Daily Bible Reading 28th July 2026 // Luke 9:1-9
1 And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. 4 And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. 5 And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
7 Now Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, 8 by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen. 9 Herod said, “John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?” And he sought to see him.
We do not think there is any need to assume a literal interpretation of these instructions, as some have done, to make them an invariable rule of conduct. They were not so, even in the early Church itself, and this is not the pattern we see in Acts, except in principle. And in Luke 22:35, 36, we have an express contradiction of Jesus' words here. The words in italics, ‘except in principle’, however are important; and it is the principles inherent in these instructions that we must heed. The disciples were to be instruments of Christ's compassion, and therefore anything that would hinder them from so being must be ruthlessly and faithfully forsaken. This is the point of the three considerations that we now underline.
First of all, one basic keynote in these verses is simplicity. One is reminded of Paul's familiar metaphor of the athlete. The athlete is in training, and he is stripped of anything that might hinder him from attaining his objective and winning his event. There is a great challenge here, both for personal life, and for the corporate life of the Church. If we have a work to do and a message to proclaim, everything must be subservient to the one overriding aim of getting it across and getting it done. Anything that might prove an encumbrance to its proper and worthy fulfilment must be resolutely cast away. We must, as the Apostle says, lay aside every weight. One has only to look into Acts to see that the Apostles measured up very truly to the spirit, if not the letter, of these verses. And the Church has always been most effective in the world when she has been content to be simple in this sense. It is when many encumbrances have obscured her real task and purpose that she has lost ground and lost influence among men.