans they're all the same. Does that make sense?

Jordan Smith:

Yeah, so what does it mean to you that Jesus chose the Samaritan to be the one to actually serve and love that guy?

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, he's he's making the point. Like the one, like yours they were like, who is my neighbor? The question was, who is my neighbor? And the guy was trying to justify himself. Like, in other words, hey, I love God, I love I but he wanted to be neighborly to those who are neighborly to him. And what Jesus is saying, go be the one who's neighborly to the person that he would normally intentionally marginalize. Gotcha. So uh the normal reaction of the Samaritans from Luke 9 was to reject Jesus, kick him out. In fact, they wanted them to go all the way around their village, they wouldn't even let them go into town. They're like, oh, Jews? We don't do Jews, they were the original anti-Semites, anti-Semites. Like they were, they would have been thrilled with Nazis. They're like, yeah, kick them out. And so they make them go around, and then Jesus uses that guy as the one that's compassionate towards a Jewish person. It's blowing everybody's, you know, preconceived ideas of what a person is like. He says, like, go and be like that Samaritan, go and be a person that doesn't look at cultural distinctions as the thing that makes you a part of me. Look at other people as human beings and go and love and serve them.

Jordan Smith:

Yeah. The last observation I had written down was uh when Martha's serving and just Jesus shutting her down because she had a wrong heart behind it. Yeah. I love that one.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, and I appreciate that Jesus does shut her down. Um, because he could easily say, you know, Mary, you know, you have been slacking recently and Martha is doing all the work, but he's emphasizing the better thing is sitting and listening to Jesus. Jesus doesn't need anyone to cook for him, he can make meals appear out of nowhere. And I think what happens is if you are motivated to serve Jesus and then you get angry at those who are sitting and listening, you've missed the whole point. You are serving so that people can listen. And then all of a sudden you want to take every way everybody away from listening so they can do more serving, then no one's hearing the word of God. And so this is what gets back to honestly, this is a this is an interpretation into an application, is that we are called to worship and serve. So on a Sunday morning, if you find yourself serving in children's ministry only, but not going and sitting to hear the word of God, I would say that's a big red flag. You've now become Martha and you're more worried about um serving and you're you're four other people who are sitting and and and hearing, but the better thing is hearing and listening. So make sure if you only do one of those two things, don't serve, hear, because that's the one thing that's going to motivate you to go and serve ultimately, and you won't get burnt out in your serving if you're hearing, which is clearly what Martha did. She got burnt out and got angry. I want these people help me. And if you've ever run into a person who sort of looks around and wants to know what everybody else is doing with their time and why aren't they helping, why aren't they caring? And they kind of need to be justified to them what the other people are doing, then that reveals a hard issue if they need more worship.

Jordan Smith:

Yeah, I have a something that popped into my mind when you're talking about that about uh, you know, she's serving so others can listen. Yeah. I'm an anecdote kind of applied to that, but this last children's camping trip we went on. Uh, me and Liz Mitchell, we served, uh, you know, did all the cooking, all that stuff. And she and I were talking later, and she made the comment of like, because I mean, neither of us have kids. Right. So, but she's like, I choose to serve these so that all the other families can have the time to you know build that community and everything. And I thought that was just a really good perspective. Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

And when you find joy in that, then that's where your serving is worshipful. When you sort of get angry at everybody else sitting and listening, then your service is self-serving. Yeah. Anyway, that's that's a great point. Okay, so let's get into some other interpretations. Um, how about this? Uh, God entrusts authority and mission to ordinary people. I mean, 72. I don't know how well these guys were vetted, uh, but there is 72 of them. And he's just kicked them, so they must have been vetted decently. He did call them to himself. And so he is omniscient, so he did probably do a vetting process of whatever it was, but he empowered them to advance his kingdom through healing and proclamation, which I thought was wild. Um it makes me think we need to have more healing ministries of some sort. To be fair, whenever we ask uh people to come up after church for the elders to anoint them with oil to be healed, we always have a full row of people, and it it actually takes about 30, 45 minutes to get through everybody, which is kind of exciting.

Jordan Smith:

How does that process like in your heart? What does that do for you when we when you're anointing people with oil?

Pastor Plek:

You're just like, I feel like I get to serve the Lord and be a part of this person's healing. It's kind of wild. Yeah, especially because you can't see anything happening right there, but then they come back later and like, hey, it worked. And you're like, I didn't feel any power go out for me. All right, how about this? For uh also uh nature of man, people erect barriers of prejudice and self-justification, like the lawyer testing Jesus, you know, and and in the story, the the priest, the Levite ignoring suffering due to ritual purity concerns. Because we all know that there is a moral law and a ceremonial law, but the ceremonial law was always subservient to the moral law. For example, in the moral, in the in the ceremonial law, it said you could sort of break the moral law of not working on Shabbat if your ox fell into a well or into a pit. Um and the priests broke Shabbat or you know, the Sabbath every week because they were making burning sacrifices, they were doing all sorts of work, and so the the ceremonial law always bows to the moral law, and that's what people struggle with is they're so worried about um ritual purification they sometimes can neglect people. That's good. Uh, how about this la this one for Nature of Man? Mankind chases superficial superficial power, rejoicing in the demonic subjugation while missing the deeper salvation joy. Uh, as the 72 initially focus on the spectacle as opposed to we're saved, our names are written in heaven. Um, and because and maybe that happens to us, we get more excited about what somebody has done as opposed to what Jesus has done for us.

Jordan Smith:

Sure. I mean, my thought when you were reading that is like, why not be happy about both fair enough?

Pastor Plek:

But is it I think the first thing we get more excited about, what's more eye-catching is miracles, yeah, versus like, you know, my soul is saved. I look exactly the same that I did five minutes ago when my soul was not saved. It's hard to see. But miracles you can see, and that's an outward display of power. Now, maybe if everyone was, you know, one moment they're angry and wicked, and the next moment they're in snotty tears, repenting, that might have the same effect. It's a good point. All right, how about some uh truths about the character of God? God entrusts authority and mission uh to ordinary people. Did I already say that? Yeah, I think I did. Um but I think that's huge. And he also delights in revealing mysteries to the humble and childlike, hiding them from the self-proclaimed wise people, which he Jesus actually rejoices that God doesn't save some people. That's scary. That is kind of wild. It's like these self-righteous. Now, to be fair, you would probably be rejoicing too. Like we all would be like, uh, and but it's not like God like um delights in the death of the wicked. However, it is his delight to these self-righteous people that he wouldn't reveal himself. He'd say, like, you know what? You don't get it. You're so into yourself, you are your own God, and it's been revealed to him, they reject it anyway. I I really appreciate that God has favor on the humble.

Jordan Smith:

I mean, that was the point of just parables in general, though, right? That's right.

Pastor Plek:

And I think it's actually merciful that he speaks in parables because those who are self-righteous don't get it because they're so uno self, they're so self-unaware that they can't see that the parables are about their own soul. Yep. Um, and then how about another one? Uh, God embodies lavish mercy that crosses divides as Jesus affirms the Samaritan's costly love. Okay, and Mary's attentive worship as eternal priorities. Like he's into the Samaritan who gets it. And he's into Mary who's not working, and she's not, she's sitting with the men of all things, listening and learning. That's wild.

Jordan Smith:

Is that just culturally not acceptable? Oh, that was bonkers. Okay.

Pastor Plek:

Like, there's no reason a woman, it's the guys are telling. I mean, this is like pre-the days of the you know, the cigar, men hanging out with cigars, you know, telling war stories, and a woman hanging out amongst them. That would just that would be so take that time as a gazillion in a pay fully patriarchal, cultured society where women and men were separate. Here is this woman in amongst this rabbi's students. That's nuts. And and so it's one thing for Mary to be on the, you know, in the um the doorway of the kitchen listening. It's another thing for her to be plopped down right in front with her Bible out, you know, taking it all in as if she's one of the guys. And Jesus says, way to go to her in that moment. It's wild. Yeah. Okay. Let's get into some spec. Um, sin to confess, promise to claim, example to follow, command to obey, and knowledge to believe. Um what how about this? Confess anxieties or divisions. The sin to confess would be confess anxieties or divisions that distract from listening, like Martha's resentment. Martha's resentment not only affected Mary, it affected the entire group as she broke in to make sure she knew everyone knew what her anxiety and issues were with Mary. And so it affected the whole.

Jordan Smith:

Yeah, I mean, I I kind of resonate with that to a certain degree. You know, I'm a I'm a server by nature, uh, but any service you do can be done with the wrong intent. Uh, I've noticed that in myself sometimes. Obviously, you have to self-correct a lot. Uh but yeah, it's just always stood out to me on that one specifically of just if your heart's in the wrong place, your service is garbage, basically.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, it's true. All right, how about this? Uh, an example to follow, follow the good Samaritan's uh proactive mercy. Like, I'm gonna see someone that's in need. I'm not gonna wait for someone to say you really should. I'm just gonna go take care of that guy, and then provide beyond what would be even like taking him to an inn is one thing, providing for his you know, healing is one other thing. But then anything else he needs, that's crazy. That that's over and above lavish love.

Jordan Smith:

Well, so the two denarii or whatever, however you pronounce that, is that a lot of money?

Pastor Plek:

I mean, it was like a a day's wage, so what you could live on for one day. And so he's thinking this guy's gonna be bandaged up in a couple days, and he's gonna come back to check, and if he needs more, he'll pay more. But he has like two days' wages on him, gives him the money, probably gonna go get some. I mean, it's not like you were you're carrying you know a day's wage with you everywhere. Um, but he's gonna go and get more money to provide more for him.

Jordan Smith:

Is that amount of money kind of the same for Jews and Samaritans, or were Samaritans like kind of made less money?

Pastor Plek:

No, no. Again, they're probably the same economic status. Gotcha. It's just the social distinction was so great because Samaritan, it's more of like um uh O U U T. And we don't go to Oklahoma because we hate Oklahoma, and we don't ever go like we would drive all the way through Louisiana up to Arkansas and then over to Missouri just to not go through Oklahoma. That if we had that deep a disdain. Wow, never heard that. That's that's pretty crazy, right? And you're like, but they're just I mean, they're not they're basically, but the thing was they were syncretists, and that offended them to such a degree they would just consider them not really Jews, although Samaritans, like, hey, we're not, we're we're on the team, we love God, we love you know the prophets and a lot of other people too. Gotcha, yep. Um, how about the command, command to obey? This might follow the good Samaritan, go and do likewise, showing neighborly love. Um, the question then, as this comes up, is there anyone in your life that you could show that neighborly love to that might need you to treat them with a heart of the Good Samaritan?

Jordan Smith:

Absolutely. And if you answer no to that question, then you're self-deceived.

Pastor Plek:

All right, I love it. Uh, any other from the spec, send to confess, promise to claim, example to follow, command obey, or knowledge to believe that you want to share with everyone.

Jordan Smith:

Uh, example to follow, just is Mary, that's her name, the one sitting at Jesus' feet. I don't necessarily do the best job of that. I can get preoccupied in service and kind of prioritize that over personal time with God. I love it. I think that's a good one.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. Sit at Jesus' feet today. Hey, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time on a chapter a day.

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